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Analysis: What went wrong?

Posted by Phil Sim on September 7, 2009 at 2:34pm
In the 1Eyed Eel match report I posed the question: Was this the loss we had to have or are we gone?I still don't think I can answer the second part of that double-barrel query, but I'll go out on a limb and say that I don't think we would have been any chance of going all the way without having suffered that loss.In this two-part 1Eyed Eel analysis of what we can take out of Friday night's game, we'll look at why we needed to lose that game and some of the key lessons we will have learned from it.Dream runIf you look back over our seven victories, I think it's pretty clear we had a dream run. We started by taking on an under-manned Storm and then backed that up with a win against a very flat Bulldogs. Two good wins against two strong teams but it would be impossible to argue that either team were at their best.We then landed an injury-riddled Sharks, a Newcastle side who were out-of-whack due to the resignation of their coach. We played at home against the Warriors who have finished in the bottom half of the table and who never travel well before going into the Wests Tigers match. That was a good, tough match against a side that was playing well, but let's keep that in perspective and note they failed to make the eight and we hardly trounced them. And then of course we finished with the Panthers, who as shown yesterday are just going abysmally.This is not to say, we haven't played well. We have. But I think its time to admit we've been flattered by our opposition. And let's remember, in most of these games we've had a lot more to play for then our rivals.Delusions of grandeurHaving put together that series of wins, I would suggest the Eels almost certainly believed they were going better than they were.Which is not to put the old accusation of arrogance on them, it's just that they could not have been prepared for the level of football that they were required to reach to match the Dragons. Specifically, the match against the Panthers, which still had a finals-like build-up would have given the boys an unrealistic understanding of where they are at. The Panthers have finished the season a soft football side. They're forwards don't hunt, their defence is brittle and their ball control is lousy. The Dragons forward go hunting, they're tough and uncompromising and when they're on they make very few mistakes.There is a gulf between those two sides and our expectation of what we were to encounter was only made worse by the Dragons dismal performance against Souths. You couldn't put together too more disparate performances together.Basically, we went into that match on Friday night like an army expecting to face a couple of snipers in the jungle, only to walk in to the full-force on a nuclear assault. In retrospect, no matter how much Daniel Anderson and the players would have prepared themselves for an increase in intensity, they would have underprepared.Our forwards got poundedEarlier in the season, if you had asked the average NRL fan to rate the softest packs, the Eels would have been right up there. However, over the past 2 months, the Eels forwards have gotten on top of their oppositions over the course of eight minutes. It's important to note the second half of that statement - 'over the course of 80 minutes'. There haven't been many matches where we've gone out and done to the opposition what the Dragons did to us. Our boys got owned on Friday night. The Dragons were making 10 to 15 more metres every set of six and they had complete control of the ruck, which resulted in us giving away way too many penalties as we tried to get back on terms by slowing down the play.We haven't won those forward battles because of strength. We've won them by being more skillful. Our second-phase play has resulted in opposition defences constantly back-peddling. As a result, they have fatigued much more quickly than our forwards. And as they have fatigued, we've had the likes of Eric Grothe and Fuifui Moimoi to start a forward-roll that has seen us ultimately win the forward battle.The Dragons forwards targeted Fuifui Moimoi. When he was taking a hit-up, the Dragons ensured they met him in numbers and were quickly off their lines to meet him as earas possible. In what was one of the most telling statistics of the night, Moimoi made an average of just 6 metres per hitup. Unfortunately, you stop Moimoi you stop a lot of the Eels go-forward, particularly given we were also without Eric Grothe and Nathan Hindmarsh. Every single one of forwards, except for Feleti Mateo was kept to less than eight metres per hit-up, compared to the Dragons forwards who all got up around and over the 100 metre mark.We know now, we need to be much, much tougher in the forwards. You cannot win a football match when your forwards are as outplayed as ours were on Friday night.Second-phase play under pressureAs mentioned, the Eel's success has been built-on second phase play. But there is a mighty difference between offloading when you have the opposition on the back foot and when they're on top. If you're losing the physical war, it's much harder to get the ball away and you end up throwing passes that only put more pressure on you, or that result in mistakes. Hence we received another very important lesson about both what is needed to play our brand of football and about how to offload when you're under pressure. I'm sure Daniel Anderson will spend a lot of time this week, talking about which balls to throw and which balls not to throw. When is the time to push your hand, and when might it be better to just keep the ball tucked your arm. Which is not to say, we need to less offloads. To the contrary, we only started making any inroads once we started pushing the ball and it showed the Dragons were just as susceptible to this form as attack as any of the other sides we've played. We can't out-muscle or out-grind the Dragons. But we're going to have to be a lot more measured in the way we do it. As Daniel Anderson has previously stated its about the right players throwing the right passes at the right time.Backline (lack of) movementMy most worrying aspect of the game is we just never looked like scoring points when we eventually got into the Dragons quarter. Jeff Robson was very quiet and Daniel Mortimer and Jarryd Hayne were very well marked. We had little structure of movement that looked like putting any dent in the opposition. Maybe, we have become too used to just giving the ball to Hayne and him doing something remarkable for a try. When you get to finals footy that isn't enough. You still need bodies in motion and decoys to create space and opportunities. I'm sure Daniel Anderson has structures and set-plays up his sleeve, but they sure weren't there on Friday night. Now, that may very much be deliberate. There is no way Anderson would have wanted to reveal much to the Dragons on Friday night. If that was the plan, it certainly worked because it looked like we had nothing. Let's just hope that was the way Anderson wanted to it look!Rookies don't win finalsWho remembers back to 2005? We were the form team with our young rookies cutting up the opposition. Then, we took on North Queensland and Ben Smith and Tim Smith, who were the rookies of the year, both had absolutely shockers. Finals football, especially when the pressure is on, is an altogether different kettle of fish to regular season football and if its your first finals foray, it takes a very mature young head not to get overwhelmed by the experience. A couple of our blokes, notably the Wright brothers, didn't cope. However, Daniel Mortimer did. He had a solid game behind a losing pack. Timmy Mannah also played as well as might be expected under those circumstances. The good news is that barring injury we'll go into this finals campaign with a side mostly made up of pretty seasoned veterans, who have all played finals football before. Of those that haven't played finals football, I have every faith that Mortimer and Mannah will step up. The players I think Ando needs to give attention to are Matt Keating and Jeff Robson. MK, who had been on a form tear, prior to this match had his most dissapointing game for a long time and Jeff Robson tended to shrink into the background. They need to be in a much better head space than they were on the weekend.In part two of this analysis tomorrow, we'll dig out the nuggets from the game that will encourage Daniel Anderson and which may form the basis of our gameplan this week
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  • Johno September 7, 2009 at 3:38pm
    I think we may have gone in with a dodgy game plan as well. In some of the media reports Souths rabbited on, pun intended, about how soft the Dragons were up the middle and that is where you beat them. Thanks for that Souths, is Fitzgerald on your payroll? All that did was anger the sleeping giant. It looked to me as if we took the offloads out of our game and tried to do what Souths said. All we did was to successfully bring the rubbish one out forward stuff we had under Hagan and early in the year.

