After the announcement of a new assistant with the added incentive that BA is 99% certain to stay on for 2023, it was a good way to celebrate Barrett's hiring against the team that shoved him to the curve (not saying it was something they shouldn't have done though). It was a wonderful win, though not our best performance of the year, i still have round 9 or round 15 in that regard, but it was still a better performance than Souths for sure. We never seemed to have gotten out of second gear as the tries weren't as flashy as say against the Roosters in round 15, but still got the job done.
Not too much to get into, so let's just get into the stats. 54% possession is a massive key to our 42 points, though 73% completion is not. That is one area we should improve on and could have gotten 60 if our completions were much better. We had 12 more runs than Canterbury, making 349 more metres in those 12 runs dominating the middle. 30 tackle breaks to 13, 10 line-breaks to 4 is what a top 8 or better yet a top 5 team should do to a bottom 4 team. 16 offloards each as a lot of Canterbury's came from late in first half when they got a roll on. 13 missed tackles to their 30 showed how little impact Pangai Junior and Thompson had in their returns, side note i thought Canterbury would have been better suited having Pangai Junior come off the bench but started him to get a quick early start. We conceaded more penalties, 5 to 4, and had 14 errors to their 11 which is not good enough. Now it is probably a game to have those errors in there as we never had to get out of second gear and let our talent take over but still not good enough. Look at the stats and besides big ones like possession and completion rate you would think it was a close match up, yet we just capitalised our chances better.
Most Impressive:
Dylan Brown: My man of the match. My fear moving forward with Brown is this "Is he only playing well due to his contract is set to be negotiated?" Brown has Dally M winning talent, he can be an X-factor. He had some poor plays with a few wayward passes, but didn't affect his confidence. Scoring a double while setting up two himself. Added with a line-break, two line-break assists, 20 tackles and an offload. It was a well-rounded performance by Brown. Only being 22 is scary also, going away for a WC will make him better, just hope we can get a deal done and he can be an Eel for life, with hesitation that he may fall into Ponga mode of playing cause he is good at the sport not cause he loves it. He has god given talent, hope he doesn't waste it.
Mitchell Moses: Welcome return for Moses, who i believe will not be leaving CommBank anytime soon as this is his team. He took a little time getting comfortable, Brown took the reins for a little bit then Moses came out of his shell after the Penisini try. Two try assists, three tackle breaks and two line-break assists. A welcome return, though i think he will be put on ice V Melbourne unless we can make 4th, if Melbourne beat Easts then Moses will be rested as JA comes in for round 25.
Isaiah Papli'i: God i hope we actually do get Madge to keep Papa. A few off weeks and the media noise has died down for a little bit and Papa is back in business. Only 60mins as he was given a spell when the game was out of reach. 156 metres from 14 runs, 4 tackle breaks, a line-break and line-break assist.
Tom Opacic: I said out loud at the ground when he made a try saving tackle "Why didn't keep him for cheaper coin than what we paid Simonsson?" Looks like a bit of a error there by Parramatta not keep Tommy boy but what can you do. One thing about Opacic i will say to Hull KR fans is you know what you are going to get from Opacic, 110% each and every week. 132 metres running, 7 tackle-breaks, 18 tackles and a try. Well done Tommy boy, finding a home with Waqa on a wing in time for semi's. Wonder how Simonsson is feeling, with Dunster also breathing down his neck next year.
Honorable mentions: Everyone else practically.
Most Disappointing:
Getting to 50: Foot on the throat was there but we could have gotten to 50 or even 60, make a statement. Irrelevant as we got the win but still. Barrett coming in could help our attacking structure, though we still have minimum another 3 games of Murphy and Carr so let it play out.
Moses goal kicking: Again a nitpick but wow he can be hot and cold as a goal kicker, how will he go in bigger moments? Added to that, this bastard cost me a multi in that i had Parra head to head, Parra 13+, -16.5 line, Sivo to score and Moses to score. Thanks Mitchell.
That's it, from we are missing the 8 to we can make the 4. What a fortnight of league we have for remainder of the year, with 4 teams vying for 3 spots with those teams playing against each other some of the time. For us, i can see a 5th place finish, versing either Brisbane or Canberra. Now you watch us getting 5th and playing Roosters or Souths hahaha. I think a home semi for week one is all but sown up which is great, 5th place is better than last year but a prelim is where we need to finish for it to be an improvement heading into 2023.
