Firstly, the Eel's were never travelling as poorly as the commentators would like you to have believed, especially in terms of the forward battle. Penrith might have been shading the Eels, but I was pretty happy with our line speed and the Panthers never really looked like threatening without a kick.
However, it would be naive to put all of those early tries down to simply bad-luck. Penrith competed harder for the ball, and I'm sure that's an issue Daniel Anderson will want to address.
You don't compete when you're afraid of making mistakes. However, the Eel's excellent defence should give them the confidence that they can play for the ball because even if you knock the ball on, you trust that your teammates are going to back you up and hold out the team on the next set of six.
The Jonathon Wright blunder was the obvious example. You make those decisions to risk the ball travelling over the deadball line, when you think you're under the pump and can't hold them out. Wright's mindset should have been - well that was an attack we've defused again, I'll knock this dead and we'll hold them out again.
However, just as our defence wasn't as bad as had been made out when we were getting pumped, it's important not to get carried away with out attack.
When you get down to it - we managed to get the best attacking player in the comp to target a guy who is nearly the worst defensive player in the comp. I'm sure Daniel Anderson had a plan for Hayne to target Luke Walsh - you will not see a weaker tackle than his arm grab on Fuifui and the next try came about from the Panthers centre shitting himself when Hayne ran at Walsh and he came in unnecessarily and left a gaping hole for Wright.
Nor will Jarryd continue to get opportunities to run like the Panthers offered him. As St George showed at the start of the year - teams will just do anything, including kicking the ball out the back to stop presenting Hayne with opportunities to run.
Assuming Jarryd can stay in the touch he is, we will almost certainly ride that through to the finals, but we need more. When Hayne wasn't involved in the attack we still looked all-at-sea. The Mortimer miss-pass that led to the Jennings try was a real worry because it again exposed his weakness when he plays wider. When the defence rushes him, Mortimer is too easily shut down and he does not perform well when his decision making is rushed. If you cast your mind back to Mortimer's earlier games at six, particularly the Manly match when Matai monstered him, you'll see why the club was keen to get him in closer.
In this match, we were able to get good direction and go forward from Kris Keating and that made up for a quiet game from both halves. However, if we're to go all the way Daniel Anderson needs to get some spark from his halves. The short passing game was better, but unless one of them poses a threat with a face ball or cut-out pass, we remain too easily defended against.
There were obviously plenty of positives to take out of the game, and as I said, we should be able to ride this momentum home to the finals. But it would be a mistake to think that the problems we've been struggling with in terms of scoring points have been rectified just because Hayne had a white-hot night.
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I just think we are going to have to accept that our season hopes rest with Hayne. He won us the game against Manly at Brookvale and against the Panthers at CUA and he is going to have to do it again and again over the next few weeks I think.
Kris Keating had an absolute ripper of a game at hooker and that is exactly the game that myself and others have been screaming for from our number 9. He may provide the foil for Hayne to win us the comp.
Our forwards are great! as good as any pack and I heard DA interviewed where he said shifting Fui to the bench made Fui angry at DA and angry at everyone, well an angry Fui is a very potent and destructive player who lifts the whole side by bending the defensive line back.
However it still comes back to the halves, we don't have that creative, dynamic half or 5/8 who has the defense second guessing and who creates space with a great pass or deft kick or darting run. It is the missing part of our puzzle.
In a perfect world I would drop Morts back to Wenty to let him get some confidence up, but considering the amount of attention it would recieve it would probably cause the team more harm than good. Morts to 14 just as a general utility and to bring some energy will do me.
Buttttttttt it won't happen.... :(