    We were very very flat on Friday. Our defensive line speed was atrocious at best and that is the part of our game where we have gotten over our opposition.

    Let's face it, the Dragons came out firing with a point to prove. Let's smash the form team of the comp. They had an attitude of "So this mob is the best team hey! Let's see." As soon as we got belted a few times we became overwhelmed mentally and physically, game over.

    We also had to contend with a ref who is so home team influenced it's not funny. I'm not making an excuse or blaming the ref, for the loss, we were outplayed, but if anybody has been to Suncorp Stadium with the same ref, you will know what I mean.

    I honestly think that we just had a loss that we could not afford. Our team's notorious fickle psyche will be tested and I have my doubts whether it will stand up. I hope I am so wrong, nothing I'd love more than to see the crooked arrogant smile wiped off Bennet's face!

    Still a good post Phil, agree with most of it! And you are still optimistic, well done!
  • Makybe Steva September 7, 2009 at 3:45pm
    I'm not as optimistic as some. I think the Dragons just played us into the ground on Friday night - it was a relentless, methodical performance which reeked of mental toughness. They've found chinks in our armour which wi
  • Tinkerbell September 7, 2009 at 3:50pm
    Once again, I will premise my post by saying what a well written article this was!

    For me, a number of factors contributed to the loss on Friday.

    First of all, the Dragons were not a team to be underestimated. I still firmly believe that Bennett would not have allowed them to go into the Finals showing the form they showed the weekend before. He had his team primed. Further, after a guaranteed spot in the finals, our intensity dropped and we were simply outplayed.

    Ouy of the factors you highlighted Phil, for me, the most important was the 'dream run'. Prior to our victories against an undermanned Melbourne and lame Bulldogs side, nothing was going right. The passes Jarryd Hayne was flicking were not sticking, 50 / 50 penalites were not going our way and those 15% plays were just not sticking. Following our victories over these 2 sides, confidence began to build and all of a sudden Jarryd's passes were sticking and those plays and bounces were beginning to go our way. I am a strong beleiver in the importance of the mental aspect of the game. Once you are confident, everything else will follow.

    We have the ability to win on Friday night and I guarantee there will not be a repeat performance from Friday night on the part of the Eels.
  • Eeldarado September 7, 2009 at 3:56pm
    Agreed!!

    Yep the forwards really got dominated!! the rest of the pack have to put their hands up this week and help out, they cant rely on Fui to be the only injection of aggression from the pack!! Combine the lack of aggression with Missed tackles and incomplete sets meaning dropped balls a team missing Hindy and Grothe and it equates to failure!!!
    • paul taylor > Eeldarado September 7, 2009 at 4:38pm
      Well done. A very realistic and intelligent account of how , why, when and where. Parra were slapped and beaten but there is some hope. I agree with the comments of some, we have to be confident, our attitude must be spot on and we need to improve our middle third of the game. As soon as Cayless and Moi Moi come off we lose the drive through the middle and start to labour in the rucks. If we are to get any quality ball to Mortimer, Hayne etc we have to get the drive through the ruck. Tim Mannah must play the game of his life.

