Eels Blogs

Lord of the Flies is the 1954 novel by William Golding, about a group of boys marooned on a Pacific Island during wartime. The boys battle the conflicting impulses within themselves: to be civilized and orderly, or savage and disorderly. The boys elect the civilized Ralph to lead, aided by the mature heads of Piggy and Simon. An orderly securing of shelter, a signal fire and communal food is Ralph’s plan. But the savage Jack encourages the boys to form competitive tribes that each go their own way in hunting for food. Jack does not care about cooperative behaviour toward a communal goal; it’s just about the hunt, doling out punishment, and playing around. Rather than everyone being on the same page, for Jack rules are stupid and he does his own thing. Previously (Round 11 vs Manly) I suggested the Eels were like Sybil, beholden to multiple personalities. But inside them is always the contest between Ralph and Jack. Against Penrith in Week 1 of the finals, Ralph played the first 50 minutes and then Jack took over. In Lord of the Flies, everything goes to sh*t the more Jack assumes power, including not tending to the signal fire. At one point Piggy suggests moving the signal fire down to their beach huts, because “the greatest ideas are the simplest”. Brad Arthur wants the Eels to chase collisions and play as a single unit, a simple yet cohesive plan. A plan Ralph would endorse. But can BA control the tendency of his team to devolve into Jack? Welcome to Week 2 of the 2022 Finals, when we will see which pigs head ends up on the stick.

Teams

Friday 16 September, CommBank Stadium, Parramatta, 7:50pm (AEDT). Lands of the Barramattagal People. Referee: Ashley Klein.

Eels: 1. Clinton Gutherson 2. Maika Sivo 3. Viliami Penisini 4. Tom Opacic 5. Waqa Blake 6. Dylan Brown 7. Mitchell Moses 8. Reagan Campbell-Gillard 9. Reed Mahoney 10. Junior Paulo 11. Shaun Lane 12. Isaiah Papali'i 13. Ryan Matterson 14. Makahesi Makatoa 15. Jakob Arthur 16. Oregon Kaufusi 17. Marata Niukore 18. Nathan Brown 19. Bailey Simonsson 20. Bryce Cartwright 21. Ofahiki Ogden 22. Ky Rodwell.

Head coach: Bench Arthur.

Raiders: 1. Xavier Savage 2. Nick Cotric 3. Matthew Timoko 4. Sebastian Kris 5. Jordan Rapana 6. Jack Wighton 7. Jamal Fogarty 8. Josh Papali'i 9. Zac Woolford 10. Joseph Tapine 11. Hudson Young 12. Elliott Whitehead 13. Corey Harawira-Naera 14. Tom Starling 15. Emre Guler 16. Corey Horsburgh 17. Ryan Sutton 18. Albert Hopoate 19. Ata Mariota 20. Matt Frawley 21. Peter Hola 22. Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad.

Head coach: Gutted Dog Stuart

Notes: The Eels are unchanged. Yes, unchanged. It makes no sense. The Raiders have lost Adam Elliott (hip injury), with Harawira-Naera starting and Sutton coming onto the bench.

Observations from Last Week

Eels (vs Panthers), 8-27 (L), 49% possession, 67% completion rate, 2 line breaks, 30 tackle breaks, 12 offloads, 35 missed tackles, 8 ineffective tackles, 14 errors, 3 penalties conceded, 2 inside 10 meters, 1 ruck infringements, 0 sin bins.

Raiders (vs Storm), 28-20 (W), 51% possession, 80% completion rate, 4 line breaks, 41 tackle breaks, 12 offloads, 38 missed tackles, 18 ineffective tackles, 9 errors, 3 penalties conceded, 1 inside 10 meters, 3 ruck infringements, 0 sin bins.

Eels/Panthers highlights HERE.

Raiders/Storm highlights HERE.

First, the Raiders. Because what matters for the Raiders is also a danger for the Eels. The Raiders took a 16-8 half time lead against the Storm and let it slip, conceding two second half tries in the 46^th and 58^th minute to trail 16-20 with 20 minutes remaining. But the Raiders belied their faders tag, earned early in the season after opening 4-8 L-W up to their Round 12 20-28 loss to the Eels at GIO Stadium in Canberra. But since then, the Raiders went 10-3. Similarly, the Raiders turned it around, scoring converted tries in the 65^th and 73^rd minute to seal a 28-20 victory.

By contrast the Eels’ Week 1 finals game was defined by playing terribly in the second half, especially the final 20 minutes. Contrasting fates. Indeed, there is little point looking at the overall stats for the Eels/Panthers game, because they are deceptive. All that matters is the second half stats.

Overall, the Eels shared the statistical spoils with the Panthers, but lost the meter eating game. This was not due to lack of effort, with Paulo and RCG running for 150m+, and each starting forward was 100m+ (except the bench forwards and Lane (concussion cut his game short).

But the Eels’ second half was diabolical, and clearly was the worst passage of play by any finals team in Week 1 of the finals. With 47% possession, but only 39% of the territory and an atrocious completion rate of 9/18 (50%) due to 11 errors, the Eels literally shot themselves in the foot in the second half.

Up until the 51^st minute the Eels were leading 8-7. Every recent game against the Panthers - bar the last 60 minutes of the R20 game against 12 men - had been a grinding affair decided late. The Eels have recently switched from jam-in to slide-out defence, and it was working. But the Eels opened the second half with 11 minutes containing two errors and three penalties, leading to a To’o try and an 8-13 deficit. Then 9 minutes containing two further errors and back-to-back HIA’s (Lane and Moses), leading to Edwards scoring in the 59^th minute and an 8-19 deficit. But until that Moses HIA at the 59^th minute, I may be a closet unicorn, but I thought if the Eels could just hold on to the ball, play it down Panther’s end, the Eels had the attack to take the game to the death.

