The Penrith Panthers’ table-topping victory over the Manly Sea Eagles last week was backed up by various outstanding individual efforts – mainly Eddy Aiono’s four-try performance that also resulted in three line-breaks. Tupou Sopoaga and Will Smith also contributed to the win with their offloads, getting seven away between them.
For the Sea Eagles, Jayden Hodges led the way with dummy half runs this round with eight, whilst Jack Littlejohn completed the match with two line-break assists and two try assists.
The New Zealand Warriors ran 1637 metres in their victory over the Newcastle Knights, which was the most of any team in round 11. Nathaniel Peteru, Paul Ulberg, Raymond Faitala-Mariner and Ken Maumalo all clocked up more than 170 metres, with Faitala-Mariner breaking 13 tackles in doing do. Charlie Gubb and Mason Lino created two line-break assists each. The Knights may have lost the match, but their issue was not ball control as they completed at 85% - the equal-highest percentage of any team this round.
Tyrone Phillips scored a hat-trick in the Canterbury Bulldogs' upset victory over the Mounties, whilst Jacob Loko made 10 tackle breaks. Interestingly enough, along with the Knights, Mounties also completed at 85 per cent despite losing the match.
Jack Buchanan was unbelievable in the Wests Tigers’ loss to the North Sydney Bears, making a massive 248 metres at prop for the game – the most for the round. Bears fullback Irae Simone was a close second with 241 metres gained. Scott Sorensen was a workhorse in defence for the Bears – making 50 tackles, while Cody Walker was instrumental in attack, setting up two tries and two linebreaks.