      We will be better this time around but I think they may be too. Hindy will make a huge difference and saints know that too. DA is a brillant coach, his game plan will put the boys in a position to win this game at some stage.
  • Bourbon Man September 7, 2009 at 5:02pm
    With respect to our forward play, we haven't really tried to out-muscle or out-grind any team this year. Our success has arisen off the back of off-loads and dink passes out the back from Cayless and in particular Hindy. To be honest, I think we started the game attempting to continue that style of play. We had a good opportunity in attack when the score was nil-all but Lowrie lost the ball (had it stripped in my view) and the Dragons, after receiving a penalty, scored a good try down our right-edge defence - our Achilles heel.

    Soon after, that dodgy second try was awarded and we're now playing catch-up footy. This team is too inexperienced to have kept a level head in a situation where we were up against a rampant opponent looking to restore pride, in front of 17,000 opposition fans AND against three inept officials. We stopped playing our up-tempo game, reverting to one-out forward play and when we did look to promote the ball, we took the wrong options and lost the ball.

    The Luke Burt fumble over the try line in the first half was also costly.

    Personally, I believe we have the game to beat the Dragons, however, my fear is two-fold:

    1. the magnitude of that loss is bound to have a negative impact on the psyche of our younger, less experienced players
    2. we simply won't get the 'rub-of-the-green' from intimidated refs at Kogarah oval and that crucial advantage, in today's tight game is the difference between winning and losing.

    As I said in another thread, it will be an enormous task for us to progress any further after this weekend.
  • RealEel September 7, 2009 at 7:41pm
    I agree with most of this, particularly the comments about our forwards not being able to out muscle sides, but utilise second phase play to gain the yards that other sides gain up the middle with big men bending the line. In most respects we started the game like all others, but our errors lead to a lack of confidence and hence a lack of offloads and hence domination by the saints forwards.
  • GOlling September 7, 2009 at 8:06pm
    I think the thrust of what you are saying is we are not as good as the Dragons. We have had 2 players who have played dominant Football during our winning run. Moi Moi and Hayne. The Dragons stopped Moi Moi and this in effect ended the game.

    I agree re Rookies and Journey Men and whilst we have had good mileage over the past weeks from a few players under the pump they can only play to their experience and potential. Mortimer is the exception as he has genuine talent.

    I think Canberra showed the Blueprint to beat the Dragons but its takes a physical game to rattle the Dragons and to get a reaction from Weyman, Poore, Smith and Costigan. I just dont think we have the forwards to rough them up so they lose discipline.

    The potential weakness is the Dragons now think we are a joke. And this could end up being our best hope. Hindy is worth 15 points in defence which means the Dragons by 13-20.

    In order for us to win the comp in 2010 we need to be competitive on Friday night and DA's game plan will be interesting. How to use Mateo is a challenge. He tried very hard on Friday but does not get quick play the balls and often goes the wrong side to the general play which then limits space for Hayne. How to get the most out of the Mortimer Hayne Mateo combo is a challenge.

    Next year I am convinced the big 2 signings will prove to be Poore and Humble. Humble was man of match in the weekends QLD cup semi and could well be the Laurie Daley to Ricky Stuart or the Matt Johns to Andrew Johns that Mortimer needs. Big call but I like the look of him.

    I do struggle with Shacks form as all he does for the Roosters is decoy runs. In one 15 minute burst he did 6 decoy runs and no hit ups. Needs a DA boot camp ASAP not a Roosters Mad Monday.
    • blueNgold > GOlling September 8, 2009 at 12:05am
      I'm with you man I think Humble should be starting in first grade next season, i watched the game on the weekend and he was a class above, he exudes natural ability.

      To me I think he is the modern prototype of a fullback ( lol well he's come to the wrong club for that) So I really don't see where DA will be playing him, I'd assume he will be starting at Wenty ( our depth next year is so good its scary). There is no doubt to me that he is a first grader, and i think he can be a very good first grader at that.

      He is very dangerous around the ruck, i'd be playing him as a 14, this way he can cover the outside backs for injury, or he can come on and play in the halves, pushing either KK or Morts into 9 to give MK a rest.

      Shackleton on his day is a very solid player, and he has a bit of an "intimidating" factor which we have lacked. Shacks problem is his consistency and laziness for periods. I do believe though he will be a great buy for us, and just ask any Roosters fan they were spewing when we signed him as he has been one of their highlights this season.
  • Ross September 7, 2009 at 8:18pm
    We definitally lost the forward battle early on and could not get of the back foot after that penalty gave them the first try. So many of the final scores seem to be blow-outs these days, It seems that once a team gets on that back foot, it's all over! We Played well until that first try. I think we need to go out full force and score first to win this game. St George are a great attacking side, but when a team attacks them well they panic. Just watch the ten minute period between the 50 and 60 th minites of last weeks game, they got all over the show when we got on a litte roll, and we were unlucky not to score. (Lost the ball). I am sure if Hindy was standing in the road there would be no way they would have put 37 points on us.
    I do agree about our 7 Game run though.. was not an overly hard fought run.
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