Eels Blogs

Hello, good evening, and welcome to another edition of blood, devastation, death, war, and horror. And so began S3, Ep.30 of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Yet so too it is looking grim for the Eels and Bunnies as they enter Round 12, having each played like the fit, defenseless, young men that were beaten mercilessly by old grannie’s in (S1, Ep.08) Hell’s Grannies. The Eels bumbled their way to a 6-28 loss to a spirited and resolute Moanly, while the Bunnies did not appear to carrot all and capitulated in a 12-56 loss to the Panthers. Question marks now hang over both the Eels and Rabbitohs. The Eels wilted when the Dragons and Moanly turned up the defensive heat. The Rabbitohs hopped right off the premiership train by conceding 50+ twice in the past month to fellow Top 4 travelers the Storm and Panthers. Both Bunnies and Eels will thus be out this week, as the Black Knight said to King Arthur in Monty Python and The Holy Grail, to prove that “it’s just a flesh wound”. Of course, in gladiatorial affairs, some lose more blood and limbs than others. For Eels fans, we know Waqa Blake shed a few arms attempting to tackle last week. Thus, in an interview exclusive to 1Eyed Eel, I spoke with Mr. Blake. Below I relay his thoughts in his own words. Though be warned. In my professional opinion, I was led to advise Mr. Blake that, as per medical guidelines outlined in S1, Ep.13 of The Flying Circus, “there's nothing wrong with you that an expensive operation can't prolong”. Welcome to Round 12.   

NOTE: thanks are due to HOE’s graphics skills, which are truly astounding, especially considering the STD’s have now run rampant and he is totally blind.

Teams 

Saturday 29 May, Stadium Australia, Sydney, 5:30pm (AEDT). Referee: Gerard Sutton.

Rabbitohs, hopping mad about the cricket scores: 1. Latrell Mitchell 2. Alex Johnston 3. Dane Gagai 4. Campbell Graham 5. Taane Milne 6. Cody Walker 7. Adam Reynolds 8. Jai Arrow 9. Damien Cook 10. Tevita Tatola 11. Keaon Koloamatangi 12. Jacob Host 13. Cameron Murray 14. Benji Marshall 15. Mark Nicholls 16. Hame Sele 17. Thomas Burgess 18. Liam Knight 19. Jaydn Su’A 20. Patrick Mago 21. Braidon Burns.

Head coach: Wayne Obi Wan Bennett

Eels: 1. Clinton Gutherson 2. Maika Sivo 3. Tom Opacic 4. Waqa Blake 5. Blake Ferguson 6. Jakob Arthur 7. Mitchell Moses 8. Oregon Kaufusi 9. Reed Mahoney 10. Junior Paulo 11. Isaiah Papali’i 12. Ryan Matterson 13. Nathan Brown 14. Marata Niukore 15. Shaun Lane 16. Joey Lussick 17. Bryce Cartwright 18. Haze Dunster 19. Makahesi Makatoa 20. Viliami Penisini 21. Jordan Rankin.

Head coach: Brad Arthur

Notes: For the Eels, Dylan Brown has one week suspension remaining, so Jakob Arthur gets a shot at redemption. Oregon Kaufusi starts at prop, in place of RCG, suspended for some guy head-butting his shoulder. Marata Niukore returns (from suspension) on the bench (smokescreen? Replace Waqa at right centre? Pleeeease). Lussick is on the bench to cover Mahoney. For the Rabbitohs, Cameron Murray returns (from injury) at Lock, Jai Arrow starts at Prop, and Milne comes in for Mansour on the Wing (concussion; against his old team, how suss is that?). Su’A and Knight were both dropped, with reports circulating that Bennett said of both “he’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy” (Life of Brian).

Observations from Last Week

Seriously, how the f*** did any Eels or Bunnies fans get past last weekend’s games without a hissy fit?

Eels (vs Moanly), 6-28 (L), 53% possession, 81% completion rate, 4 linebreaks, 36 tackle breaks, 14 offloads, 41 missed tackles, ineffective tackles 29, 10 errors, penalties conceded 8, ruck infringements 0.

