Eels Blogs

I'll start this off my requesting you all take a good deep breath, in.... hold... out. In... hold... out.

Ok, how do you feel? Good? Excellent.

There have been a lot of doomsayers, naysayers, worry-wart, prophet of Doom and Cassandra's - look, I understand. We heard a lot of talk about our pre-season, how positive everything was. End of last season was a beacon of possibility, as was the first two rounds. Then everything came crashing down in round two. 65 minutes of woeful possession, errors and penalties. Something that needs to be highlighted here was the almost instantaneous back lash on Gutherson. I'd hate to think where our points came from in that early 15 minutes if not for him.

This trend has all but continued across multiple different players being the "issue" as to why we lost to the Sharks and the Raiders. I think the sad part about this, is very few people actually nailed it. A lot of people around here are happy to jump on the hate train, blog posted about Gutho? Let's bag him. Kaysa, bag him. Beau Scott? Bag him. Here's the thing, we have lost the games for specific reasons and by no means the fault of just one player. Which I'd say about 65% of this site seems to think is Gutherson.

TItans vs Eels

Started this match dominant, the Titans looked lost, crushed by the pressure we amounted in our defensive sets and in our attacking runs. This saw us easily carve to an early lead generated off the back of Gutherson. What changed? Errors, and lots of them. We lost that game purely off the back of some shocking ball control in our danger area. Gutherson was blamed. You can't expect Gutherson to win a game when your forwards (and even uncharacteristically Semi) were dropping the ball, 20, 15 and even 5 metres out from our own line. On the rare occassion we actually finished a set it was on our own 40m line because our forwards just weren't doing much. All Titans points came off the back of our errors. Would we have won had we played like we did against the Dragons and Manly, 100% yes.

Sharks vs Eels
The reigning premiers, they're a team that do an impeccable job at applying defensive pressure, forcing us into uncomfortable positions and suffocating teams. Which is exactly what they did, although we helped them do it by once again having a replication of the previous week. Weak ball control, multitudes of unforced errors in crucial field position and never really being in an area to siege their line. Again, people were quick to blame our halves and again I'll retort that they can't generate points from our own 40m or when any time we make it to their end we lose the ball on the second tackle. The ref's certainly didn't help out, 9-3 penalty count after 78 minutes, only to bring it back in the last 2 minutes. Would we have won the game had we had the control and forward momentum we had against Manly and Dragons, not a certainty - but the score would have been closer.

Raiders vs Eels
Tipped to be the in-form team this year, the Raiders showed strength in the first half and we started out as we had the previous weeks, dropped ball in crucial areas and very little go forward. Suddenly in the second half though, we come out playing as we had in the first 2 weeks. Conviction in our forwards runs, ball control and applying that defensive pressure that from almost all perspectives flipped the momentum. Until the Cotric try. While I'm dirty that they were in this position to score off the back of a very suspect penalty, we were "timing'd" - the hole he broke through is usually covered by Beau Scott who had been subbed off shortly prior. But it does need to be pointed out that Kaysa did very little in stopping that. This is one bit of criticism from some that I can concur and agree that there is reason to believe. Most of Kaysa's missed tackles come after the 60 minute mark - his match fitness isn't there. Would we have won the game had we played the first half as we did the second? Certainly would have been in a much better stance to do so.

If we take a quick peek at the ladder: http://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nrl-premiership/ladder

We're only one win from being equal 5th. Of which we're currently equal 7th. It's been 5 rounds and other than the top 4 currently, we're well within the race for a top 8 position - the season is far from over. We have a young spine and we know we have the ability to win these games. People need to stop looking to blame our halves, when the reason we've been losing is zero ball control, no go-ahead from our forwards and therefore no attacking pressure. Instead consistent pressure on our defense on our goal line.