Match Details
Match Date	27th May, 2018
Opponent	Wests Tigers
Result	Loss 10-14
Coach	Dean Pay
Captain	Josh Jackson
Venue	Homebush (ANZ Stadium)
Crowd	18,847
Referee	Henry Perenara Gavin Badger

Usually it might signal a problem if a coach doesn’t know his best 17. For Ivan Cleary, not knowing is doing just the trick.

Tipped by many as cellar dwellers before the season the Wests Tigers are in the top eight at the halfway point of their season, just as they have been since emerging as surprise packets when the competition began in March. They produced their seventh victory of the campaign with a come-from behind, four-point win over Canterbury at ANZ Stadium yesterday. In a match with no shortage of subplots, between Aaron Woods facing his old team, Moses Mbye squaring off against a side he has been forecast to join and Benji Marshall taking on his younger brother, Jeremy Marshall-King, it was another man with a little extra to prove who proved the difference.

Josh Reynolds, the Canterbury local junior who joined the Tigers as a big-money signing this season, featured for only 23 minutes off the bench when his arrival in the second half sparked Cleary’s men into life.

They trailed by six when he was brought on and by the time he came off again in the closing stages they were ahead.

‘‘When he came on there was a good surge from the crowd. I was hoping that was going to add to what he did,’’ Cleary said. Tigers captain Chris Lawrence added: ‘‘He came on at a point where the forwards were a bit tired. He really made use of his running game and got some quick play the balls and got us on the front foot. I felt like we started to get the momentum when he came on.’’

Reynolds’ season has been interrupted by injury but when he is back to full fitness there will be the lingering issue of how he should be best used, with Marshall and Luke Brooks having formed a solid combination in the halves.

Asked whether he knew yet what his best 17 looked like and where Reynolds fitted in, Cleary said ‘‘probably not’’. But he doesn’t see that as a problem. ‘‘We’re a new team put together this year, obviously a rebuilding club in terms of the way we do things,’’ he said. ‘‘I think it’s been really good for us the way we’ve had competition for spots and that’s going to stay alive for the rest of the year. This is [Reynolds’] second game in 12 rounds. Last year for the most part of the second part of the year he didn’t play much either, so he’s missed a lot.’’

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

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