Curled up in the foetal position, the noise is getting louder from some of our punters. Drop Pezet. Move him on. He’s been labelled “a mistake” by some, along with the usual tomatoes thrown at R&R, the team, and the front office. But not Talyn Da Silva this week. We are not just loyal, but passionate.
Expectations were high across the rugby league community following our form late last year and winning the Pre-Season Challenge.
But we haven’t put together an 80-minute performance, hitherto. We’ve started poorly and fought off the back foot on the ropes. Hard yakka.
But two from three is not a bad winning return. And it was more than luck.
Image: Tallyn Sa Silva, scores two tries in a twenty minutes cameo; you can't coach speed.
Blowtorch
We’ve opened the season against the defending premiers, a perennial powerhouse who have never lost a round one in 24 years, the current premiership favourites, and the desperate Dragons trying to avoid 0–3.
It doesn’t get much harder.
Round one wasn’t just a loss against the Storm. It was C4-demolition.
408 tackles to 280 (+128) is a defensive load that blows up dam walls. The floodgates open.
Fatigue that doesn't just slow you down: it turns momentum into a landslide. A vicious cycle of errors and poor decisions.
Tackle Difference vs results (using nrl.com stats)
Sharks | +52 tackles | lost by 28 (38–10) to Dolphins (R3)
Knights | +60 tackles | lost by 26 (38–12) to Warriors (R2)
Raiders | +77 tackles | lost by 34 (40–6) to Warriors (R3)
Cowboys | +85 tackles | lost by 28 (44–16) to Tigers (R2)
Roosters | +97 tackles | lost by 24 (42–18) to Warriors (R1)
Titans | +102 tackles | lost by 14 (30–16) to Cowboys (R3)
Eels | +128 tackles | lost by 48 (52–4) to Storm (R1)
The damage was already done, but to keep them to one try in the last 15 minutes with 12 men was miraculous. An early sign.
Many put a line through the Eels then and there. The 52-4 loss was even worse than last year. Sportsbest immediately dropped us from equal eighth hopefuls at $21 to bottom four at $51. Darren Kemp suggested the Eels had been reading "their own headlines."
Fightbacks
The last two weeks have been the same movie. By the 27th minute in both games, we were getting bashed up.
Down 20–6 vs Broncos. 14–6 vs Dragons.
We made around 60 more tackles by then. A ten-set difference.
Image: Fatigue makes cowards of us all. Moses, Paulo, Williams, Fox, out. Haunched over. Hands on hips. Structure in disarray. Little talk. The much-maligned Pezet one of the few still moving, following the ball like a terrier.
Straight out of Tim Sheens’ playbook. Fatigue them early, win it late. The difference? They were already winning.
Even Mitchell Moses admitted on Triple MMM after the Broncos win he felt early it was heading for a repeat of the Round One debacle. So did I. He also admits Pezet is a seven, which is why we saw him switch left and right, and play first receiver often in that game.
But in both games, we didn’t follow the script that felt a fait accompli.
We stayed alive.
We clawed our way to halftime leads in both, then overcame second-half surges when we looked likely to lose it again.
Chart: Linespeed (Pre-Contact Metres). Eels (Blue) vs Dragons (red)
The Dragons’ big men bullied us. Dominated. They had faster line speed for most of the match. At least, until possession swung from 60-70% their way, to finish up at 50-50. Then, they dipped and imploded.
We lost Hopgood in the 27th, then Samrani in the 39th, and Guymer shifted to the centres. The rebuilt right edge looked vulnerable against the Dragons’ left edge, with Suli and Luciano running rampant.
But the Dragons repeated their own script, just as they had the week before against the Storm when the game was in their grasp. Errors. Panic. Poor game management when possession swung the Eels’ way.
Image: Williams and Ryley Smith made 50 tackles each against the Dragons.
Gus Gould, who tipped the Dragons and called the game, was impressed with the Eels’ character.
“Real Grit”
“Real grit from Parramatta to stay in it and win the way they did," he noted in this week’s Six Tackles.
"I think Jason Ryles will be really happy with the grit they showed.
“Particularly in the last twenty minutes where they were down on troops, down on numbers, and still found a way to win.
“That’s a good quality for them,” Gus concluded.
We rose off the canvas after the biggest Round 1 knockout loss in our history.
We rose again after being bashed early in both games and on the ropes in the second half. Fatigued. Off our feet.
In those two wins, we didn’t play great footy compared to the last two months of last year or the trials. But we took our chances, scrambled well, held our nerve, and managed the game better.
That’s resilience. Heart.
The legs were weary, but we didn't lose our heads. The Dragons and Broncos did.
