Ok, it's bad we know. Let's move on. Though i will say, the big burning thing on the minds of majority of Eels fans is Brad Arthur and fairly enough. Has he done a good job this year? I mean not really, though the focus of our squad this year was simply saying "He's good at developing players, let's just buy players with potential and we will fill the team with Papali'i's". We got found out when it is 4-5 players BA is to develop as oppose to 1-2. Plus, we have seen with players like Cartwright and Greig that it can take 2-3 years before those players see any improvement under BA. I was and perhaps still back on the bandwagon of sack BA, but upon looking over possible replacements, man it is slim. Getting a coach to succeed in his rookie year like Webster did was a flash in the pan by the Warriors. Cannot expect that to be the same when we hire a young mind. However, i do hope the board bring in some ultimatum's. Bring in a defence coach and new person behind the scenes who knows a thing or two about football. I mentioned Brian Smith before, but someone similar who was in the game for a long time and was a part of recruitment to assist. We have seen BA before, in 2018, get us from being a laughing stock to competitive reletively quickly, though that can be a bad thing too. If he does that again, it could mask the fact of us needing a new voice in the future, missing out on good candidates in the process. Or we could do the same if we grab someone for sake of it as we need one. On the other hand, his comments in the press conference are really concerning, saying he saw effort and fight. Clearly there wasn't, even TCT who are a glass half full entity and BA apologists even admit we gave up, so if they are seeing it why isn't he? Is a defence tactic to get the players on his side? Or is it purely being oblivious? Or giving hope for the squad going into 2024? It is hard as i can see points for and against sacking him; for as his comments and tactics of late are sketchy at best, while against in we could go worse like SK years by not getting the right guy. If we cannot trust the board to get it right with BA and club now, how can we when finding a new coach? Are we all willing to go to 5-10 year plan again? Or we happy for a lean year or two to fix things? He could be pulling our legs too, that press conference is one of the worst i have heard in a few time, no accountability. A big part of us succeeding in 2024 is with accountability on the squad and coaching staff, if he cannot give it then how can we trust him in to get us past this? He sounded like someone who wanted to save his job but his job is not on the line which is so strange. But honestly, i could never imagine him being sacked, if there is ever an apocalypse, three things would survive; Cockroaches, twinkies and Brad Arthur.
Stats:
48% possession and 70% completions, not quite the stats of a winning team, the actual winning team only had 75% completions which is not great either. Easts had 130 more metres on only 10 more runs, so they averaged 13 metres per run in the difference, it seems to be an issue in general that we do not average a lot of metres in our running. Either it is structure, strength or fatigue or all of the above it is an issue. 10 line-breaks to 4 is a damning stat, yet 21 offloads to 13 is one area we were better in and always have been under BA. 15 errors each, yet couldn't capitalise, conceded 5 penalties to 4 though received 4 repeat sets to 1. Though, the elephant in the room, 52 missed tackles and Roosters only having 24. 52??? and the effort and fight was there??? That is pathetic, if it was 52 against Easts, imagine what it would have been against Penrith that night. Just pure head in the sand stuff there from the staff on our incompetence.
Most Impressive:
J'Maine Hopgood: Again, just the bright spot of our dismal season. A future captain, was in an unfamiliar position on the edge and was good. Not amazing but good, though with this teams form not hard to do. Hopgood will only get better after another full pre-season, going from only 9 games on the bench for Penrith to having 33 games overall with most of them starting. Hope he could maybe get into the Australia squad at the end of the year to build his confidence more. We need him to be firing in 2024, lead our forwards.
Clint Gutherson: Wanted to put him here as he tried, he gave his all. 200 metres running, you could see his frustration and honestly i want that from a captain. Unlike Junior 'mute' Paulo.
Wiremu Greig: Another bright spot this season, Greig came into 2023 as someone that i thought has not lived up to what the club had hoped for. 3 games in 2 years and was overtaken by Makatoa and Rodwell easily. Then in pre-season he seemed to still be on the outer with two bench spots available for Props with Ogden and Rodwell starting the first pre-season game. Greig played well and jumped them and got into the 17 in Round 1 never losing his spot. He will go into pre-season with more games under his belt, plus a new 3 year contract. Good on Woody.
Fans: Give them credit for turning up, loyalty and seems some at the club take it for granted. Some players could not even be bothered giving a damn.
Honorable mentions: Nobody
Most Disappointing:
Ryan Matterson: Matto has had a good year, not as good as last year, though overall a good year. But he looked disinterested on Friday. It was poor form. He seems to be the type that needs success to be motivated, that should not be the case for someone on 600k a season. His kick chase was dreadful. Maybe we should have taped a $50 note to the ball and then he would chase it down field before someone else grabs it.
