Eels Blogs

Considering I personally copped a bit after last week's game following my week of standing tall for Kearney and the boys, I'm going to allow myself to gloat a little bit, because pretty much tonight was the first time we got to see what I've been saying was coming all along.

1. Like I said, it was ridiculous to judge Kearney prior to him having his main attacking weapon on the side, after he clearly had structure so much of the team's attack around Hayne. With Hayne, the structure we're attacking with is magic. So you can say are we too centred around Jarryd Hayne? Yes, we are, but like I said, he had to come into this season with a brand new set of halves - there has been no time to put together a decent plan B when you're still trying to get plan A right. As this side's combinations gel, then Kearney can look to put together a plan B but right now, we've got to get those boys who played tonight playing like they've been together for a couple of seasons. 

2. Yes, Jarryd Hayne does make that much difference. I was hoping to put a post up mid-week, but I was snowed under at work, about the first 10 mins of last week's game. We had an attacking opportunity at the eight minute mark, and Kenny Sio swept around the back to create a 2 on 1 but he didn't have quick enough hands to pass it. Hayne would have and we would have gone six nil up. The first Panthers try we didn't number on the left, and Sio didn't notice it or call it. An experience full back would have pushed into the lines or called for his players to number up. These are the little things that go unnoticed, and it's the effect of what happens when your replace a Test player with a four-game NRL rookie. Hayne is a freak, and he is going to transform any side - especially when you've set up your side to take fullest advantage of his talents.

3. Hayne's influence on this side, goes far beyond his own play. Like I've said ad nauseum, Jarryd Hayne's value to a decent football side goes beyond what he does with the ball, it's the SPACE he creates for other players. For the first time in two years we have players who can take advantage of that space, and as I said after the Warriors game, Ben Roberts is going to be the biggest beneficiary of that because it just opens his running game right up. Without Hayne, you mark up on Sandow, you play Roberts on his merit and you heavily mark Maitua. When Hayne plays, defence must mark up on him and all of those other options suddenly get space.

4. Matt Keating has never been the problem. All of the criticism about Matt Keating has come about, because we have been consistently flat in attack. As such, the easiest option is to blame the dummy half because "that's where it all starts". In a side with Sandow, Roberts, Hayne you don't want a creative dummy half, you want a player who gives you good service (and I maintain Keating does) and  defends really well because if you stick a fourth creator player into that mix, you will have too many individuals all wanting to do their own thing and it will not work. I've raved for years about Matt Keating's defence, which to me is just as important as Hindmarsh's. It's worth noting that Stephen Kearney rates Matt Keating's defence and his ability to hold the middle of the park together, that he keeps him on the park solely for that role even when he has another dummy half on the field. The number of breaks that Parramatta give up in the middle of the ruck are almost zero and that's because we have MK and Hindmarsh owning that area of the park and you will not find a better defensive combination in the NRL

5. Fuifui Moimoi as a wide-running forward worked exactly as I said it would. It finally gave us a power forward that kept opposition defences honest, created more space for the players around him and also resulted in some big metres and busts. And it didn't cause a defensive problem. We can close the book on this - this is the role that Moimoi has to play for the rest of the year. It also shows why Parramatta should pay what it takes to get Williams. You saw the turnaround out there tonight. Manly were a shadow of themselves without that rampaging second rower, and we in turn looked like a different side. The tacke-broking second rower is now the third most important player in the side, and you have to have a marquee player in that role.

6. I've been raving about Joseph Paulo since Round One and he gives this side another dimension and kudos to Kearney for recognising that and injecting him to the side, with increasing responsibility each week. 

This is the best-balanced roster now we've had since 2005. And like I said too, by the time we hit round 10 and all of these combinations start to gel, we're going to be in a very strong position to go on a really strong winning run through that period. So please excuse the self-indulgence of this post, but tonight we got to see what this roster is capable of, even at a relatively immature stage of their development. When it came out this week that Fuifui was going to be starting and running wider, for me that was the final piece of the puzzle of what I wanted to see - and I went and had a decent plonk on the boys to win this match. Put that together with the atmosphere we had out there tonight, and it's was right up there with one of my favourite matches of all time!