See below for a different angle on why JA should not be #15, but JA replacing Moses with 20-minutes remaining did not lose the Eels the game. The Eels lost it by turning the ball over in their own end. Waqa Blake had a shocker, spilling two kicks that led directly to one try and indirectly a few plays later to another try. But as some of you know, I am an educator by trade, so here you go Blake.

But Paulo and Gutherson also made untimely errors, and Mahoney conceded untimely penalties. They are supposed to be our leaders. The Eels also fell out of their (altered) defensive structures in the second half (watch Opacic and Sivo jam-in not slide out). Dylan Brown went missing, taking Lane’s running game with him. And minus Moses, the Eels fell apart. But the Eels had already been gifting the ball back to the Panthers all second half.

The Eels lost to Panthers because they did not play finals level football in the second half. The Raiders beat Storm because they played finals level football in the second half. That ought to be warnings signs?

Natural experiments

The JA question has vexed fans all week. My query is whether the evidence supports the only hypothesis that makes sense of JA on the bench? JA is not a game breaker, not an impact player, and covers only #6 or #7 (with coverage of #9 just a luxury if spelling Mahoney early is permitted by the game situation). If JA is halves cover, then Moses going off with a HIA with 20 minutes remaining and down 8-13 is a ‘natural experiment’. A natural experiment is where exposure to the event of interest has not been manipulated by the designer of the experiment. BA does not know in advance if Moses/Brown will be ruled out mid-game, and so BA has a replacement half on the bench in case the situation arises. The Panthers game tested BA’s hypothesis that carrying a backup half was the best way to manage such an event (losing a half). What happened? Did having a backup half help cover the loss? Did it help the team?

Setting aside the Panthers try a few tackles after JA replaced Moses (a mid-field grubber nothing to do with JA), the Panthers clearly targeted JA in defence. Cleary ran right past JA, and the Panthers scored a few tackles later. The significance here is two-fold. One, Moses had been defending excellently. Two, the Eels’ defence has improved through the structural adjustment of the centre-winger staying on their opponents (slide-out not jam-in), which commits and relies upon the inside defenders doing their job. JA fluffed his first defensive assignment. But crucially, the Panthers already had a game plan to attack JA if he entered the fray. Other teams will too. JA also kicked out on the full (supposed to be taking over chief kicker) and knocked a ball on mid-attacking-raid (supposed to be link-man not creator).

How is that 20-minute performance not a failure of the hypothesis that carrying JA as a backup half is what puts the team in the best position to win? There are no second chances in whatever games the Eels have left. Surely now is the time to want impact off the bench that can be game turning. How can a half that is an obvious defensive liability due to lack of speed, whose kicking game often misfires, and who plays quite far from the line ball-in-hand, be the best bench option in sudden death games? JA on the bench is a slow road to trouble.

The issue that JA really raises, then, has little to do with JA. It is an issue for fan confidence, wondering if an objective assessment is being made, and about coaching practice vis a vis bench selection.

For fans, it is akin to Piggy’s attitude to the murderous Jack in Lord of the Flies. “I’m scared of him,” said Piggy, “and that’s why I know him. If you’re scared of someone you hate him but you can’t stop thinking about him. You kid yourself he’s alright really, an’ then when you see him again; it’s like asthma an’ you can't breath”.

For bench selection, note the following irony. Lose to the Raiders and not only will inevitable “BA cannot coach the big games” talk grow louder, but questions will be asked about strategic limitations manifest in poor bench player rationale. Beat the Raiders and it will likely have zero to do with JA. Where is the bright side of this JA policy for BA? Maybe the lesson here is to imagine The Devils Guide to Bench Rotation, which on p. 666 has the following advice to Dad’s playing their Sons despite all the evidence it is unwise. The Devils Guide says THIS AIN’T THE F*CKING NOTEBOOK, MATE! The Notebook (2004) was a super soppy romance that made everyone sick to their stomach, but at least it proved that sometimes you should separate to save the rest of us from pain and suffering.

The issue of separation will also emerge if the Eels again bow out in Week 2 of the finals. BA’s separation from coaching the Eels. Somewhat troublingly, Sticky enjoys a better record in finals matches than Brad Arthur.

But the Eels are otherwise on a good run against the Raiders.

But these have mostly been close games.

Yet the Eels possess a superior record in 2022 across all statistical categories

The Bottom Line

Two important statistical take-aways are that the Eels would be advised to start fast and start well (because giving the Raiders some early confidence in a finals game is historically an unwise move), and the Eels’ right-side defence of Moses, Penisini and Blake will have their hands full (with Young and Wighton).

How does The Lord of the Flies end? Jack has won out. The boys, under his influence, have become savages. The boys have always thought a beast lurks somewhere on the island, but Simon has discovered it is just a dead soldier, still attached to his parachute, being blown randomly in the wind. When Simon rushes out of the forest late one night, with a Storm blowing, to tell them this truth, they mistake him for the beast and kill him. Fear and instinct have clouded everyone’s judgment, even Ralph and Piggy, who partook in the killing. When Ralph and Piggy appeal to Jack’s tribe to see reason, and try to survive as one, Roger tips a rock on Piggy’s head and kills him. The sh*t has really hit the fan, and Jack now tries to smoke Ralph out by burning down the forest, a thoughtless act of self-destruction. Running for his life, Ralph collapses on the beach, just as a naval officer arrives to rescue them all. Golding’s point was to say you let the rules go enough and savagery will take over, but that savagery is not some outside force, but a tendency within us to be uncooperative idiots. Or, as the doomed Simon had realized, “maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us.” The Eels beat themselves last week, their inner-Jack taking over. The Eels have three games in a row to try to play Ralph-style, or it will again be the end of their innocence, like the boys on the island. Go Eels.