Eels Blogs

5 in a row, first time we have done that since round 6-10 2021. What a wonderful sight to accumilate 14 points in 7 weeks, pushing us into the 8 with some comfort, we are at a point where we could afford a loss and stay in the 8. But top 4 is still a bit of sudden death for us, where we need to stay on point. Main thing i will say is looking at the 2nd half, i would rather us have flaws overall then be 100% perfect, we want our best towards the end of the year, as long as we get the win who cares that we played average. Only thing is we are coming up to the tough part of the draw, we are leaving a zone of games where we were listed as 'should win' to now being 50/50. Out of the remaining 8 i feel we need to win 6 to get into top 4, out of the last 8 i believe only 2 of them are definate 'should wins'; Round 20 v Gold Coast and Round 23 v St. George Illawarra. Round 21 v North Queensland now moves into a 50/50 due to being in Townsville and their recent form, plus they would be more desperate to get into the 8. Then we have to travel to Melbourne 6 days later, fortnight after heading back up Brisbane in Round 24. Would not getting 2 or 3 extra wins in the first 11 weeks hurt? I mean when we lost to Canberra in round 11, we said season is gone, then we beat Souths and we said we have another 4 games that are winnable we need to win each of them. Not only did we win, we won with no real issues. So we can win 7 out of the last 9. Finally, Dylan Brown i feel is important to achieving that, Asi is great at the moment but of course Brown is a better player. I think we can win a comp with Asi at 6 but we will have a lot less issues if Brown is at 6. Let's hope he is able to be named against the Warriors, with Moses more likely in Origin III we need another half for the Warriors, the in form team in the competition. 

Stats: 59% possession represents the scoreline, hands down dominant. 81% possession is a tad disappointing, mainly on the provision that towards the end of the half we had completed 19/20 sets, though they only had 63% so could be worse. We tried to hard in the second half, compared to the first where it was seemless. We had nearly 700 more metres running on 79 more runs. 12 line-breaks to their 3, only 24 missed tackles though they had 26 which is incredibly surprising considering they made roughly 100 more tackles than us. 13 offloads to their 4, 9 errors to their 12 and we conceaded 3 penalties to their 2.  Overall it is impressive we scored 8 tries when they only missed 26 tackles, shows how simple we got our offloads but our discipline with the ball and in defence is still an issue, though i would rather us have some issues to fix with still 8 weeks left.

Most Impressive:

Brad Arthur: We all laughed at him, as he mentioned in a presser, when he said we had a better start to 2023 than 2022. Now who is laughing, he has made this 2023 squad better than 2022. If you put the starting 17 from 2022 against this 17, i think 2023 wins, not by much but still win. Not sure if it is GF made the squad battle hardened but out of 16 games we have only had 2 awful performances, only 2 games where i thought we didn't have a chance to win. BA has done the right things with this squad. Not persevering with players that should not be there, taking risks on players like Hands and Moretti, brought in assistants that improve our strengths and weaknesses in Barrett and Antonelli. He has also directed the media well and handeled the loss of Brown.. Kudos to BA for the last 7 weeks he has done it properly.

Trent Barrett: Give the man some props other than being the sexiest man in league, his shirts are tighter than Ryan Matterson when asked to shout the boys some beers. I said to people give him time to let his attacking shapes and structures come into fruition. It has clicked, ever since Souths. Relying on 2nd phase play with Cartwright being his main source of attack with Moses. Our attack also is helped by Hopgood through the middle, but Barrett has not gone the route of trying to turn us into the Panthers. He has added elements with Hopgood used as a link man like Yeo and x plays with our back rowers. But he has leaned on the strengths of Moses and Gutherson, i.e. Hands being used to feed them the ball when needed. Barrett has done a magnificent job and even better i doubt he will ever be a head coach again so we have no concerns of losing him to a coaching gig anytime soon.

J'Maine Hopgood: If we can build Scotty Boland a statue at the MCG, we can do the same for Hopgood at CommBank. The bloke made Bromwich, Nikorima and Katoa look like Jersey Flegg kids trying to understand their purpose in life, with that run they definately reconsidered where their life was heading. The bloke is a rich man's Isaah Yeo, he can be better definately. The guy can even spin a ball at dummy half better than Hands at times. I know i am geeking out and going over the top, but i lost my favourite player in Mahoney and was heartbroken like a nerd asking a cheerleader to the formal. I need a new favourite player and Hoppy is that bloke. Imagine him after being in the Origin arena, the confidence and experience he will gain. Buy of the year, Reece Walsh no thank you.

Bryce Cartwright: Resurrected and causing havoc. This is a Bryce Penrith thought they would get when he was 21-22. BA has worked magic and gotten not only a capable first grader who i think is a top 10 back-rower in the game right now. 4 offloads leading to 3 tries. Yes i want to party with Carty.

