The St George Illawarra Dragons respective Junior Representative teams will continue their respective campaigns this weekend.
The Illawarra Steelers Junior Representative sides travel to face the South Sydney Rabbitohs at Redfern Oval on Saturday.
After wins for both Harold Matthews (U16s) and SG Ball (U18s) teams last week, Illawarra are hoping to push for a finals spot with a win against a strong Souths side.
Both teams are in final contention and this week will help the teams consolidate those spots.
A big win for the Harold Matthews team has the players with plenty of confidence but head coach Ryan Powell has urged his players not to become complacent.
“Last week was a great win and to keep the opposition to zero is great but we can’t afford to rest on that performance.”
“Souths are on equal points as us so we need this win to keep our season alive.”
Harold Matthews is first onto the field at 11am before SG Ball kicks off at 12.30pm.
Additionally, the St George Dragons Junior Representative teams will be looking for a fresh start when they take on the Western Sydney Academy of Sport at WIN Jubilee Oval, Kogarah that same day.
Coming up to the halfway point of regular competition, the Dragons’ Harold Matthews (U16) sit in 15th position with one win to their name, while the SG Ball (U18) side are yet to register a win and sit five points out of the finals at 16th.
Western Sydney Academy, who are placed 13th and 12th in each respective age group, will be a close matchup for the Dragons as they look to build a run to the finals in mid-April – a feat which Harold Matthews coach Graeme Wynn believes is achievable in both grades.
Wynn spoke of the “fresh start” mentality that he will drill into his side, while acknowledging the areas of improvement that he’ll need to focus on.
“We’ll take each week as it comes,” Wynn explained, “we’re a lot better than the scoreline showed (last week).
“We didn’t start the way we’d have liked and they got the better of us.
“The first few minutes of the game they scored and we didn’t have much ball – a lot of the game we they were attacking so when it was their turn to defend they just rushed us.
“We just needed to freshen up after the Parramatta game; we were a lot better in that game.
“We’ll look at a few of those set plays in training and I’m sure we’ll improve this week.”