Maika Sivo: Think the quick re-signing for 2 years is looking good in hindsight? Not even the fact he is 31 next year and is slowing down? I would not be surprised if the club try to offload him to Rugby where he could get a decent pay day. Even of late he has not barged over the line, it was the one thing Sivo fans had, yes he is not making metres and defending poor but he still scores tries. He is not even doing the latter any more. He needs a real kick in the arse. The Tedesco hit was stupid to be penalised though still lazy.
Brad Arthur: Well, back onto the band wagon i go, his presser was rubbish, utter crap. For coach in year 10, it was pathetic. More so, due to being so blind in his assumption, even if it was a lie, why protect them it would be more effective if public shamed. Plus i did say on the eve of the North Queensland game, the next fortnight would be big for BA as a coach, it didn't work out, it failed miserably. BA will not be sacked and will see his 11th year in the role, but his seat should be hot. Ultimatums should be given, calls of bringing in a defence coach whether he likes it or not and actual accountability should be brought up in the review. If all this is ignored, the club are not in the space to win at all costs, more concerned with memberships.
Will Penisini: The kid has had a rough month and half. Now is it due to his back-rower letting him down? His winger? Full-time first grade getting to him? Got to remember he is only 21, has played 56 NRL games, not missing a game in two years. The kid also played WC for Tonga, he needs a break. But also, he has beem poor, missing simple tackles also. Hope he gets to 2024 a better player.
Bryce Cartwright missed tackles: 9 missed tackles, a team high. Shouldn't be happening from a back-rower. Considering he had Brown along side him.
Team in general: Attitude is a big part of winning, this lot seem over it and are playing like it. Still in the fight for finals and dish up the month that was. St. George have been out for ages yet try hard still, what is our excuse. Either way BA needs to pull them aside and give some good rounds of the tables and bring forward a new group of leaders, if others do not like it then bad luck, lost that trust after the 2nd half of the year they dished up. Wanna have attitude like 3rd grade players, treat them like it. It was pathetic, being down by 10 with 16 to go and no urgency to get up the field, none. That alone deserved a spray. Pathetic.
Sivo penalty: Why was that penalised? Even Robinson admitted it was an accident and Teddy slipped. Match review committee not even charging him, yet we were still penalised? Just piss poor.
One more week, thank god, it is clear difference of course from one week out from season starting to one week from being over. Unfamiliar territory not being in finals, though just wanna see some fight, get some belief and momentum into 2024. We either go full fledged rebuild or they reboot, can do both but have to do either right. Our juniors, who are being fast tracked, are our chance to reboot fast. I believe kids like Arthur, Guymer, JJBM, Penisini, Lynn are better than the depth we have already, give them a full pre-season and they will get better. That is all we need from them, depth.
As for team changes, no point naming Lane, let him get 100% for 2024. Would you give a few guys a game? I mean sure, could give Betham-Misa a game, Guymer maybe on the bench, AMS a game. But BA might also keep same 17 to let them make up for their poor performances he has done that a bit in the past. Either way, should be prepping for 2024, get some momentum with a big win or performance.
Good save Parramatta, we need it.
Replies
Could've made this shorter.
Most impressive: Nothing.
Most disappointing: Everything.
Nice BEM haha
This game summed the season up for me . I didn't even watch it , nor could I tell you the final score. I was out , chose a bar instead of a pub or club to wet my whistle even though I knew it was on. And the next day I didn't even bother checking to see the damage. I didn't even know if we'd won or lost until after lunch the following day. Just assumed we'd lose due to the attitude I'd seen leading up to it , had zero faith in our big " stars " to beat a Rorters team that'd had an equally poor season, and wrote the season off as done and dusted as far as I'm concerned .
Impressive- me as I didn't watch
Disappointing - Players got paid a couple of hundred K of clubs money for showing up.
J'maine Hopgood is an absolute winner and as soon as there is an opening back at the Panthers, he will be scooting back there ASAP.
Coming from there, he must look around and wonder what the hell he has landed in.
We have picked up a few good players over the years that have really surprised but as I said, go back and read the comments from 5 years ago and we talk about lack of resilience and how the edges cannot read a game. Souths and other teams have been shredding us on the edges for years.
WHY HAS THIS NOT BEEN FIXED ???? We actually do have a defence coach but I think BA is absolutely fixated with a forward dominant game plan that he basically neglects the backs. This is shown in his recruitment- it's all forwards. We could bring in any amount of assistants but BA will never hire an assistant that doesn't understand that BAs power dominated, hit up the guts , forward power plan is the plan to be adhered to. - the man knows absolutely nothing else.
You know the most disappointing thing? We will probably be talking about the same things, the same problems, the same tactics and the same excuses in his 15th year or his 20th year. The club is 100% rusted on with BA and unless there is some sort of coup or we get a HOF who is willing to make a change , we may as well get used to it.