I thought I’d put together a summary of all my thoughts and observations. I’ve said most of these things before and excuse the ridiculously long post but this is my coping mechanism :-)
1. Speed at the back
Parramatta is attempting to play a structured game of football, without the ability to use the simplest, most effective play in the game. That of course, involves creating space out wide and using a very fast fullback to use their speed to create an extra man or go through a hole. Exactly, like you saw Barba do tonight. Melbourne with Slater, Manly with Stewart and Dragons with Boyd have all used this play as their staple play. If you do it right, and your fullback is fast enough you simply can’t stop it. Put simply, it has to be in every team’s kit bag. Marmin Barba is the only player in the club with this kind of speed - he has been NYC’s best week-in, week-out and while he’s going to get pounded at NRL, he strikes me as a kid who will just bounce straight back up
2. Height in the air
If the fullback interjecting himself into the backline is the staple set play of the NRL, the staple cheap try comes from the cross-field kick to a leaping winger. I found it astounding that we could not test our Steve Turner ONCE with this tactic. You seldom get a bad result from this kick. Either the opposition catching it and are trapped inside their 5 metres or you get a repeat set. And it’s probably Dan Mortimer’s pet kick. We have to use this and either aim for Joel Reddy or bring Atkins into the side.
3. Defence
Post-game Stephen Kearney again expressed his disappointment with the defence but, as other folk have said, when you have the combinations in defence that we’re expecting to defend attacking players like Idris and Barba they just have no hope. Our halves are liability because they are too small, Horo is a liability because he can be a liability, Loko is a liability because he’s young, Etu is a liability because he’s got ordinary technique and can get lost, etc. Another issue with our halves is they need to protection defensively, particularly Morts. So when you choose two halves who are always going to be vulnerable against bigger players you need very strong defensive players around them. But we only have one centre who can carry themselves in both attack and defence. Jarryd Hayne is an exceptional defender at six and would help Loko in defence immeasurably.
4. Joel Reddy
Joel Reddy’s strength is his hole running. I had very high hopes that our structured attack would really see Joel come into his home from an attacking point of view. I don’t think I can remember a single play that has used this facet of Joel’s game. Why? All of our attack being based around Jarryd and he’s hitting the fringes and either running himself or using a cut-out ball to the winger. Again, if Jarryd plays a man in, with a second rower on his immediate outside and not the centre, it will help to bring both of our centres into the game.
5. Carting the ball up
A positive here. Etu did a great job in carting in the ball up, making good metres and getting pretty quick play-the-balls away. Atkins did ok in this regard as well the week prior, so this has proved to be less of an issue for us this year than I was expecting. My only issue with having Barba at the back is it only gives you one strong runner of the ball from the back three.
6. Support play
Again, our use of Jarryd as a psuedo-pivot means we have no traditional support player. We showed some nice structure in moving the ball forward up the park through the forwards, and I think the Moimoi/Mannah combination has showed we can make real in-roads up the middle and you have to take advantage of that with the ability to throw a ball inside or a short-ball to a support player steaming through from the back. Jarryd has never been a great support player and he gets followed whenever we set up for an inside ball. Again, another reason to move him to six and have either Burt or Barba at the back.
7. Kicking
Really this is the be-all and end-all for Parramatta. We will not be successful unless we get kicks away that earn repeat sets or sustain pressure. Kearney indicated post-match that he’d seen that his halves can delivery on their kicking in a couple of matches this season but Robson’s and Mortimer’s weaknesses are that their kicking is fine when the side is travelling well but it is woeful as soon as they are under pressure or have less time. Subsequently, as soon as we get behind or momentum starts going the other way, we struggle because the kicking game amplifies the trend. I see it as somewhat naive of Kearney to expect that this is something that a “bit more practice” can turn-around. Our halves can’t be excused for being sub-standard in this part of their game, and to my mind if Hayne is available one of them has to pay the price. Hayne should do all long-kicking
8. Props
Our starting forwards were absolutely wonderful against the Dogs. Indeed, I would suggest that was the best roll I can remember the Parramatta forwards ever achieving. We absolutely steam-rolled our way up the park and both Mannah and Moimoi were brilliant, working off McGuire’s nice dummy half work and
9. McGuire really is a very good dummy half and he can take a lot of credit for the afore-mentioned roll forward, however we need an interchange dummy half. Ant Mitchell clearly got punished for a sub-standard game last week, but his go is as an interchange half and I really don’t understand the logic of using two interchange second-rowers who play relatively few minutes when neither are impact forwards. We are missing Matt Keating, who based on the form he showed the night he got injured would stop the momentum loss we have when McGuire is missing.
10. Carl Webb
It’s easy to put down the change in momentum, to the Hayne incident but it’s not a coincidence that it also happened to be not long after Fuifui left the field and Mannah had been on the field a long time. Carl Webb only needs to play ten minutes either side of half way and if he is fit, it’s another strange selection decision from Kearney given he was praised roundly for his performance against the Cowboys. One can only wonder if there is some kind of discipline issue because its pretty difficult to explain him not being in the side any other way. Mitchell Allgood at this stage of his career is a great prop to call on when one of first four props are injured, but he can’t dent the defence like Webb.
