Eels Blogs

As we turn for home in season 2023 it’s time we acknowledge a theme which seems to be running through our club currently. That theme is one of regular poor decisions.
What is motivating those decisions is the million dollar question. Is it poor advice, lack of team-first attitude, discontent within the playing group, inexperience, bad luck, who knows? I certainly have no inside knowledge but it is now undeniable that a pattern is emerging. Let’s take a look at what has transpired so far:

• At the end of last season our starting hooker, Mahoney makes the mind-boggling decision to leave a Grand Final team for perennial cellar dwellers, the Bulldogs. The result of that disastrous decision for Mahoney is self evident. Consequently the club hurriedly signs a former great, yet injury prone Hodgson (coming back from his third ACL) to fill the gap. It should surprise no one that this manoeuvre failed, leaving the full weight of playing 80 minutes at hooker to a young debutant, Hands who has performed bravely. With the regular season nearing its conclusion, after Round 21 the Eels have signed Lussick from the English Super League. It is fair to say that the entire Hooker situation has been handled poorly. 
• Matterson decides to sit out 3 games instead of paying a paltry fine. Perhaps this set the tone for the year. How was this allowed to even transpire? Why was he given the choice? Why didn’t management simply make the decision for him? Coincidentally the team started the year 0-3. In a forward pack full of Eels debutants his services were sorely missed. 
• The club takes a home game to Darwin and once again agrees to play a QLD side in NT. Despite it being a supposed Eels home game, in front of a partisan Broncos crowd and in sweltering humidity the Eels have a disastrous night culminating in a heavy defeat and a long term injury to RCG. Darwin is no longer a smart decision given the NRL’s insistence on who we play there. The club should consider abandoning it immediately and returning the maximum number of games possible to Commbank.
• Dylan Brown decides to defy an apparent team order to lay low during our first bye weekend, and gets himself into trouble with police whilst out on a drinking bender. 7 weeks suspension, criminal record, national headlines. 
• Despite continual fines from the NRL, Sivo once again connects with the head and is now suspended for a minimum of 3 weeks. His challenge was a head scratcher and now means 3 weeks becomes 4 weeks. Who thought that was a good idea to challenge that ruling? Certainly not the Judiciary who took less than 10 minutes to add on that 4th week suspension. 
• RCG gets it’s all wrong, knees in the back and suspended for 4 weeks. 
• Mid-season signings whilst helpful are also a tell-tale sign that the roster was in trouble before round 1. This season the Eels have had 3 mid-season signings. Expecting those players to slot straight in without a hiccup is unrealistic, particularly in defence. A middle with Joe O, Lussick and Davey is not what was planned and prepared for in the pre-season and one could argue that this patchwork approach is not the methodology used by clubs that play finals football. 
• Our star halfback drags out his contract negotiations over many months (Like our Captain before him). Was this a distraction? Players and club will say no, but members and fans may beg to differ. 
  
  Some decisions are out of anyone’s control:

• playing 3 teams in a row who were all coming off a bye
• The only side in the NRL not to get a bye during Origin week
• Gutho, Moses and RCG all picked for Origin 3 when we played the in-form Warriors effectively handing the Warriors 2 points. The sting in the tail being Gutho sitting on the NSW bench for 77 minutes.

Now is not the time to despair. BA has led us stoically for more years than anyone else. The Eels’ Coach is made of extremely stern stuff and all members and fans should follow his lead. Yes there is adversity but we will meet it head on and willingly.
My point is merely to note a trend of poor decisions within the NRL playing group and some from club management. This is not to denigrate anyone whatsoever. The club does a hell of a lot right. Players also make enormous sacrifices which members and fans certainly appreciate and admire. There’s a lot to love about what our club and our players do. But when the bar has been set high, it is noticeable when things start to slip. 

I sense the club needs to find its ‘win at all costs’ attitude. 

For management it means doing everything within their power to assist the NRL side to get the win each and every week. Darwin in its current form goes against that ethos for example. As does not paying fines and pointless judiciary challenges. Yes the club has wide ranging responsibilities but none come close to the importance of the NRL side winning this week. In a world where 2 competition points are extremely valuable, imagine what might have been had we started the season with both Matterson and Mahoney or Lussick in the squad. Can the club say they gave our NRL side every possible chance of winning? 
For the players it’s a more obvious philosophy. Outside of a family emergency, literally nothing else should matter more than this week’s 2 points. End of story. Not a fine, not a night out with your mates, not doing something dumb on the field and leaving your teammates short handed. To reach the pinnacle of a team sport it takes an unsurpassed commitment to your teammates and that includes sacrifice for the greater good. Not just from a few but from everyone. The team must come first, always. Can the entire playing group say they’ve lived this philosophy? 
We need to address this seemingly casual approach which has crept into the club, understand it and make plans to resolve it before it takes hold.

BA is often quoted as saying, “Winning NRL games is difficult”. He is absolutely right. So knowing this, it should also follow that club, coaches and players leave absolutely no stone unturned in order to maximise our chances of getting that win every single week. 

A movie loved by many NRL Head Coaches is ‘Any Given Sunday’ with Al Pacino. It was apparently a favourite of Brian Smith’s. There’s a famous speech in that movie which sums up my point perfectly.

“Because in either the game life or football the margin for error is so small. I mean one half step too late or too early you don't quite make it.
One half second too slow or too fast and you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They are in every break of the game, every minute, every second.
On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us to pieces for that inch.
We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch.
Because we know when we add up all those inches that's going to make the f^*#ing difference between WINNING and LOSING.”

The Eels organisation including players, coaches and management need to find it within themselves to fight for every inch. Anything less just won’t get it done!