Bunnies (vs Panthers), 12-56 (L), 41% possession, 78% completion rate, 2 linebreaks, 28 tackle breaks, 10 offloads, 37 missed tackles, ineffective tackles 18, 6 errors, penalties conceded 12, ruck infringements 4.

Eels/Moanly extended highlights HERE.

Bunnies/Panthers extended highlights HERE.

The most troubling aspect of the Eels’ loss to Moanly was that the Eels still managed to play their ‘power game’ but were otherwise disjointed in attack and vulnerable in defence. BA has come to define the Eels by their go forward in the middle of the park, and meters from the backfield. Against Moanly, this still worked: every Eels starting forward (excluding Mahoney, who has other jobs) ran for more than 100m, and the Eels’ back three each ran for well over 100m (Gutho just shy of 200m).

The trouble started on the other side of the ball. The Moanly forwards were mostly contained: Trbojevic, Tapau, Keppie and Sipley ran for 100m+. The Eels and Moanly forwards went toe for toe. The issue was out wide. First, the Eels failed to contain Turbo, who ran for 323m. On the Moanly right side, Harper ran for 56m and Saab 95m; nothing spectacular. But the Moanly left side tore the Eels right edge defence to shreds: Parker ran for 110m, Garrick for 172m (with 5 tackle breaks and 4 line breaks), and at 5/8 young John Schuster had 4 tackle breaks, 4 offloads, and a leading hand in several tries.

Attention since that game has focused on the turnstile formerly known as Waqa Blake, who did little with the ball (6 runs for 59m), and even less trying to secure his opposing ball runners. Waqa made 15 tackles but missed 6 tackles and was credited with 3 ineffective tackles, for a tackle efficiency rating of 62.5%.

As Eelectric Analysis has been discussing in a number of blogs after both the Warriors and Moanly games, the defensive issues on the right side may run deeper than Waqa. Maybe it might be too harsh to single Waqa out? Matto, Jakob Arthur and Fergo are all part of the malfunction, though Eelectric notes Waqa is still responsible for horrible defensive misreads and has a poor 1-on-1 tackling technique.

But remember when Monty Python said, “we interrupt this program to annoy you and make things generally irritating” (S3, Ep04)? For all the talk of ‘just Waqa or not’, when Niukore was at right centre the Eels right edge was not a leaky boat. This is significant because the intuition of the average punter is on the money here: a valid experiment should have only one independent variable. The Eels altered one independent variable, Niukore for Waqa, and right edge vulnerabilities decreased. The Eels then inverted the experiment, subbing Waqa back in, and the leaky boat problem returned in full force against the Warriors and Moanly.

To test if this impression is confirmation bias, as we all saw Waqa struggle last year, I looked at the Missed Tackle stats on nrl.com  for this week. At the top of the pile of crap tacklers is Toby Rudolf and Chad Townsend (Sharks). They have missed 46 and 44 tackles respectively, from 11 games each. Their 4.18 and 4 missed tackles per game place them in the Top 10 worst offenders by average. Townsend just got dropped, but I digress.

Waqa Blake has played 3 games and his missed tackle tally is the following: Broncos (3), Warriors (6), and Moanly (6). That equals 15 missed tackles in 3 games, or 5 missed tackles per game. Waqa Blake has the second worst missed tackle rate of any player in the NRL, on a per game basis. He is only topped by Dale Copley’s 6pg from a single game for the Broncos.

Out of misplaced fairness, I tried to see if I could save Waqa’s dignity.  But even Anthony Milford, who has been dropped more times than a dress at a brothel, is a better tackler (29 from 8 or 3.62pg). Even Ben Hunt’s woeful 32 missed tackles from 7 games (4.57 per game) is not at Waqa level. And guess where Waqa finished in 2020? He finished 4^th WORST by total missed tackles, with 67 missed tackles from 22 games (3pg), and 29^th worst tackler by average. The Top 5 worst tacklers in 2020 were otherwise halves (Pearce, Taylor, Hunt, Luai).  

