Seeing as though I started the Jakob Arthur thread thought it was best to address the old boy too.
Even though they won't be reading this, Id have to implore Eels management to wait it out with Brad. The 360 boys , and the Telegraph boys will soon start pushing that its unbeliavable we're a top 4 team the last 2 years and he's not signed beyond this season. Led by Kent and Buzz, we know its coming. Any Gutho contract extension will probably drag out while we get lit up about not locking down Brad. It doesn't matter ! We need to be patient and let this play out.
BA has shown with a capable roster he can get players to play his style of footy. Its possession and power based through the middle of the field and as he puts it, 'chasing the collision' and 'frontloading our efforts'. It takes more to progress further up the ladder. His style of football is limited! We were again exposed today, and BA blames our lack of want to chase the collision and not play as a team.. as with all losses , 'our effort areas were down'. We are signing the exact same roster as though with age it is going to be a progression up the ladder , but is a top 4 finish and finals also-rans as far as this group can go under BA?
I think a fundamental problem with our performance today was plugging Jackob straight into the Dylan Brown role. Robbo at the Roosters doesnt have Sam Walker defending like Luke Keary. Waqa and Fergo have not been on the same page at all for 18 months, they are getting exploited by every opposition. For mine, this not being fixed over that time is telling. Waqa is a capable defender and Fergo has played at the highest level.. It is not working. Defending his son who has a handful of NSW Cup games to his credit outside schoolboy footy ,is a dead set receipe for disaster. This isn't being off the pace with our effort or failing to chase the collision... this is a problem thats glaring for everyone to see and good teams are going to take advantage of it. You can ask RCG, Paulo, N Brown , Papali'i etc to chase the collision for 26 rounds and it will win you enough games with a roster like this, but what are we going to be left with at the back end of the year? Me-thinks similar to what we were left with in 2020. Its a physically grueling style of football to play, and one that is getting even harder to play under todays rules. Junior has been off the pace for a month already, if history is anything to go by it's only a matter of time before others start following suit. To be any chance of playing this style I feel you need a lot of depth in your club. We have 1 back up front rower on the bench.
BA's coaching has to go to the next level. As a fan i've been hopeful but I'm not sure its getting there. If we keep going like this, end of season fade outs will became seasons where the players don't think we can get it done and drop their physicality and effort 5%. We do need a bit of a fresh injection in our roster, but also BA needs to change some things he's stuck with to get different results. To his credit the players do play for him and show the same loyalty to him he does to them. He needs to evolve though.The elite coaches adapt and overcome, Bellamy has changed his style of play numerous times.
I would be holding off to see where it goes, i'm not sure he's the answer here and im not sure he can open the window any more than the slight openng it has now.
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100% agree it was out complete ineptness in attack that got me we had enough chances I'm the 20 to force repeat sets we didn't do that.
The Blake issue is beyond frustrating we just haven't seen any improvement in that department and nothing seems to be getting done about it.
My brother made a point today that the eels don't seem to have the type of players who bounce back from a bad start I couldn't disagree.
We panicked out there today as soon as we started to loose the ruck we tried to go around without earning the right
This is a well put together blog GWF. Well done.
very shrewd blog.
Exactly Coryn
Big Country. Carty. Simba Hipgrave
I like Lane at 11 not Prop but he can't unseat Papali'i
So for me it's Lane or Hipgrave
Be interesting who gets 6 next week.. Arthur / Rankin / Carty
Guys i'm really not sure he's the answer.
Its easy to point out we finished top 4 last year and are 3rd this year and thats not worth nothing... but i'm not seeing enough eveolution in our game. You can tell this far out that we're not in the top 2 teams in the comp and are more the rung below. Penrith seem to have improved on last year, Melbourne have lost the greatest payer of all time and evolved again and are still right up there.
BA seems to have us plodding along to what looks like a very similar 2020 course. The 'own our effort areas' theme has been replaced by 'chasing the collision' . I think our players do those things well. That's not where we come up short. We need to hold this off until this season has played out. We have BA under contract for 2022 and theres no hurry . No club is going to swoop in and poach him. Let it evolve and give him the rest of this season to see what we learn and build and how we go in the finals. If there's no improvement and we follow a similar course we did 2020 i'd be seeing what else is out there.
"We are signing the exact same roster" Okay, I'mma stop you right there. We released 11 players from our top 30 last year.
More specifically we have the same core of our roster. We've re-signed Moses and N Brown.. it's much of the same guys coming back next year. Its basically the same group of players we're tied to here.
I mean, you want that. You start chopping and changing your core and you lose everything the club has been doing for the past three years.
It's about having guys in reserve grade pushing the first graders. That's what Melbourne is so good at. They lock in their core - Paps, Hughes, Munster, Grant, Smith. Then move pieces around them. JAC is gone, so they go and get Coates, Dale Finucane is injured, so they promote Kamikamica to the starting side and stick a guy like Eisenhuth on the bench. It's about developing the depth so you can plug players in to play a simple role that is effective.
You say you haven't seen much change since last year but both our defence and attack have improved. Attack-wise we are the best we have ever been. At the moment we're outscoring the Eels 2001 side.
Never said you dont want the same core. Youre referring more specifically to the same spine which is important. Our core extends to players that have formed the basis of our squad for a while now. If you keep this nucleus and say its a team on the up, then what do you measure on the up by? For mine its how far your progress in the competition combined with your ability to make improvements in your game that will help you win those end of season games. The outcome of that is yet to be seen.
Theres no way im comparing the attack through eras, that 2001 side would average close to 60 points in todays touch competition. & after what I saw yesterday our defence hasn't improved on the fringes either. Its either an indivudual problem or a collective problem amongst the edge. If its an indivudual problem a couple of those individual players have been in the team for a couple of years now, havnt been coached up on how to fix it , and are still being picked weekly. We both know rather than looking at the year long stats and averages you can watch a game and see how certain areas of our team can be exploited.. because thats whats going to happen at the business end of the season.
Would be such a beta move to allow 8 trys on the same edge thats been leaky all season then say statiscally we conceded less points this season so our defence got better.
And bar Ice replaced them with same style of player,
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