Well at least, the Eels showed a little bit of heart tonight going down to the front-running Bulldogs 32 to 12.
Missing a number of its top 17, including Jarryd Hayne, most thought tonight’s clash would be a mismatch but it wasn’t until the final fifteen minutes that the Eels were shut out of the match.
As predicted pre-match Jake Mullaney was a late withdrawal, allowing Cheyse Blair to come back into the side, while Taniela Lasalo was replaced by Ben Roberts after secumbing to a shoulder injury.
Certainly the Eels didn’t get the start they wanted. Fuifui Moimoi was knocked out from the first hit-up of the match, a loss Parramatta could ill-afford, given they were already missing Justin Poore. Then a well-worked Bulldogs backline movement saw Parramatta hopelessly outnumbered and Josh Morris went across to score and then Ben Barba took advantage of a Chris Sandow missed tackle from his own kick to run the length of the field.
At that stage it looked like a matter of by how far, but the Eels didn’t fold over and worked themselves back into the match with Joseph Paulo figuring prominently off the bench.
Paulo put Sio away down his flank and then from an ensuing ruck Luke Kelly delivered a fantastic cross-field kick which Sio took magnificently before touching down to make it 10 to six.
Parramatta had plenty of opportunity to get back to the lead enjoying a lot of possession but they just couldn’t get the ball across the line and went into half-time four points down.
The second half started as poorly as the first with an almost exact replica of the Bulldog’s first try and Josh Morris picking up his second.
However, again the Eels struck back with one of their better tries of the year, when Chris Sandow ran on the last before passing off to a trailing Luke Kelly who kicked to his outside and finding Sio, who passed back inside to Ryan Morgan who showed good strength to touch down and reduce the deficit to 16 to 12.
So often this year when Parramatta need to come up with the next score, they instead concede and another of those well-worked Bulldogs movements saw Jonathan Wright go over in the corner.
Unfortunately, the Dogs scored two late tries to blow out the score. Josh Reynolds took advantage of some lazy inside defence from Taulima Tautai and then Kris Keating delivered a pin-point kick for Wright to get a double.
It was a shame that the end margin got out 20, because the Eels competed well for most of the match. Missing Jarryd Hayne they just didn’t have that class to get across the line when they needed and the Bulldogs set-plays were too good for the Parramatta defence.
Replies
The boys had a go, they exceeded a lot of peoples expectations.
Kelly, Paulo & Morgan were good, probably 3,2,1 in that order, hey that's an idea for an original blog.
Mack have you developed Tourette Syndrome due to continual frustration watching the Eels?
Put Hayne and Fui In there and we would have given them a real run for there money.
How good was Paulo? We have a lot of young guys, who will be a lot better with a year und there belt.
I think next near, with a bit more experience, and Loko back, we will give the comp a shake. We just need a good defense coach for these young guys, these blokes have no idea about 1 on 1 defense.
But good effort anyway
Also need a game plan.
Sack SK!
Roberts selection was bad from the start he offers nothing and only got on (even that late) because we were down a man. If Kearney was serious about his myth err i mean 5 year plan he would have had a young guy in there.
Well! angry monkey, I guess you have answered that.
I don't believe it's Kearney's fault that we lost last night, the structure that he had the players playing would have beaten the Bulldogs. If it weren't for silly errors leading to tries: Ryan Morgan knocking the ball on from a cross-field kick (Although, re-watch that first try, Kasiano impedes Nathan Smith's run to the line, if a player is running a decoy they have to keep running through the line, not stop when they get to the line), Nathan Smith not chasing hard enough when he saw Barba fumble the ball at the back...so far that has been the only two tries I've seen in the replay but I'm sure there are more silly errors that we made that led to tries.
Kearney also did have a hard job when our best go forward player was taken off in the first tackle of the game
Yes ...we showed a bit of a fight tonight ..like we have many other times this year...but the simple fact is... we are far to undisciplined...& are very ...very poorly coached.... how our outside D...on both sides of field can be so constantly bad week in & week out...sorry mr kearney....you have been give more than a fair go...you are not up to 1st grade standard. .
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