In my opinion I felt the Eels played really well in the beginning although they took awhile to kick into gear. I thought Sean Russell was really great and better than I thought but after he was injured by the knee to his ribs which should have been a penalty which saw Russell go off injured the Eels changed dramatically when Jake Arthur came on and their was a switch of positions.
Jake Arthur makes me nervous when he gets the ball. He is too ¥€£₩ in his decisio n making and his kicking game is just to #@%$÷ for me! I don't say this because he's the coaches son either. Mahoney was filthy a was yelling a few times. I wouldn't be surprised the reason some players are moving has also something to do with how Brad Arthur has favoured his son a bit. Jake Arthur has potential but he seriously lacks something. Compare him with Sean Russell, Penisini and you can see a difference.
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Disagree Monto, Eels were awful when Russell was on and awful when he was replaced. They did not respect the ball or the opposition. Sadly the win in a trial match against Penrith went to a few heads.
Russell was terrific prior to the injury!
Agree the Eels were poor all game. However, when Russell was there they were better than they were after he was injured. Can't understand some of coaching decisions
What coincided with Russell leaving the field was that we went 14 points up, i.e. more than two converted tries. After this our defence also fell apart which had fuck all to do with Jake Arthur on our left side. What it tells us is that at 26-12 we put the cue in the rack and lost all respect for the opposition. This would also explain why our attack looked ordinary after that point. Jake Arthur is just a convenient scapegoat. Most of these idiots already had him preloaded as the cause of whatever went wrong.
Is JA better than Perham? Is he more versatile? Is he more experienced? Perham is 3 years older and is being held back so maybe JA can show he can do something. Perham killed it in the trial vs the Dragons. He killed it in NSW Cup yesterday against a decent Saints side.
I think Perham is more dangerous than Arthur and also more versatile, but he is also more prone to fuckups, which is something you don't want from a backup. The ideal backup is solid and just does his job. He doesn't come on and overplay his hand and make loads of mistakes.
So you are saying when Arthur came onto the field we were 26 - 12 up after 30 mins? So we didn't score another try all game? Why doesn't that support the 'idiots' theory that bringing on Arthur negatively impacted our attack ?
no team puts the 'cue in the rack' at before halftime and definitely not when the other team actually comes back and leads shortly after halftime.
So if we didn't put the cue in the rack why did we concede so many points? It wasn't Jake Arthur who slacked off in defence. It was the whole team. From 26-12 until 26-28 our effort areas were way down. We just wanted to play Parraball instead of working hard. It was obvious from our defence.
Firstly you can't say he didn't contribute to the poor defence there was several missed tackles one on one by him. Secondly conceding points doesn't equal cue in rack it just means defence not working.
I didn't say he didn't contribute, that's you twisting my words to avoid answering the question. Obviously the defence didn't work, my question was why. Why did it fall apart for that 15 minute period around halftime? It's not the first time this team has gotten a good lead and then let the opposition back into the game. We did it a couple of times last year. My next question is why you would want to pin it all on Jake Arthur. He defended at 75% yesterday, with Moses at 64% and the normally excellent Dylan Brown at only 78%. The fact these guys defended more poorly than usual is a sign that their team mates allowed them to be isolated (a lack of defensive effort) which was evidenced by what we saw on the field. This same lack of effort also explains our reduced effectiveness in attack. Less support play, fewer bodies in motion. It's all effort, and is necessary for quality attack. You can't blame the youngest bloke on the field for the team's poor attitude after they got a good lead.
I'm not blaming him personally. I just don't believe he is the right bloke to bring on off the bench. The defence falling apart isn't entirely his fault. I think his tackling is generally speaking the best part of his game. Also the Gold Coast are a good attacking team , you give them a sniff in a dry arvo game and they'll score tries.
But the fact we didn't score another try in the 50 or so minutes he was on the field I think was largely due to his inclusion.
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