With the under-seige Eels, copping it from everywhere and about to face the undefeated reigning premiers tomorrow night, there was nothing altogether surprising in these media do's including a collective backing of our man-of-the-week, and a readiness to move forward.
Apparantly, Lane has the "man flu", so Reed took over the media duties.
When quizzed on last week, a serious-looking Reed replied: "We talked about it, flushed it, and are ready to go again." (0:29)
"We just weren't good enough... we went up there with the wrong mentality... We got a reality check".
Now, "We want to prove everyone wrong".
On the man-of-the-week, Jakob Arthur, Reed smirked. "Jake is not on social media (anymore)" and "laughed at it a bit". "It's unfair for Jake to cop it all". It's "not on him", and that the whole team was "behind Jake."
Against the Cowboys, Gutho believed "We got out enthused" and "didn't capitalize on opportunities."
On Jake, he noted: "I think Mitchy nailed it on the head. There is always going to be finger-pointing. Unfortunately, for us and our team it was (aimed at) Jake. I thought he played pretty well. We've let him down...There was literally no other option."
Moses on Jake: "I think it's a bit harsh. All the all the criticism that he's copped. It's not his fault we lost. It's up to us senior players to help him out."
Against the undefeated reigning premiers, the Panthers, Moses reiterated the obvious.
"There's no better test for us to get our footy back". (0:29)
Stats v Panthers: How will the Eels prove their doubters wrong?
- New record: The Panthers, are gunning for five straight wins against the injury-hit Eels for the first time in history. A loss could see the Eels slip to 7th or 8th.
- Eleventh straight: The Panthers are looking to record their 11th straight NRL win (they did 17 straight in 2020).
- Poor recent history: The Eels have only won 2 of the last 7 against the Panthers.
- Close games, last 7 years: Since 2015, 12 of the last 14 games, have been close with a margin of between 1 to 10 points.
- Eels' Last win v Panthers: Two years ago at CommBank Stadium (16-10, R5, 2020), also on a Friday night, a game where Dylan Brown was sent to the sin-bin, under Gerard Sutton (ref for tommorrow night as well).
- Gerard Sutton: Neither side has played under Sutton (ref from 2009 - present) in 2022, yet. Eels have won 38.9% (14/36) under him, only winning 1 from the last 5. Panthers have a far better record under him winning 58.5% (24/41) winning 14 from last 17. Panthers-Eels have played 4 games under Sutton, with the Panthers winning 3 of 4 during (2009-2020).
- At BlueBet Stadium v Penrith: in the last six years since 2016 the Eels have lost 4 from 5 games here. Eels' last win at this ground was three years ago; R1, 2019 20-12.
- Behind at half-time: The Eels have been behind at half-time in the last 5 games v the Panthers; the Eels don't do well when behind at half-time winning less than 23% of their games when behind since 2019.
- Taylan May: third-highest leading tryscorer in the competition: scoring 8 tries from 6 games this season.
- Four Musketteers (see video below): Only Will Penisini of the brotherhood (including Jakob Arthur, Sam Louizou, and Sean Russell who grew up together) is penned to start this week.
Replies
I hope we play well on Friday but I am a bit sick of the Eels players using this line.
We went up there with the wrong mentality... We got a reality check".
Exactly how many reality checks does it take for it to sink in ?
Lol. Did we chase the collision?
The issue between the ears has been a problem for years.
Sick of hearing the same old excuses about we didn't turn up, were not mentally prepared and so on. The club need to do something to address it and I know it is hard to at peak performance every week in a long season but Melbourne and Penrith seem to be able to do it.
There is definitely an issue with our players mentality and it is why we are probably one of most inconsistent teams from week to week. We need a world class sports psychologist or something on staff especially for when we play games we are supposed to win we just don't perform.
Did we have our eyes on this game against Penrith last week which affected our performance and preparation. We also played shocking against Cronulla although we did at least get close to winning the week before beating Melbourne so hopefully we see similar performance to the Melbourne game
Hugh van Cuylenburg - He's worked with the Storm a lot, especially Cooper Cronk, also the Richmond Tigers & their best player Dustin Martin. These guys said amazing things about Hugh, and sure we can all agree that Cronk & Martin are two players you'd listen to when they talk. He wrote the book 'The Resiliance Project' - brilliant book, for anyone interested.
Agree the Eels need him or someone like him on the staff for a season. As others have said, we still have issues between the ears & how can these guys turn up to any game with the wrong attitude, yet, 2 games out of the past 3?!
NoS, Exactly mate! Exactly what we need.
Hell, we might even need that crazy NAVY SEAL David Goggins that was on Joe Rogan to break the vicious cycle.
He'd put the the M### bad-arse in bad cop in good cop, bad cop... If BA wanted to play the good guy.
After going through another collapse last year, we employed a new psychologist & at the end we appeared to have more steel. But this year, on the evidence to date, we seem back to our old habits.
Goggins! Yes HOE, even better. Another life changing book - Can't Hurt Me.
As crazy as it might sound, why not?! The guy does Hell Weeks, Ultra Marathons & 100mile races for fun. I don't know much about any rules or regulations on who you can use / what you can pay for outside coaching? But, why not something along these lines a little outside the box, the team has proven that whatever they are doing is not 100% working.
Do you think BA would tear strips off those three like Bellamy would to his key players??
I sense there's a lack of fear of BA within our group. They like BA but deep down they know he won't really go after them. So if we don't really play well that week, ah well not to worry. We'll try harder next week.
I think that mentality would also be a reflection of his history of sticking with underperforming players. Think Michael Jennings a few years back when he was just awful for pretty much a whole season, and only got "dropped" to play NSW Cup when first grade had a bye.
I think BA and the boys have a beer & sausage sizzle after every game- win, lose or draw. That seems to be the level of accountability.
I have said on many occasions, I don't think the players fear BA either, the reason some make the same mistakes every week (pushing passes- think Shaun Lane, Reed "crash ball 3 plays in a row" Mahoney etc) The list goes on.
Bellamy would tear some of our guys new assholes at half time. then go back for seconds at full time, even if the side won but played substandard football not to his expectations.
That crash play has got us at least 1 or 2 tries this year. Nearly another against the cowboys too.
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