Bailey Simonsson: Took up his option and showed his excitement with another 200 metre performance and a try. Just working well and hard, though could have given a pass to Sivo in the second half at one point.

Honourable mentions: Moses, Paulo, Davey.

Most Disappointing:

Maika Sivo: When you have each of your 1-7 make 100 metres running bar 1, it is a top effort, til you realise that 1 is a 105kg Fijian winger who has played 99 NRL games and we favour his side. 77 metres running, like how. If it was Sean Russell i would be like fair enough, he is young and quite light. Sivo though there is no excuse. He needs to start being a 150-200 metre winger, he has the potential to be. He does not put his body on the line at all. Coming up against the Warriors with no Moses, we need all hands on deck that includes Sivo.

Fox League commentary: You know it was a good week for the Eels when the fox commentary is the second worst thing of the week. Andrew Voss, the most overrated commentator in this game, was biased plus. Not sure if it was because the Dolphins were in a poor run of form and he needed to push the agenda of liking the Dolphins, or a big promotion for Sunshine Coast but the first 10 minutes of the commentary was about the Dolphins, about their influence, about Hamiso Tabui-Fidow being popular. When Hammer scored his second try on a break away run, you would think the Dolphins were up by 20, instead they were behind by around 30 points. Captain's challenge they called it was clear they would lose it yet Vossy constantly tried to say this and that in order for it to be in their favour. Again, it reminded me a bit of the Souths game, all the talk was around them it was their game, first game in Sunshine Coast where the area had an actual team to support, promoting the team and they get embarrassed pretty much, it went against the script. When the Dolphins collected a few consilation tries they were acted as if Bennett invented sliced bread. It was pathetic. I still stand by the Ginnane is my favourite commentator hands down, but one of the most underrated and fair commentators around is Warren Smith, wish he got more games like this than Vossy who is to busy at times being a rugby league encyclopedia/journalist than a play by play commentator.

Joe Ofahengaue: He will get there, but not sure if it is taking it easy on his calf or just understanding the team and how we play but his runs leave a lot to be desired. I trust BA getting him back to Origin standard he was at Brisbane but man he is not the 3rd Prop in our rotation at the moment, an argument could be made that he misses out on a 17 spot from Ogden and Makatoa if not careful. I think he should stay in 17 as he will come good.

NSW cup: My lord, Cayless is the black sheep of the coaching staff. If you wanted a legend to coach this team, bring in Luke Burt the bloke is doing wonders with Burleigh in Q Cup. Cayless has never succeeded as a coach wherever he has gone. Yes a bit of his squad has been taken away, but even the players he did have like Ogden and Hands have performed so much better in first grade. The worst defence in the competition. Thankfully the depth seems to perform better when in first grade anyway but Cayless needs to be removed ASAP. 

50 points: How in the flying f*** do you not score 50 points at least when putting on 42 in the first half? Now in the past, it used to be a team that won the comp also scored 50 points during the year in a game. Of late that stat has faultered with Penrith last year particularly. So the stat analysts that stat is not gospel thankfully but seriously. It is hard not to take the foot off pedal i understand and the win was there anyway but i would have at least like to have seen 50. Against a team like Melbourne or Penrith you would be ran down if you zone out. It is as if we were bored leading by 38, we tried things we shouldn't. As BA mentioned in past we need to play boring, that is what we needed in the second half.

Now we can rest easy knowing we have another 2 points and enjoy the week of footy. During the week there are a few teams we would like to win in order to improve our position on the ladder. Firstly, St. George Illawarra beating Cronulla. Secondly, this one is a hard one as Canberra are 2 points ahead while Gold Coast are equal to us. I guess Gold Coast we could cheer for to jump Canberra and we verse GC 2 weeks after. But then again you want to jump teams below you as much as possible. Souths v Warriors is a hard one too as Souths are equal to us, yet the Warriors are two points above us and we play the Warriors next week. So we either jump Souths or take the chance of beating the Warriors and jumping them two points clear. Wouldn't mind Melbourne and Brisbane losing so we can get closer to them on points.

As for team changes; Lane will be back so he will start, will it be Davey or Cartwright to miss out. I think Davey more so since he has played 55 mins each of the last two games, also he has played on the left side. Davey to the bench. Paulo and Moses out for Origin, so Asi into 7 and Matterson to 6, Ogden to prop. Meaning the bench could be Davey, Ofahengaue, Moretti and Makatoa. If Brown is free to play due revelations in his court appearance, Matterson to the bench and Moretti out.

Enjoy your week, god bless Parramatta.