Eels Blogs

Hope you all did not get 3rd degree burns from sitting out in the stands waiting for the match itself. To make matters worse were the pyro flamethrowers that were put out to add ambience to the arena. I thought well i am burning up here, but thank god for the flamethrowers, warmed me up even more. Anyway 2 points for the weekend and off the mark a month earlier than we were last year. It was not convincing, more so annoying, but a win is a win. That mentality would have gotten us into the 8 in 2023, one more win and we are playing either Newcastle or Cronulla in week one. If you listen to the podcast i do with my mates, i had a back and forth about the attitude towards coaches in the game. To summarise many people give credit to a coach when a team is winning but if they are losing they are void of blame, added that coaches aren't missing the tackles or dropping the ball. To which i cannot stand, there are times where coaches are more to blame than the players, this is a scenario for Canterbury. They looked really unfit, uncoordinated and weak. Yes possession and the conditions play a part but even early on when Canterbury had the ball before defending for long periods of time they were not even bending the line. Poasa Fa'amausili started at Prop and had a 15 min stint with 1 run. Then a 10 min stint with 1 run. Ciraldo had no excuses to have them ready, but it is hilarious as Canterbury every year seem to be closer and closer to succeeding and every year drop more and more. As for Parramatta, i hope it was more so a take it easy type match. Go through the motions and let the quality prevail eventually as we did not look convincing for a long time. Mid to late 1st half we looked our best. But towards the end we shut up shop and just saw out the game with an eye on Penrith.

Stats: 59% possession has sort of given Canterbury a get out of jail free card for their performance. Though i do not buy it, as stated above, we dominated control of the ball which is promising. Dogs showed decent defence on their own line, yet our attack did not really threaten early either to combat the defence efforts. Overall stats aren't too lopsided, just shows the quality both teams played. Parramatta had 84 more runs for only 510 more metres. Not great considering you should target the 8-10 metres per average mark. Though i give a tiny pass as we had Hopgood and RCG off for a long period to preserve them for Penrith. We led line-breaks 4-3, completion rate 89% to 72%, offloads 16-3 and tackle breaks 29-23. Missed tackles are practically the tackle breaks stats but flipped. Defensively Bulldogs were not that bad, they had 88% effeciency while we had 90%. We split penalties 7 all, while Dogs gave away 3 six agains to our 0. Not great discipline from either team. Offloads came back and though earlier on we lost more metres than gained from some offloads, we go going late in the game where it became a factor.

Most Impressive:

Bryce Cartwright: I want to party with Carty and you should too. I have told it many times but want to again go through the timeline of this bloke. A talent at Penrith, making NSW as 18th man, where he was seen as a game breaker but was never really a starter more so that player to come on and create something from nothing. He then went to Gold Coast after having a tough season or two with Penrith and joined Garth Brennan. Brennan was sacked after a year and a half, Carty's personal life was falling apart from accusations from ex partners, to incidents with his wife to being in papers for wrong reasons. With his career in limbo, talent being wasted and Super League being the only option despite being away from his kids, Cartwright got a one year prove it deal with Parra. Odd signing considering he was not the type of back-rower BA liked. BA prefers tough back-rowers in both defence and attack that free up space on the blind of the halves and can play 80 mins while also being able to fill in the middle. Cartwright was not that, he was a five-eighth in a back-rowers body. 2021 he played ok off the bench as a difference maker but made too many dumb decisions, he had some nice moments then lost the trust of BA late in the year. Got a 2 year extension but 2022 was not much better, injuries and poor defence pushed him down the order, he played in the prelim but limited mins and missed the GF. Come 2023, many here thought well Carty is just a depth signing keep him to incase of injuries and even talk of him moving on early. He started Round 1 to all us surprise and played the full 80. BA had Carty playing as a BA back-rower and has not looked back. 18 runs, only 114 metres, 2 tries, 2 line-breaks, 6 offloads, 4 tackle breaks, 21 tackles and 2 missed. Cartwright went from being labelled soft to putting on harder hits than most in the game. Well done Carty, back home with family, your boys, a coach that believes in you and a fanbase that loves you.

Joey Lussick: Looked rusty in the trial but proved me wrong with a quality performance. Perhaps saw the young whipper snapper Matt Arthur in Cup and thought not so fast. 40/20 was supreme, his movement also created momentum when we were sorely lacking it and only missed one tackle. Hands came on late but we looked off the pace oddly enough. Lussick also put Carty through for his first. Is Lussick a good enough Hooker for us to make top 4? Not relying on him definately.

Morgan Harper: The rest on this list weren't amazing but were good, nobody in this team had a bad game per say. Harper was good in both attack and defence. He had one lapse with the Wilson try where he took some time shifting over which gave Wilson too much space with Simonsson covering the space inside. A wonderful put down for the ice breaker. He looked confident. We do not need Harper to play like Bradman Best, Herbie Farnworth, Stephen Crichton or even Joey Manu. If he can play like Tom Opacic then that is fine for us moving forward. 124 metres off 13 runs, 2 tackle breaks, 7 tackles for 0 missed.

