I know I'll cop some criticism over this blog and I'm not putting it out to stir up trouble or to troll etc... I just don't think the Eels have the current squad or technical abilities to win a premiership just yet and especially in 2020 although they are having a very good year up to this stage. The forwards are doing a fantastic job this year and Mitchell Moses is having the best year of his career BUT the Eels are lacking in areas of their defensive line and also certain areas of attack. They are always caught out wide and if they had played the Melbourne Storm and not the Tigers on Thursday night they would have had a cricket score put on them. Waqa Blake, Jennings, Ferguson and Sivo always more often than not leave their defensive line open and leave too much space out wide when their should be a straight line of defence. I just don't think the Eels have it together just yet although I'd like to be proven wrong. It was clearly obvious that Brad Arthur was not impressed with his teams performance against the Wests Tigers. I think the Melbourne Storm are the team to beat this year and possibly the Panthers and obviously the Roosters especially if Williams joins them. I can see the Eels maybe going the same distance as in 2019 and only further IF they fix areas in defence and vary their attacking styles. The only other area is that players obviously remain injury free.
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Agree Coryn and as for the bench I'd even place Andrew Davey's into the equation over Kaufusi or Stone.
The 4 you mentioned coming off the bench is really a scary thought, if we can get them on the pitch towards the end of the season along with our starting pack? Boy it's hard not to get excited.
I'm sorry monto Eel I don't like it.MODS.?
Don't like what? It's only my thoughts and opinion BUT like I've stated I'd like to be proven wrong. I know there are still a lot of games to play plus the finals BUT based upon what I've seen in spite of where they sit on the ladder the Eels are still not a premiership threat in my opinion.
I agree we are not on the level of either the Roosters or Storm. They are clinical when games are tight. 2 season's running we've gone toe to toe with the Roosters for 60 mins but then they just plant their foot down and we lose them on the horizon. The Storm. We been so traumatised against them it's not funny. Knocking us out in deciders, putting out cricket scores on us on a off day or playing a couple million over our cap. Honestly. If we can go toe to toe with them in a couple weeks, I'd be happy. I hate them with a passion. I hate them more than Manly and the Dogs combined.
I think we're at the same level as the Panthers. We both have 2 brilliant half-backs, both have clinical finishers in Sivo and Crichton and both possess massive forward packs that punch threw the middle with PCM's.
We need to be variable in offence because we're starting to look like a one trick pony constantly going to our left. Mitch might be able to create some off the cuff stuff but that's not part of any game plan.
I noticed recently that when we make a break, either the player with the ball is not looking at what support he has, or the support players are positioned all wrong. None have the noose Kenny and Ella had in broken play to place themselves in the best possilble position to run in free space. We actually bombed a couple tries vs Manly last week where we could have gone length of the field.
I like Waqa but he's massive ball hog and plays with blinkers oblivious to the fact that he has Fergo to his right. We barely gets any ball unless he's running it back. I can't remember him receiving a pass after the half way line.
Apart from the Cows game, we're been quite ordinary recently and I don't know if it's down to flattening out before a big push in a month's time or if the opposition have sussed us out. Either way I've lost a bit of confidence in our defense recently having let in some really soft tries.
Plenty of work to be done before we can stare the Roosters and Storm in the eyes.
Happy Gas hey? Sure thing Grunts, when the Eels win the next premiership we will all be on happy gas.
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I agree but mainly because the age of our group, espically the spine. Mahoney and Brown are still very young and Moses and Gutho are still a few years away from reaching their peak. So the team will only get better. In regards to our attack and defense, they were obviosuly bad without Moses because their is no good direction and vocal playmaker. Against the tigers it was only his first game back so he still has to get back into his groove. At our best our attack is very good as shown in the Roosters game when we scored straight away after half time. In regards to defense, I think after versing manly, penrith, raiders, roosters in the early weeks, we have either got a bit tired, got complacent or lacked a bit of effort in training (not to mention our injuries). After versing those teams consecutively and still being the best side in the competition defensively I think you cannt question our defence. Our last two weeks over Manly and Tigers in defence should only be one offs due to a lack of energy at the start of games.
The eels game plan alone will make it extremely difficult to win finals against the top two clubs. We take too much risk in our own 40 whilst the storm run direct and use quick play the balls to gain advantage.
Jnr Paulo is losing possession on numerous occasions due to teams stripping while he offload. Does he need to offload on every run BA .....He is our main offender
We have the squad to win it. But not the game plan.
We are definitely in a flat patch, the players look like they are tired but I have seen enough from this team this year to think that they are the real deal.
I've rewatched that game vs the Roosters multiple times and I take a lot from that performance. Even at 80% of this sides potential we pushed them to their limits. That was the Roosters best game of the year for completions and errors, so that says a lot about Parra to only lose against them by 2 tries to 3.....
Parra had them on the back foot for large chunks of the second half and they were ready for the taking up until that 60th minute mark. Parra took the foot off the pedal for a second, followed up by the ridiculous sin binning, and before you knew it was all she wrote.
I'll be very interested to see how they go over the next month before I'll write them off, it all depends how BA times our run, how he keeps them healthy whilst peaking at the pointy end of the season. At our best I'll back us to beat all comers - no doubt in my mind.
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