11. Justin Horo
What has happened to Justin Horo? Where was the player who against New Zealand was simply everywhere. Who was regularly busting tackles, was aggressive and who was looking like the complete second rower. He is clearly out of form, yet he seemed to be our go-to-man tonight. He and Lasalo play too similar a game to both be on the park at the same time in my mind. Both could do with a boost in their aggression levels. Second row looked like being our strength but quite frankly aside from Lasalo and Hindmarsh in defence, none have impressed and Shackleton looks an out-and-out prop this year - I don’t think he has the mobility to play second row.
12. Billy Rogers
Rogers is out-of-place unless you fully expect to be going into the final 20 minutes with a six point lead and you need to call on some fresh legs to go out and do some effective defensive work. He’s an out-and-out defensive player, who provides a pack that already contains the defensively-oriented Ben Smith and Billy Rogers, very little value. If Hindmarsh gets injured, then by all means call Rogers into the side but that should be his role in this roster (and even then I’d go for Rory Brien as my first choice).
13. Patrick O’Hanlon
For me, Pat O’Hanlon is the perfect bench player for this side and he would absolutely thrive running off Jarryd Hayne’s shoulder. He can hit a short ball, and palm off a defender as well as being able to get an off-load away. He’d give Parramatta that Ben Creagh-style of player who can draw in the defence because he represents a constant attacking threat.
IN SUMMARY: Parramatta solves half of their problems by moving Jarryd Hayne to six. It strengthens their defence, and allows them to have far more variety in attack by giving them a counter-point option from the back. Our halfback needs to be responsible and accountable for tactical kicking and failure to executive on this front needs to be punished. Our back-rowers need to be better balanced and represent a greater attacking threat, particularly off the bench. I believe Kearney has the foundation for a successful game, but he’s using all the wrong pieces. A culture of hard-work and discipline is admirable, but he also needs to demand that his players execute on their responsibilities.
You need to be a member of 1Eyed Eel to add comments!
Replies
i can see sk making changes after round 21 like ando last year too damm late.
last year we had good defence didnt we?
Agree with most of this. Especially about the halves: But also especially about second-rowers. We are missing the blockbusting Horo. Remember Zeb Taia? I saw him carve them up running fast hard and wide into gaps, smashing them in defence, getting nice offloads away...of course it galled me he was doing it for the Kinghts instead of the Eels!!! We don't have anyone doing that on a regular basis. Could do with Horo getting back to form, would help a lot.
You can't expect to get different results by doing the same thing, it's one of my teaching philosophies with my guitar students. If it isn't working there are 2 things you need to do.......a) some practice for a week or 2 or b) look at what your doing and make some changes in your technique etc
I know from experience that flogging a dead horse = frustration
I hope Kearney makes some good calls.....
Thanks Phil
Some of this I agree with some I don't.
1) Agree we need our props to get over the gain line and Mannah and Fui can do this. Agree we need Carl Webb even for 10 minutes. Agree Shacks is lost at prop. Need to be in the 11 or 12 or no spot
2) Side can only fit one of Billy Rogers, Ben Smith or Horo in the 17. None of them have a running game. I would be tempted to axe Horo and Smith and give Rogers a start in the 13 aka Dallas Johnson which is why SK grabbed him.
So Id be playing Mannah McGuire MoiMoi Hindy Lassalo Rogers with Webb Shacks and OHanlon as the forward rotation
As for Hayne to 6 I just don't agree. His passing game is not gentle. He fires rockets that drift forward and the opposition will run at him in the defensive line. He also has sleepy periods in games and you cant do this at 6. I am also yet to see him fire his team mates up or play the support game we need at 6. Leave him at 1 and let him drift in like he does now.
That said Mortimer has had enough chances. He is not fast or good with the ball aka Lockyer or Benji and lacks bulk aka Bird or Anasta. Gone for mine.
My backline would be Gardner Graham Lyon Tonga Wolfman Maloney Hodgkinson
funny Tony, after the disappointment last night
Look people, where do our points come from? If JH doesn't do the plane and score or fire off a no look special to an outside player who can actually catch the ball (cough cough Etu), we have no other point of attack.
We were looking so good until the brain backfire from the plane. Hayne off, our only attacking point is gooooonnne, Hindy off: our cover; scramble; clean-up; last minute try saving defensive genius is gooooonne. We just don't have the points in us to play 7 aside RL (ok ok 11 a side but you get the idea).
We even had some second phase play in those early minutes.
We need more creative players, we can't have a team of workers, we need to balance the side with some more creative players. If Marmin is knee high to a grasshopper and as light as Fui's left thigh well so be it, lets see him do the Barber jig and step and create something. What have we got to lose?
I'm so frustrated right now, Phil your coping mechanism hasn't helped me, its just made me revisit our failings, its too early to drink, it's pissing down outside so no bike ride, aghh I may go kick my dogs.
Thanks for a great blog Phil.
I'm still not at a point where I am ready to comment on the game - but as per usual I enjoyed your excellent analysis.
Thanks. : )
Just don't eat any chocolate MB.
Remember, body is a temple.
Agree with the points with Hayne. I think was actually poor last night in a way because he let his ego get involved and he drifted out of the game.
I don't like hearing that it is a good thing that Hayne be allowed to come in and out of games from fullback. It isn't a good thing that the best player in the game drift out of a game! If it were me I would be giving him more responsibility putting the 6 on his back and say you're the man for 80 minutes.
Also agree that we are not supporting through the middle. That is what I thought we put experienced guys like Walker for but he played reggies.
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
of 7 Next