Well we lost. But in many ways, the 18 to 12 defeat didn't feel like a loss.
Well, despite losing there was enough positives to take out of this match to suggest we're definitely going to be up there all year. 2010 will be good :-)
Thankfully, we were able to hit back pretty quickly. We made some good ground through Robson and Hayne and then taking advantage of a scrambling defence Ben Smith made metres out of dummy half before passing to Inu, who avoided his man and one-handed off to Eric Grothe for the try.
We do have enough points in us, to get a few tries every game, and with our rock solid defence thats going to make us very difficult to beat at any time in 2010. This game aside, of course.
For all our pre-match bravado, I think most Eels fans went into this match a little nervous. Did those trial matches really mean anything? Was our winning run last year a fluke? Could we back it up?
Well, despite losing there was enough positives to take out of this match to suggest we're definitely going to be up there all year. 2010 will be good :-)
And it will be good if for no other reason that we're going to be a very, very good defensive team. Let's get real for a second and look at the statistics. The Dragons completed some 94 per cent of sets. They dropped two balls the entire match. They were very disciplined. We dropped lots of ball and we weren't even close to being disciplined.
All things being equal, the Dragons should have lapped us, especially after getting out to an early lead.
But in the end, you still had the feeling this side was capable of doing something a bit special that might pull the match out of the fire. It wasn't to be, but the Eels won't play too many sides who string together those kinds of statistics again this year. For them to do so, in the first round of the year is quite astonishing.
We went into the match with one late change. As predicted by 1Eyed Eel midway through the day, Joel Reddy was a late scratching with a hamstring injury, his place taken by Kris Inu.
They were certainly out of the blocks quickly - they're big men making good metres and the Eel's giving away silly penalties or turnovers. That gave the Dragons plenty of early field position and although we held them out for a number of sets, eventually your luck is going to run out and it did when we failed to clean up a grubber that Ben Hornby collected inches inside the deadball line.
An easy conversion made it six to nil and a deficit but it was certainly not panic time, especially when over the next 15 minutes we continued to repel St George challenges.
Once again our luck ran out though and Jeremy Smith rampaged over the top of Daniel Mortimer to come up with the Red and Whites second try, with Soward converted.
That try would have caused more than a bit of tension amongst the Blue and Gold army. For while, the Dragons didn't look like they were any chance of rolling over them, we equally looked like we might struggle to peg them back. Our fowards were losing the battle and either ill-discipline, or Tony Archer calls, continued to work against us.
Thankfully, we were able to hit back pretty quickly. We made some good ground through Robson and Hayne and then taking advantage of a scrambling defence Ben Smith made metres out of dummy half before passing to Inu, who avoided his man and one-handed off to Eric Grothe for the try.
It was a try that was a long-time coming, to be honest, as we had a number of chances with Inu and Smith both climbing highest for kicks but failing to control the ball on the way down.
On either side of half-time, one player from each side came from the field with injuries. Nathan Fien who had set up both early tries looked to have done some very bad damage to his ankle, while just after half time Shane Shackleton was pulled down in an awkward tackle and suffered a knee injury.
Shackleton wasn't the only one fielding the pain as the Eel's handed the Dragons another four point, courtesy of our good friend Tony Archer.
We cracked back in the 63rd minute when Jarryd Hayne sent a sensational cuout pass to Luke Burt, who did well to pull in the rocket pass. The try and subsequent conversion brought us back within six, but it wasn't long before Archer was blowing around the anti-Parra pea in his whistle and gifted Soward another two points.
With just 10 minutes to go the the Eels tried hard but the Tiger's Dragon's scrambling defence was good.
I thought Ben Smith and Jeff Robson both defended particularly well, Kris Inu and Jarryd Hayne did some nice things, Timana Tahu is ready to rip and Luke Burt was excellent. I can't help but think we need to get some more consistency out of our halves. Kris Keating was only used sparingly missing the first half altogether but none of our halves were particularly effective in attack.
We do have enough points in us, to get a few tries every game, and with our rock solid defence thats going to make us very difficult to beat at any time in 2010. This game aside, of course.
Replies
showed glimpses of good footy, not good enough.
Was really impressed with poore and shacks.
iknow it sounds childish, but the refereeing out there was average and cost us momentum amd 2 pointers throughout the whole game
also i think the dragons played a much smarter game. they did all the little things right. their completions were crazy good and well thats where we let ourselves down. they gave us no room and full raps to wayne bennett even though i dont like to say.
The team needs someone to make better tackle 5 kicking options. Wether thats KK at 7, or just getting it right off the field, that is what is needed.... that was the difference..... tackle 5 kicking....I honestly beleive if we had the field possession the dragons had we would have won by 30.
Defecnce was truly awesome 2nite.
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