Corey Norman described it as “winning ugly”, and Brad Arthur admitted in his presser that there was a lot to improve. Sentiment on 1Eyed Eel following the match was reservedly positive. And all that tells you just how far this Parramatta outfit has come.
Yes, Manly turned over a lot of ball and one might even suggest that Parramatta - finally - had the rub of the green when it came to refereeing decisions. However, going to Manly and coming away with two well-earned points should never be underestimated as an achievement. The fact that this Parramatta squad now has that level of expectations and even when we win, we’re frustrated with not playing better, shows that this team is going to be a contender.
In fact, I would argue that Parramatta is going to be a contender because it will win a lot of games like this. And that’s to be celebrated, not lamented. This 2017 version of the Parramatta Eels make you earn every little win in the contest. What Parramatta did was relentlessly keep turning the screws. Every time Manly took the ball forward, the Eels defensive line was moving up quickly. Every collision, the Eels were aggressive and intent on winning every physical encounter. Every ruck, Parramatta worked Manly on the ground to control the speed of the play-the-ball. And perhaps, most pleasingly, the Eels kicking game, made Manly earn single metre and percentage of possession.
When you do that, you win far more games than you lose. Teams have to be at their best to beat you, and the flipside is, the pressure that is applied, tends to break down teams. They drop more balls and do more stupid things as frustration mounts throughout the game. As Melbourne have shown for a good decade, it’s the most successful formula in the NRL for sustained success.
If you’re looking for reasons to be optimistic, quite frankly, I’ll take a tough, gritty effort like that over a run-away big score any day of the week. Now, key points for me from the match.
Norman and Gutherson WILL work
A lot of the debate around whether Clint Gutherson would work out or not, should really have been re-framed around whether Corey Norman was a genuine NRL number seven. The decision to play Gutherson at six, meant a huge amount of responsibility would fall on Corey Norman’s shoulders in regards to traditional halfback responsibilities like kicking and direction. Well, Norman’s display in that regard, was faultless. Norman is going to crush it this year. Meanwhile, Gutherson is already more than capable of playing a supporting half role. He comprehensively outpointed Blake Green and I think will end up complimenting Norman perfectly.
BA sets the way
Last year when he had both Kieran Foran and Corey Norman at his disposal, Brad Arthur really started to break down the left-half, right-half structure that has dominated the NRL for so long now. Both Foran and Norman would regularly flip to the other side, and for the very short time, it was used - it was dynamic. Already, in the NRL we are seeing a number of teams play in a similar fashion. The Roosters, for example, regularly had both of their halves jumping from one side to the other. The exciting aspect of this for Parramatta is that in Bevan French they have a fullback who can play as an extra half and an attacking counterpoint. This will allow Arthur to have a wonderfully fluid playmaking core, opening up all manner of attacking possibilities. Indeed, I think Parramatta’s attack was a little disjointed, because it’s going to need to adjust to the possibilities available to it.
Skill in the forwards
To add to that, Parramatta demonstrated that it will not be afraid to allow its forwards the ability to show that they can pass a footy, either. On a number of occasions, big forwards threw soft passes to support runners, enabling them to hit two-out and make significant additional meterage. Nathan Brown has clearly been giving a license to use his skill, which was seldom seen at Souths. The above two points lead to a lot of attacking variety that should lead to plenty of Parramatta points when everything starts to gel.
Nope, size doesn’t matter
Last week, I asked if Parramatta’s starting forwards were maybe too small when compared to some of the competition’s bigger packs. Tim Mannah and Suaia Matagi answered that emphatically with standout performances, running for a combined 320+ metres at 10 metres per hit-up. They face another big test this week, against the Dragons who trampled all over Penrith down the middle, but Matagi is perfect for this side and the real deal and Mannah continues to be probably the most consistent forward in the competition.
Moving on from the sweep
Over the past couple of years Parramatta has pretty much mastered what I would describe as the long sweep, using multiple sweep plays and decoys to create space and numbers on the wing with the goal of releasing the likes of Semi Radradra and Bevan French. However, if I had to identify the biggest trend over the weekend, it’s that this year’s defensive formations are all about the centre (or if need be the winger) jamming in as far as possible and cutting off the play with the fullback. That trend continued into the Parramatta game, and our sweep plays generally ended with French having to go himself and subsequently our wingers saw very few attacking opportunities. It will be interesting to see how this plays out as the season progresses - the kick in behind (as Souths used on the Inglis try) is going to be a major weapon and early cut-out passes to the edges are going to come back into vogue if those defensive formations persist. Certainly though, Arthur’s decision to use his pre-season to really work on attacking variation is looking critical, given how successful teams defended against the sweep in Round One.
Replies
I agree with most of it.
I still think Norman is a better 6 even though he is one of the top 7s
As far as forwards go, how much go forward aggression and line bending do we create if Matagi gets injured?
I feel Bevan French needs to become a ball playing Fullback and get into the set pieces setting up tries alot more. If we are to get propper use out of him. We can get away with it now, but as time goes on, using French as an individual who does nothing buy be a support player and create opportunities in broken play wont quite be enough. His input into passing and setting up wingers from fullback is going to detirmine Parras second half of the season
Vave comes back or at least scheduled to for round 2, Terepo round 5 and Edwards round 7 or is it 8. These three will provide good backup and likely Vave will get to show his wares against Saints and if in the top team would say O'Brien will be back at Wenty.
You raise a good point re Bevan Lisa, as it was spoken about in the match call when it was noticed how flat his passes were and the need for him to practice on the ball movement. Will add another string to his armory.
Good read. We still managed to create quite a few chances that could have easily had the scoreline in the 30's - had Semi been up with the play Jennings could have passed to him in the 2nd half, French came within inches of scoring in the 2nd half but lost it, and there were a couple of times when Manly knocked the ball into their own in goal to save a try which gave us dropouts. Add in Taka's throwing a poor pass to Hoff in the 2nd half when we had a 3 on 2 and it's not like we had nothing with the ball. It's just execution which will come with more training and match time.
Our pressure defense lay claim to manly's drop ball. I liked the forwards offloading with French and gutherson pushing up as receivers, but for mine the real highlight was Corey's kicking game..
This all lead to a glut of possession that many are saying we should have capitalized on.
In my opinion the weight of possession was not by chance.
It is really just the beginnings for our new spine, and the combinations leading to points will come in time , but what experts will tell you about controlled possession is, its the key to winning premierships, and in that we did it superbly.
Yes it was a gritty win. Just lucky it was Manly we played, possibly could have lost it if it was against most other teams.
I know most teams are game rusty, but others came out of the blocks hard and ready. See what we throw at the Dragons.
Really loved our enthusiasm across the park. Given we have many new combinations to gel, good times ahead
Hope we can win the possession stat in all our games
Good read Phil.
Norman and Guth played well if a little clunky (to be expected), they created opportunities however our finishing just wasnt there. Jennings is a great defender, I just wish he'd occasionally look at passing and therefore have defense in two minds.
Our forwards offloading was good to see however there were a few times we could have held onto the ball and taken a tackle.
Probably the biggest issue is getting over the line in the ops 20. I think that early kick from Noman that Tom picked up and ran down field was out of frustration from not getting points after 6 Manly restarts. We need to keep calm even when things arent working because eventually they will come good.
The other minor things were really just players getting used to playing next to new teammates and will only get better.
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