Junior Paulo: He had been reading the papers, podcasts and us on here, as he should be. Paulo set the example and ran for 163 metres off 19 runs. He was busy and off to a good start. BA said he wont be starting off the bench every week but if he can every 4 weeks or so it can work out wonderfully.

Bench rotation: BA seemed to have got it. Nice rotation between Ofahengaue, RCG, Paulo, Hopgood and Matterson in the middle. Even having Cartwright in the middle to incorporate Tuilagi worked out well. If Parra are to be consistent late in the year we need to utilise our bench, no point paying Ofahengaue, Matterson and even Greig decent coin if you are too fixated on RCG and Paulo getting big minutes and being worn down. It worked and he has the luxary to start Ofahengaue, Greig or Matterson each week to change it up and give rests to our middles. Some clubs would pay good money for one good middle, we have 5. 

Short kicking game: Seems Barrett has worked on our short kicking game on the line, a lot of kicks to the back of the in goal for our attackers to chase which i love as it adds a new dimension to our game.

Most Disappointing:

Dylan Brown: He was not awful, not even bad, but in a game where Moses was not 100%, Brown was given the opportunity to take over and let Moses organise from the back. Brown just went with the status quo, even having some odd and suspect decision in attack where he was caught with the ball. When taking over kicking duties he was also shot for time where he needed to be back a bit more or decide what type of kick he needed to play. Brown was never known as a great long kicker but expected better. If Moses is out v Penrith, this is his chance of redemption that he had been preaching all off-season. Against that opponent Brown should have dominated. 

Bailey Simonsson: Again not bad, but i feel he did nothing to cement a spot in the 17 when Sivo returns. 2 errors and brought back those sidewards runs. Defensively i cut him some slack as he trained at Centre all pre-season so not used to the Wing, but still got caught out by Wilson numerous times, beaten by pure speed basically. He backed up nicely for his try but Simonsson needs to show something against Penrith and Manly to take over Harper, unless Harper just goes back to Talakai mode. Blaize Talagi, despite not setting the world on fire, is loved by BA and staff. He will get the nod soon too so Simonsson is on thin ground being off-contract also. Value will go down the less he plays.

Foot to the throat mentality: If there is something that worries me it is the apparent attitude of focusing on bigger games. We do better against bigger teams, more so seems we get bored when winning easily. BA mentioned he wanted us to have foot to the throat mentality, something that has been missing since BA got here in 2014. Saturday i still havent seen it. We could have put 40 on Canterbury. We shut up shop and let Dogs pick-up two tries, had they converted it would have been an 8 point game, leading to panic. No need to put ourselves in that spot. Bigger teams are important as you need to beat them but more so you beat the teams you are expected to beat easily. This mentality costs you an easy game or two during the season. Only one win cost us the 8 last year. BA should demand full 80min performance no matter who. They had an eye on Penrith and didn't need to.

Refereeing: We won, but man Atkins was dreadful. I went with two mates, one a Dogs fan the other Panthers but went for Dogs on the day for fun, even they mentioned that it seemed Atkins hated us without me saying anything before hand. He was dreadful both sides. Same with the bunker. The Cartwright hit on JAC was only penalised cause he hurt him, the arms wrapped it was fine. Had JAC got up not issues. Being whistle happy. We got the win but how this bloke reffed in Origin and GF's before baffles me. 

NSW Cup defence: Nathan Cayless is consistent. Consistently poor as a coach. Yes Canterbury surrended 36 points also but seriously some of the defence efforts were just weak and abysmal. NSW cup showed glimpses, particularly Matt Arthur who showed even at 19 he can match the speed of the big boys, but wish we had someone else in the box. I love Cayless as a legend of the club, he was my first captain supporting the club, but we can do better for our kids.

That is all, overall nothing too dreadful, nothing to incredible. Just meh. It was a fine game of footy but just so happy to be back at CommBank and getting into the routine of NRL again. Australia v New Zealand looks to be in for a great day 4 yet barely watched due to footy being back.

I have faith we will be up on Friday. Winning not so much, but troubling Penrith definately. It seems we had an eye on that game next week so should be up and ready to go. If we do lose i hope it is not a Manly 2018 situation that can derail our season. As for team changes, the main one is Moses. If he is out i think Asi will be in at 6 and Brown to 7. But on top of that, Greig is expected back next week, however i think BA would leave him in Cup for this week at least for two reasons. 1) Some much needed game time he will get at least 45-50mins in Cup, he needs minutes badly. 2) With Moses under injury cloud, if he plays Brendan Hands will be on the bench as cover. Had Moses not hurt his groin I think Greig is back on the bench.

Enjoy your week, 4 more sleeps til game 2. God bless Parramatta and god bless Rugby League.