Eels Blogs

The focus on the grand final seems to be stop Cleary stop the Panthers.

Although you must pressure Cleary from the inside and outside , to win the game you must take away the comfortable parts of his game and you do this by making sure his teammates who are the most influential in getting Nathan to the parts of the field he is most at ease at are forced out of their own comfort zones.

The aim is to make sure Cleary is put into unfamiliar situations affecting the fluidity of his game , with the flow on effect being a disjointed attack and defence from the Panthers.

You do this by going after the men that allow Cleary the time and space to get to the parts of the field where he can fall into rhythm.

Defence: 

More often then not teams would look to target Staines with the kick which results in the one two punch of To'o and Edwards followed by either Tago or Chrichton from dummyhalf for easy metres after good early go forward .Often Penrith forwards are  not taking a hit up saving energy for their rushing defence. 
Parra need to sacrifice kick metres if they have to and kick high to Edwards, similar to how the Roosters kicked to Latrelle in the last round . Hit Edwards as he takes the ball in a dominant tackle. 
To'o will do the next hit up, this is the key to your defensive set. You need to gang tackle him forcing him on his back.

From there you've dominated defensively early , the Panthers backs will lack penetration from dummyhalf and you force the Panthers forwards to take the hitups, extra work they haven't had to do all season and the key to winning this game.

we must make the Panthers forward  do as many hitups from the backfield as possible.

Yeo all of sudden doesn't  have  the opportunity to play late at the line and is forced into regulation hitups and Koroisau can't engage the markers .

Cleary all of sudden isn't in recognised parts of the field and Luai isn't in the game.

The defensive starch of Kenny and Fischer-Harris is lessened.

Attack:

Mitch Kenny leads the defensive line often shooting out in front of his teammates.Parra with their one out forwards running off the back fence plays into their hands.

Setup for your hitups from Paulo and RCG but Mahoney needs to take a step out of dummy half , dummy to the props and turn the ball back inside to an attacking play to the other side of the ruck.

Paulo turning his back and offloading will also draw in defenders moving their defensive line and making them work harder and giving them less time to set their defensive line for the next tackle.

Penrith like the old Storm sides put a lot of emphasis on winning the first three tackles defensively of a set and base their entire game around it. If you make them work constantly both sides of the ruck early  they quickly lose their linespeed and the rest of their game falls apart as a result.

Once you get the Panthers caught in behind the play the ball , look to increase your offloads increasing defensive fatigue.

We want to encourage as much wasted energy from their forwards as possible.

Penriths game is based around their backs doing the bullocking work while their forwards save energy for defensive dominance. Our game plan needs to be shut down the backs go forward. Force their forwards into extra work making Clearys game uncomfortable while playing our brand of footy.

We have to do a Penrith to Penrith defensively, with a linespeed faster then we've done all year. Klein will be reluctant to blow penalties and we need to push the boundaries with both our ten metres and our squareness at marker. Absorb early penalties if we have to and back our defence.

let's get it done.