Admittedly, as Eelectric Analysis has suggested, the right side defence of the Eels is a collective achievement. Note young Jakob Arthur, defending next to Waqa in Dylan Brown’s absence, averages 4.5 missed tackles per game from two games (6^th worst by average). Dylan has been called the “standout defensive half in the competition”, because of his negligible missed tackle count and willingness to go looking for defensive work. Waqa’s return coincided with Dylan’s absence, so can we expect DBrown’s return will help the Eels’ defence (though that will be for next round)?

The Bunnies? What can you say? The Bunnies have conceded 50+ to the Storm and Panthers in the past month. All kinds of explanations have been offered. It has been suggested the Bunnies are distracted by the contract saga and departure of Reynolds. The Bunnies have had injury and suspension issues, with the likes of Latrell and Murray out. Cook’s form has been down, by all accounts, and Koroisau from the Panthers has moved into Origin contention. Most of all, commentators agree that Souths have not been willing to roll their sleeves up and defend their way through a game. After Latrell was suspended in R6 against the Tigers, in their next five games against Titans, Raiders, Storm, Sharks and Penrith, the Bunnies have leaked 178 points and scored 118, for an average losing margin of 35.6 v 23.6. We might suspect a high scoring but balanced game, but against the other Top 4 teams, the Bunnies are recently on the wrong end of a lopsided average losing margin of 53-6.

What Rabbitoh’s team will turn up on Saturday? Will the Bunnies give their fans hope they can buck the history that says no team conceding 50+ in a game in a season can go on to win the premiership? The Bunnies have done that twice this season already, so maybe they are brewing some weird ‘do it our way’ kind of historical comeuppance?

Or a better option for Eels fans, the Bunnies will again play with no defensive resolve, failing to put their bodies on the line?

Eels vs Bunnies: who will cover their weaknesses better?

Well, the Eels might be ahead of the Bunnies on the ladder, and the recent form of the Eels is better than the Bunnies, but the Bunnies have the wood on the Eels of late regardless.

It will not surprise the Bush Coach crowd that BA has fared poorly against WB. And in recent years, the Bunnies have hopped all over the Eels parade, including some thrashings late last year than not only knocked the Eels out of premiership contention but dented their confidence as well.

 Nor will the venue help the Eels too much, with an overall dismal record against Souths at Stadium Australia.

 And one for the ever-popular conspiracy theories, when you combine Souths and Sutton (the referee), the combined odds heavily favour the Bunnies.

Other stats available are the standard stats we provide each week, to provide some common metrics that other members can interpret and discuss for themselves.

To get a sense of the difference between the Eels and whoever they are playing in any given week, we use nrl.com/stats to compare the statistics for attack and defence/discipline.

Attack: The smaller the number, the better the ranking (you succeed at doing these things better than others … 1^st is good, 16^th is bad). Also: green, yellow, light red, dark red is better to worse.

Defence & Discipline: The smaller the number, the worse the ranking (you are more guilty of these problems than others … 16^th is good, 1^st is bad). Also: green, yellow, light red, dark red is better to worse.

What do you see in the above tables? An obvious one is that Souths engage the line a lot, but rarely offload, and are only average for tackle breaks and line breaks. Latrell was missing for a month so maybe their attack stalled a little in his absence? But the Bunnies have been making errors and their ineffective tackle rate suggests they are letting teams have too much freedom in the ruck and the tackle.

For the Eels, they tend to retain possession and make many meters, securing line breaks, tackle breaks and offloads. But they have been committing errors and allowing ineffective tackles, and variety might be an issue, with below average dummy half runs and low decoy runs. A stat that would be interesting to see is where the Eels’ errors occur? First impressions are that the Eels make their errors in the opposition quarter and not their own, and this is probably what contributes to impressions that their red zone offence is lackluster.

Comparing the Eels and the Bunnies, in the above table, what do you see? The attacking strength of the Eels is down the Eels’ left edge, with Moses, Papali’I and Sivo stationed on that side. The defensive weakness of the Bunnies is on their right edge, so the Eels will likely attack from their own strength against the Bunnies’ weakness. A strong side running against a weak side. Unfortunately for the Eels, the same goes for the Bunnies.

The right edge of the Eels is their Achilles Heel, and in front of them is the most lethal left edge attack in the competition. Indeed, while the Eels might score 43% of their tries down their left edge, the Bunnies score 60% of their tries down their left edge. This appears to be a double-edged sword situation. Stop the Bunnies’ left side attack and you go a long way to shutting them down. The Eels’ point scoring is more evenly distributed, scoring about a third of their tries through the middle and right side.

