The days of the heavily structured rugby league team seem over and it seems the style of play is morphing into a collection of open play with a loose structure.
This is something the Eels were caught out in during the 2018 season. Completion rates were often high but that was at the expense of meaningful ball use. It was five tackles up the middle and kick.
That worked in 2017 through the Eels’ commitment in defence coupled with the game-breaking ability of Semi Radradra. It’s relatively easy to play conservative football with the odd shift to the edges when you have a human tank on the wing who can score from almost any position on the field.
You take that type of player out of a side and they become robotic. Ironically Parramatta’s best performances of the season came about when they shifted the ball early and looked for the offload.
In the past two seasons though, the more flamboyant sides with an underlying control have performed better.
Sides like the Roosters and Melbourne have now adopted to have more fluidity in attack, be prepared to defend their mistakes and have a fallback structure they can use to ensure they stay in the arm wrestle.
This is best demonstrated in their halves. With both sides having a controlling half and a running half that threatens the line. The idea is to control the opposition’s field position through a good kicking game and then work over the middle.
Block plays no longer threaten good defences. What threatens them is turning the ball back on the inside, working over the middle forwards and then using speed on the edges of the ruck to stretch those tired defenders.
It’s little wonder that sides like Melbourne with Munster, Roosters with Keary and Souths with Damien Cook were three of the best sides this season. Their speed around the ruck really threatened opposition sides and they also have fullbacks capable of supporting well through the middle.
So where does this leave the Eels?
With the departure of Corey Norman, Brad Arthur now has the answer for his dominant half - Mitchell Moses. But it’s a question of who partners Moses and who fills the fullback role.
Bevan French’s 2018 was disappointing to say the least, but his speed places him amongst the fastest players in the NRL and he’s a natural supporting fullback. Clint Gutherson isn’t is quick, but he’s a bigger body at fullback and never shirks his workload.
At five-eighth it appears Jaeman Salmon may be getting the gig following his debut in 2018 and he comes with big raps from his junior years at Cronulla as a talented half.
The other option is Gutherson to five-eighth, French to fullback and Salmon bides his time in Wentworthville.
The Eels really have to dump that block play. Unless Maika Sivo becomes the next Semi the side simply doesn’t have a threat out wide that defences are worried about and need to commit numbers to.
Blake Ferguson is a nice addition to the backline, but even he’ll admit he isn’t Semi and he has been known to drop the occasional pass with the line open.
It’s through the middle that they can really look to open up the edges which is not something they did in 2018 due to a distinct lack of size. This is hopefully addressed with the return of Junior Paulo while Shaun Lane adds a true try-scoring threat on the edge.
Reed Mahoney showed a proclivity to take off when given the chance while Paulo and Nathan Brown both possess a late offload the can be taken advantage of.
In summary, the Eels need to dump the idea they need to complete at 90% every game and just get to the kick, followed by a block play when attacking the line. Completion rate remains important but it’s about what they do with the ball.
Our halves should look to continue sending bodies through the middle of the field and use their back-rowers to draw in the outside defenders as the middle defenders get tired and don’t close the gate. That will open up the middle and your unders line runners to take advantage of the gaps that will open up.
I will, in a future 1 Eyed View, break down our attacking structures from 2017/18 to show the differences in the sides that finished fourth and then 16th.
Comments
I have a big exclusive to reveal on our playing style next year, i just happen to have a few exclusive pics.
Heres our chief tacticion Barry choosing our style of play and new moves for next year, Barry is Brads 3rd cousin and attack and defence go to man..
And this is Brads inspiration, his names Effort.
Brad uses Effort to demonstrate to the lads what hes looking for on the park.
After reading Bush Coach earlier in the year, I thought it might be some time before the next instalment of Eels knowledge. But this looks to be a super edition. Thanks.
I recently had a discussion with a relatively senior level coach about structured play vs unstructured play.
His point was that the both Melbourne and the Roosters earned the right to play with less-structure because their core players for years had first gotten their structured play to a point of near-perfection. And then they slowly built additional elements onto their play, but still for the most part everyone knows what everyone is doing.
First question then is have we earned the right to loosen up those structures.
Clearly, through 2016 we pretty much mastered that block play - and it took us to the finals. So I think in terms of your pet move, yes, we got that near perfection.
However, I think our problem might very well have been that we tried to loosen the structure we did it too quickly.
