What a week can do. Going from feeling the season is done to now having hope we can go on a run. It was probably the best performance we had as a team in years, or top 5 best performances in years. This one will be short and sweet in lower part as not a lot was bad on Friday night.

 

Stats: Well we pretty much devoured Souths in every aspect, 56% possession, 78% completions ain't too crash hot yet Souths only had 70%. A big stat is having 388 more metres from only 27 more runs, Each forward besides Davey ran over 100 metres on the night. That is the type of team we can be and see the result of Moses and Brown from that type of game. Only 20 missed tackles showed our intent in defence, as well 18 offloads showed our confidence in the match. 11 errors each, an area we still need to work on, though the referees listened with only conceadeding 1 penalty while receiving 6.

 

Most Impressive: 

Dylan Brown: My man of the match, showed maturity. Only thing left in Brown's development is consistency, once he masters that you could see a Dally M level player. He still only 22 with people, including myself, forgetting how much he has actually achieved at his age, considering majority of 22 year old's in this league at yet to crack 50 games or get a full-time first grade spot. Brown is deceptively strong, he is extremely talented and seems to be trying to get involved more and more. I noticed on Friday he started moving across the field better, instead of sticking to the left side he is now roaming like Moses does. It is obviously a big factor in Barrett's attack that the halves connect through the middle on either side. Moses adapted quickly, now Brown is starting to get going.

Wiremu Greig: There are still people out there who dislike Greig, their reasoning is he is unfit and lazy. If you consider 19 runs for 200 metres lazy then that is your opinion. He is never going to be a Prop who racks up 50-60mins each week, though as a bench impact player he will thrive. He gets better each and every week, i love big Emu. With RCG, Paulo, Ofahengaue and Greig, looks like we finally have a nive quartet of Props in our 17. The main positive is Greig improves slightly each week, he has not hit a wall in his development.

Bailey Simonsson: The confidence a Centre jersey does for Bailey. He has played most of his Eels career on the wing, having only one great game (Canberra 2022), but in each of his games at Centre he has had good to great performances. I put it simply to playing on the left side, like he did at Canberra, but also seems with the way he likes to play in going across field, looking for the one on one defender, is better suited to the game of our centres. He has more room in the Centres. He has gone from not wanting him near the club to happy for him to pick up his option and more so hoping he picks up his option for 2024. His defensive reads and timing are coming along nicely, you can tell he is not trying as hard as a player.

Eels forwards: I mentioned Greig by himself, but the rest of the forward pack, hell Davey included, deserve praise. Ogden and Makatoa off the bench were incredible also. Just a wonderful team effort.

Honorable mentions: The whole team and coaching staff

 

Most disappointing:

We ruined Souths night: How dare we ruin indigenous night for them. It was set up by the media for us to be slaughtered and for the indigenous team in the NRL to rein supreme, we won when it felt like we were not supposed to, even the commentators had to make sure they reiterrated we were meant to be slaughtered. How dare Parramatta.

Commentary: I have mentioned this during the week a lot, though will mention it slightly. The commentary was woeful and quite frankly borderline bias. Though i will say it annoyed me on Get em Onside where Sean Omerod said that it could have been that Latrell and others could have been taking it easy for Origin so they do not get hurt. Ginnane backed us up saying we hammered them, we were good. So Ginnane woke up to himself and supported us, but still people just cannot give up the narrative and come up with excuses as to why Souths lost.

 

That is it not too much wrong in this game, onto NQ which is a danger game. I feel we can go on a long winning streak though it also would not surprise me with a loss either. I see tomorrow's game being like a 24-16 type of affair. Hope i am wrong and it is a thumping but hopefully we have matured as a club to take every game the same.

Enjoy your weekend God bless Parramatta

 

You need to be a member of 1Eyed Eel to add comments!

Join 1Eyed Eel

Votes: 0
Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • Most impressive - Jnr Paulo's aggression. Even when he has played well for us (he hasnt this year), he rarely plays with raw aggression. The hit he put on Murray showed he wanted to hurt Souths. His running and post contact metres were manacing. That's a great development and I hope he keeps it up. 

    Other than that, the whole team. I loved that when they got behind in the second half, they never stopped attacking. They didn't get intimidated into playing conservatively. The offloading, support play and shapes were great. 

    Most dissapointing - nothing, really. I'm not a fan of Russell. I know a lot on here are, but I havnt seen anything from him that makes me excited that he is in the team. He is, however, a better alternative than Dunster. Hope Russell proves me wrong.

    Does anyone know whether Asi has the speed to be trialled on the right wing?  

    • Russel did well to score that first try. He didn't do much wrong after that.

      • Agreed. It was a decent try. He didn't play badly either, no one did last week.

        I'm more judging from what I've seen over the package of games he's played. As I said, hope he starts braining it and proves me wrong. He has decent size and pace, so definitely worth seeing whether he can make that right wing spot his own. I'm just not convinced he's the goods yet. 

        • I am still worried about Russels defence. He arms grabs and gets beaten easily. 

    • Nah Asi wouldn't have the speed for the wing. 

  • Great read, LB.

    Sometimes we get a win that just reminds us why we all love this team & club.

    We can't underestimate how important breaking that hoodoo was, and, we've now beaten the two best teams in the comp. Great for confidence.

    As JBG mentioned, the fact we never stopped attacking was such a positive. We were actually a little ruthless which is completely out of character.

    Now to go on with it.

    One other impressive aspect for me was the refereeing as you mentioned, best I've seen this year. 

     

  • Great blog as usual mate, your contributions here are top shelf as always, thanks for the great read.

    Wiremu is going great imo, still needs to work on his fitness but hes going really well, always been a fan.

    Also think Simmonson has a future in the game and is quietly improving.

    • Simmo is a good one on one tackler. He's strong. His best Parra games are at centre.

    • Hmmmm should have been there from rd 1 after his performances in the final series last year. I have been saying it every week since he finally moved there. 

    • Good call on Simmo, Snake. 
      Looks great at centre, seems so much more confident there. As EA said, don't really understand why he didn't start there.

      Doesn't mind the physicality either, has some intent in his defence. 

       

This reply was deleted.

More stuff to read

Poppa posted a discussion
Lomax is reputably on 800k, I am not sure when his contract expires. No one's going to get him for a bargainWhen his 800 at Saints expires you might!.............he has been a Saints junior and prodigy the whole time, I think its a bit sad when you…
1 minute ago
Cumberland Eel replied to Cʜɪᴇғ -'s discussion Big News On Lomax
"Mick Cronin"
6 minutes ago
Cumberland Eel replied to Cʜɪᴇғ -'s discussion Big News On Lomax
"And the local kebab shop"
7 minutes ago
Cumberland Eel replied to Cʜɪᴇғ -'s discussion Big News On Lomax
"Without condoms"
9 minutes ago
More…