But failure to stop the Bunnies’ left edge attack would be fatal, and here the Eels must fix their defensive frailties on their own right side or the Bunnies will run through and around them (like in 2020).

The Bottom Line

Here is a question for more astute footy brains than I. What does it truly mean to refer to a team “running shape” at the other team? We hear this all the time, and often to refer to the pattern of defence and attack deployed by a team. But it typically sounds like attacking and defensive shape are thought separate to each other. Is that the case for the Eels? It seems when the Eels’ defence gets vulnerable, and our defensive patterns break down, usually on the right side, if this defensive breakdown takes a deep hold, the Eels’ attack seems to go missing too. Do the Eels struggle to get their attack reset after being defensively breached? Or might Sterlo’s constant remark that the Eels play too conservatively out of their own end offer some insight? The Eels’ back three can make meters from kick returns but, in general, the Eels tend to run one out from their own zone, often getting gang tackled, and they end up relying on Moses’ deep kicks. What links might there be between a faltering defence and a blundering attack?

Those questions seem pertinent because, in the Eels’ quest for The Holy Grail of a premiership, a question is on the lips of every Eels fan. When facing the Black Knight, King Arthur was correct to assert “the fight is mine,” as the Black Knight ridiculously claimed to still be in the contest as his limbs were severed. ls our own King Arthur (Brad) now making the same mistake, assuming (as the Black Knight asserted) that he is “invincible” and “will always triumph”, as he again enters battle with Waqa Blake? Like the Black Knight, Waqa’s limbs fall off progressively as the contest unfolds. The Eels’ defence, when it bleeds, can really bleed.

Come this weekend we know the Bunnies can be dangerous. Master Bennett knows how to turn results around, and in 2020 the Bunnies derailed the Eels’ season with two late thumpings (0-38, 24-38). In The Holy Grail, King Arthur under-estimated the Bunnies, only to discover they “have a vicious streak a mile wide”. In selecting Waqa Blake, despite Waqa’s obvious defensive issues, is (Brad) Arthur showing unparalleled faith in his soldier? Or, instead, screaming “Run away! Run away!” (like King Arthur was forced to say) from the big call of dropping Waqa and reinstating Niukore at right centre?

Of course, the debate will continue as to whether the frailties of the Eels’ right edge are due to Waqa alone, or to the absence of the defensive skills of Dylan Brown, or to a lack of communication Matto, DBrown, Waqa, and Fergo; or maybe all the above. So, in the spirit of Monty Python, from The Holy Grail: “let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who”.  Instead, let us go straight to the source. I now bring you, in content exclusive to 1Eyed Eel, an Interview with Waqa Blake, which I conducted recently at Whitesnake Studios.

Daz: How do you think it’s all going, Mr. Blake?

Waqa: I don’t know where I’m goin’, but I sure know where I’ve been.

Daz: You mean at Penrith? Or missing from the defensive line?

Waqa: I’ve made up my mind, I ain’t wasting no more time.

Daz: Do you mean at training? What do you do to learn the defensive system?

Waqa: Tho’ I keep searching for an answer, I never seem to find what I’m looking for.

Daz: Do you mean the other centre? How do you cope?

Waqa: Oh Lord, I pray you give me strength to carry on. Cause I know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams.

Daz: Mr. Blake, can you tell us fans what it feels like to be out there in the middle?

Waqa: Here I go again on my own. Going down the only road I’ve ever known.

Daz: Are there any players on your inside or outside that you think could help?

Waqa: Like a drifter I was born to walk alone.

Daz: Well, you’re not alone on social media. How does it affect you, reading criticism?

Waqa: I’m just another heart in need of rescue, waiting on love’s sweet charity.

Daz: Let’s play a word association game. You think what when you hear ‘Marata Niukore’? 

Waqa: An’ I gonna hold on for the rest of my days.

Daz: Like you did at Penrith?

Waqa: But, here I go again. Here I go again. Here I go agaaaaaain. Here I gooooooo…