When we got it right, we looked as good as any team in the comp. Players flipping sides, consecutive short-side plays, and occasional pieces of brilliance from the likes of Moses, Taka, Norman, French.
However, too often we looked lost.
I really admired the way we tried to play at times - when we got it right, it was incredibly fluid and dynamic. However, I would question whether we earned the right to try and get there as quickly as we did.
For that reason, I would disagree with you somewhat Elliott. I'm pretty bullish on Sivo and if Ferguson does play wing I think we'll have a potential match-winning pair of flankers again, so I think our block play will serve us well again.
I think they key for us, is to perhaps review last year, work out what worked well for us, and build elements onto that. In particular, given that we are going to have halves that are learning their craft still, we're going to need to play a pretty simple game and just get that right, because if you asked a rookie half to make mistakes (and I still consider Moses as an inexperienced half learning about his game, never mind Salmon or Brown), your expecting too much from them and it's a recipe for disappointment.
I'm actually advocating for a simplified game plan that, once it's established allows our halves more freedom. Last season we didn't work the middle over enough so when we went wide our block play was shut down pretty easily.
In the odd game where we attacked the middle and really stretched the A & B defenders our block play worked. Case in point the Dragons game at ANZ. We won that middle, kept forcing them to compress and then our halves had the space needed on the edges.
Our halves just have to play more direct. It's the single biggest thing you hear Fittler, Johns and Sterling talk about. Playing direct and taking players with you. Too often our halves seemed far too concerned with completing the play they'd called than actually threatening the line.
You need the players who can execute ad lib plays. The reason our ad lib execution worked in 2009 was because it came off the back of certain players. Jarryd Hayne, Krisnan Inu, Feleti Mateo, Cayless with an offload, Kevin Kingston out of dummy half. These guys were the thrust and the rest of the team played off them and followed.
In 2018 our guys could not execute. Hayne was criminally underused on the wing and at centre, and our fullbacks and halves couldn't create much. Norman and Moses were mostly predictable in the halves, Guth is not particularly creative and French was a disaster. We had zero thrust out of dummy half, a huge point of attack for both Melbourne and Souths, and it's no wonder our attack was robotic and stifled.
I would suggest a number of things your advocating are going to be inconsistent with your primary plan. I would say its going to be very difficult to create a defensive like that potentially includes Brown, Mahoney and Moses and expect that to hold teams to 12 points
Always the same people offering nothing Poppa, with this format it's easier to ignore.
And you call me a silly old bastard, oh great demented one.
WTF is it with this wankfest over Brown?
1) he is a kid
2) has never been exposed to FG
3) has proven nothing that warrants him (automatically) slotting into the team.
I am not saying he should not be considered but FaCryin' out loud.
It was my understandng that Jaeman Salmon was brought over from the Sharks as the most likely relacement for Dozey.
Salmon has limited FG experience and I do not think we saw anything like his best playing in a team with no direction and even less commitment in 2018.
Finally we should have one plan
The Eels have only ever had one plan - just a shame the players never could remember what it was.
Then to mention Block plays - oh my, that is just too sad to comment on.
Lego blocks are beyond our ability or understanding.
I am sorry folks but the reality is unless someone else apart from Brad Arthur gets a real say on how we play it will be same ole, same ole.
Five up the middle (one out do not pass or offload) then Hail Mary.
OR
Sweep to the left with slow passing - alternate to this, sweep to the right with slower passing.
How about a little innovation?
Perhaps kick to the seagulls might help, instead of kick directly down the middle.
Or how about switch the play back inside when a hole opens - I am not talking about our usual one wide then turn back in to the same player every time.
OR - fast backline passing to the speed men - a la Dozey/Hayne to Semi when opposition using compressed defence.
Tep no longer runs the angles he used to - in fact no one runs angles in our team anymore.
How about a hooker who can read the game and effectively kick early to keep turning the opposition around. We have not done that since the days of PJ and Piggy.
Bravo Col, bravo.
Your post is like listening to Pavarotti belt out Nissan Dorma. others are like listening to Kylie Minogue struggle through Locomotion.
I don't really care how the club plays as long as we win. Actually scrap that, as long as we don't play like Melbourne but still win I would be happy. At the end of it all, most fans out there could not tell you what style of play clubs who won the premiership in years gone by had, all that matters is the premiership and the clubs name next to the year.
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
of 4 Next