But we’re also playing with fire.
There are "lessons" we need to learn, as Jason Ryles reminded us post-game.
The reasons and the fixes behind these poor starts flirting with fatigue-induced blowouts, the defensive vulnerabilities, and what the grit is compensating for remain questions time will answer.
The Biggest Test
This week we face the best.
Penrith aren’t just winning. They’re suffocating teams. Strangling them. Surgically. And none have won the week after.
26–0 against the Broncos, the reigning premiers.
26–6 against the Sharks, perennial contenders.
40–4 against the Roosters, one of the premiership favourites.
What will they do with us? Matty Johns described them as playing with a “chip on their shoulder.”
They don’t let you back in once they’re on top, and if we start the same way again, it’s doubtful there’ll be a comeback this time.
Replies
The way to beat Penrith is go through the middle of them with short passes and off loads that's the key you've got to beat them through the middle of the park it's why we were so effective against them.You start beating up the Fisher Harris's Leotas Yeos Martins of the world it goes a long way to dulling the effectiveness of the conveyor belt type efficiency they have going on there.
There setup to well defensively to go round them.Even dominating possession against them is a tough ask.Front door is the key running harder much like the Dragons did to us last week.
Coryn used an analogy (above) that I think is a really good way to approach how to think about the current Eels. It is not true, Coryn suggested, that "you can't coach speed". Usain Bolt running 9.58 is a product of "process and training", Coryn noted, and the Eels might be mid-process.
But are the Eels mid-process because of the players they might lack or because of the style they don't yet have?
Consider Usain Bolt again. I'm pretty sure he was faster than anyone he knew before anyone ever got any sprint training into him. And no matter how much sprint training I hypothetically might have done as a teen, I still would not get near an untrained Bolt. Natural capacity matters?
But process and training still matter, and I agree with Coryn there. But the question I think this poses is whether the Bolt example is the best example? A sprinter is an individual who must master themselves to biomechanically push the boundaries of performance. A footy team needs to work as a unit.
I think what Penrith has shown, and I think the Dogs are aiming for the same, is that IF the team can master playing as a unit they will beat most teams most days. What is then needed are a few times in important games against good teams where a few individuals do out-of-the-box things to win vital moments.
So we know a champion team needs to both play as a champion unit and also have individual players who can do out-of-the-box things. Do the Eels have those players? I think players like Moses and Iongi have enough creativity to pull rabbits out of hats, we have JAC to turn tiny chances into tries, and we edge runners like Kautonga, Talangi and Williams to break apart the strongest of defenses. It's staying in strong field position and retaining good possession rates that is holding the Eels back, exposing some weaknesses in first up tackle, and they seem like unit-cohesion things more than lack of player capacity?
Daz and Coryn. It's a lovely theory, gentlemen. Sure, sprint coaching helps. But turning Pezet or Paulo into Usain Bolt? The eggs might start flying faster.
I think Daz's point is relevant to Coryn's example....but it then becomes semantic i.e. speed kills, it also wins football games and not all players are blessed with it....there does none the less need to be some compensationary issues.
Interesting that Hoey focuses on Paulo and Pezet, arguably Paulo is no slower and his compensation needs to be more physical as a middle forward.....Pezet is slow and so was Tim Smith (ex Parra Half 2001 odd). I was never a fan of Smith and that makes me a minority, as many/most on here saw him as a genius. He was a very good ball player with wonderful vision.....Katoa is an interesting comparison...he seems slow but he also seems to have all the time in the world and realistically if he was backing up or intercepting he would get his 50 metre's home most times..
Smith and Pezet I suspect would not!
So that leaves us with Pezet, a player with a wrap that whilst not commensurate with Katoa, fundamentally the styles tend to shadow each other.......I think that's what we thought we may have been getting at when we got him.
Now its fair enough to develop a player but when you have him for 1 year, I think our expectations need to be a little higher than what we are seeing......
Mutts said "Houston" we have a problem.....my obsequiousness is based on pure "panic" yes, a panic that we stuffed up....no blame, just a mistake!
My question is how long do we have to recognise this or do we wipe a season off because of a single stuff up....
NOW the real question is have I pulled the trigger too quickly because I suspect I have......but with a "reason" of not writing off a season!.................. Shoot me I am guilty!
PS Just reflecting what i wrote and it shadows what I said about our performances at a similar stage last year, which I withdrew and apologised for! but we hadn't won a game last year at the same stage (maybe 1) but this year I would hate to see us waste that 2 out of 3 start!........also if we beat Penrith tomorrow then I am not automatically wrong, if we beat Penrith or lose respectably and Pezet play's well then my hesitations are countered, then I am wrong!!
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