Side note, if we do play Brisbane week 1 it'll be the same as 2019, where we finished 5th and they finished 8th, we played them in round 24 at Suncorp, in 2022 we played them in Round 24 at Suncorp. 2019 we played Melbourne in Melbourne in week 2, this year if Melbourne finish 4th and lose week 1 and we win week 1 we will play Melbourne in Melbourne in week 2. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!!!!!
Until next time, god bless Parramatta.
Replies
Still think you are obsessed with Stat's LB
Do you look at the game and then the stats and make up your mind, or do you watch the game foremost and then look at the stats as an after thought.
Let's see some physcology from you LB, what are they thinking, what does it mean? were the stats misleading this week.
Moses goal kicking he got 5 out of 8 and two hit the posts from the side line......hmmm he kicked a very important goal to win earlier this season.... the very best have off nights....I like to look at averages and hope he misses a couple when we win by forty but none when we win by 2.
Simmonsson and Opie's comparison was hardly fair, Opie had an F in his previous game and quiet simply he is a back up centre and never a walkon starting centre......I like Opie he is honest as the day is long, but we can do better or if we had two really good and fast wingers and he was capable of setting them up with silkie passes, it would be different.
I look at stats as a fascinating point to seeing 42-6 and seeing stats as level in majority of the categories yet still dominated.
Not saying Opacic is a world beater but has done better in the team then Simonsson has.
Not sure what kick you are referring to Poppa.
Ive done this all year every week and mention stats now? Hahahaha you know what to expect as I do it every post?
I mentioned the stats but still mentioned it was a wonderful performance, but let's be fair if we had 75% or completions agains Souths or Roosters for example we wouldn't get close to 20 points.
I agree I think Opacic is a very good centre. I think Arthur undervalued him to be honest and I would have retained him. We are a better side and we look a lot more assured defensively on that edge with Opacic there. Centre play is really about being quick between the ears more than anything else. That's why I never rated Waqa Blake there, he has a low footy IQ it's obvious. Sivo and Blake though are a powerful wing combination. Like a bit of a throwback to Sailor and Tuquiri
Good blog LB .. can't disagree with much of that. Add Lane to most impressive. Also I agree on Opacic, he's a loss. Very solid player and allows Blake to play on the wing making for an overall better team. I still worry BA will throw a curveball and bring Blake back into the centres.
For the least impressive rewatch the last 15 with an eye on Pensini. He had some astoundingly poor efforts. Mitch Moses came from 20 metre behind him for that try saver. Some of his runs he submitted with no effort and some other defensive plays he was poor.
I kind of hope he was playing injured, if he's not, that was piss poor. He could also be unfit, who knows, he's one to keep an eye on.
Pensini looked fucking awesome last year and now he's un-inspiring.
Yeah he is hey. I'm thinking/hoping it might just be second year syndrome. He is very young. Surely that natural ability hasn't just vanished. Maybe another off season and another year of maturing will do him wonders. I've still got high hopes.
Could be his body getting used to week in week out footy, just turned 20 it is tough for a kid that age to get used to the speed and the knocks in the top level.
I reckon he may be playing with low confidence on the basis of not meeting his own standards. He was probably accepting the accolades and the like last year and thought this is easy....no criticism, probably summarises what Kram said about second year.
Technically he is a very good player, I didn't notice those things that Gaz did but I feel he was carrying something at the end of that game.
Finally if he is going to live up to his potential he needs to find about 2 yards of pace, I would like to see us send a squad of players across to the US (think Mitchell's teacher) along with a couple of sprint trainers with a view to see their technique's improve. The sprint trainers could then work with all our juniors as well when they come back.
Pace and athleticism is the biggest negative that Parra's football teams lack.....imagine being able to put 2/3 metres on Sivo, technically he is not a bad footballer, just slow!
Poppa for the hundredth time Sivo isn't as slow as you think he is you don't score 65 tries in 70 games if you are slow. He scored down a narrow sideline against the dogs with basically not a hand laid on him that's not slow. You can't generally just put that much speed on players. You can improve sprint technique somewhat but I'm sure theyalready work on that. Mitchell was just as fast before he went to the US which was for rehab purposes not to work on sprint training.
Pace is not everything Poppa. Penisini isn't lightening fast and never will be but he's going to be a very good centre
I found Penisini actually playing better than his prior month to two months of footy. He went through a rough slump of confidence, BA stuck by him and his played every game so far this year. He has only played 27 NRL games to this point, just turned 20, he will be fine. He played 5 games last year with no fear.