Eels Blogs

It is amazing what a week can do, it could even move form to a side where BA will for sure save his job. I still hold the jury out until the end of the season until i pass judgement on his job status. Anyway there was a feeling all week, we were going to up and Penrith were due a loss, i honestly did not think we could win it but thought a good performance would be fair enough and we got that plus more. 55% possession was the factor in the win, coming from the first prodominatley. Though 83% completions was a bit of an eye sore considering Penrith's 91% completion percentage with only 12 men. Even with less men Penrith still showed quality with having 40 less runs and 200 metres less than us, with 40 more runs with 10 metres per run 400 metres should have been the target. Other stats werent as lop sided but won by us, 29 tackle breaks to their 21, 7 line breaks to their 5, 18 offloads to their 6 is a massive stat, 21 missed tackles to their 29 and only 8 ineffective tackles to their 31, that would be thanks to some fatigue. 8 errors to their 4 is poor, considering there was no reason to be really pushing any passes or going to over the top with our attack having an extra man and them getting fatigued more. we conceaded one less penalty to them in what was a sort of whistle happy affair by Todd Smith.

I said this on the weekend and still stand by it, our second half mentality, though being 50/50 by media personalities, was simply not up to the standard in what we should be. Paul Gallen was discussing it and said how often do you see teams put 50 or 60 on a team? very rarely, so do it to a team who are the premiers is a tough ask in general, to which Josh Morris stated "You also do not see teams play 60 mins with 12 players either" and that is a good call by Morris. I would add to that too by saying you also don't see a team score 30 points in the first half often, so Gal be considerate when we ask for a please explain to their second half mentality as we our foot on their throat and instead of doing what we did which is release a little and as long as they stay down til the cops are here then great, we should have went further and had them pass out to avoid them getting away. Penrith's second half was incredible considering, there steadied the game and won the second half 6-4. Granted scoring 50-60 points overall is a big ask, but scoring 4 when a team has 12 for the entire half? Yeah not sure about that, where we are in form and on the table we could have made a statement, we did with the win but some will be saying it is a fluke or Cleary was out or both. We were up before Cleary went off, would they of chased us down? We will never know though it would have been close, had we had the same second half with Cleary on we would have been ran down. One thing is for sure, those who say the squad is playing to their potential in prior weeks, well you are way off nothing wrong with this squad in terms of talent at all, stop trying to pump BA's chest by saying they are overachieving when simply not true, but BA deserves credit.

Most Impressive: 

Brad Arthur: Credit where credit is due he got them up, they responded. Now was it for BA or themselves or both? Well stay tuned til we end our season to find out, but for what it is worth BA deserves credit for getting us up to beat the reigning premiers twice in one year. As RCG said to Nathan "That chin can cut bread" Cleary "Parra own you". Yes, yes they do RCG.

Mitchell Moses: My man of the match with two 40/20's. Including a massive kick over the head of Origin winger To'o. Moses steadied us around the park nicely and 13 runs for 101 metres capped off a nice display from Moses, who is having quite the year and still is a very underappreciated player in this league.

Reed Mahoney: Nice game from Judas. Reed scored two nice tries and was running a muck around the ruck. His kicking was even a lot better.

Isaiah Papali'i: He has realised the grass at Kellyville is a lot more greener than at Concord, hopefully Kellyville will be his home moving forward. 156 metres, 6 tackle breaks, 34 tackles, 3 offloads and a try that the AFL themselves will be enquiring about him for the future. Ice looks happy, now his intentions are out in the open he looks happier and hoping a deal can come across where he is in Parra for future years.

RCG and Paulo: The bash bros, set the tone early. RCG was on a mission in order to get back at Cleary and the gang for his Origin snub, with 160 and 187 metres, RCG and Paulo were wonderful in winning the middle earlier on. That is where we needed to win, the middle with JFH, Leota and Yeo.

Todd Smith sending off the golden boy: It was a massive call, it was a brave call but it was the right call. Todd Smith, though very early into his refereeing career, reffing one of the biggest games of his career made a decision that some claimed ruined what could have been a classic. But player safety is more important than a great match, there are even Penrith fans i know justifying it saying in the heat of the moment those things happen. Cleary knew better, he has been in enough big games. Am i saying he did that tackle on purpose? No, but he would have known the risks of getting into that position.

Honourable mentions: Lane, Matterson, Blake, Gutho.

Most Disappointing: 

The bench: More so the amount of minutes for the bench, as Makatoa only got 13 minutes. For a player who has played all 19 games so far in the season, only getting 13 minutes is not a good sign. I like Maka, being bias towards the fact i have met him in person before he was even close to playing FG and him being a nice person, i am happy for him. However, Makatoa has not done too much to suggest he is worthy of anything more than being a squad player, hanging around and playing when there are injuries or suspensions. He is hitting 30, so Makatoa's future with us may not go past his current deal in 2024, he will be a nice player for the next 2 seasons to have in the background but him only getting 13 minutes is a sign of change coming.

The first half: Not for the reasons you might think, it is disappointing that we can play that good, where is that all year? Had we played like that more often we would've been sitting in the top 4 and BA will be extending again hahah. It is frustrating as they demonstrate how talented of a squad they actually are.

The second half: As mentioned above, we needed to keep going with our first half, even playing half as good as the first half would have landed an extra two or so tries. It was not good enough in my opinion, a win is a win and against good opposition and should be credited but it we were good enough to keep going.

That is it for another week, Manly next and we are $1.95 underdogs, more likely due to Moses being out. As for changes, Moses out JA in and that is about it, unless we get a late inclusion from August 1 window which i doubt, if Taupau signs then he will go in for Makatoa or Cartwright i believe. Tough to see what Manly team comes with jersey gate, are they committed or divided, we will find out.

Next week my list will be up much later than prior weeks as i have my wedding on Saturday and having a few days to unwind from work and life. I may be commenting on some posts during that, especially if it is a tough week for the Eels, but i wont be writing anything big or massive like this.