Eels Blogs

Noiseworks released the song Touch in 1988. The lyric “reach out and touch somebody” was repeated, wait for it, six times. Hypothetically if one was born in 2000 one may not have been overly influenced by such advice. Noiseworks is off the hook. Oh, in my youth. When Garrett Breedlove (seriously?) (Jack Nicholson) courted Aurora (Shirley MacClaine) by touching her arm with his finger, in Terms of Endearment, it was icky. OK, she later gets down with Jack. But the movie drearily portrayed hours of character development for Shirley to change her mind. #timematters. But that was 1983. Maybe that message lacks purchase if hypothetically you were born in 2000. Let’s skip that wildly inappropriate bear Ted (2012), because he got away with it, just like George Burgess or Wighton & Mitchell. Consider The Wolf of Wall Street. It is 2013. Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) se*ually assaults a few flight attendants while drunk and has to be told about it later by a friend. The retelling is set to an up-tempo punk rock cover (by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes) of Sloop John B. The movie sets the tale of the assault to funny music, though it’s not actually funny. Just like the inconsistency and hypocrisy of the NRL’s stand-down policy in DB’s case. But still, as Sloop John B finishes, “let me go home, I wanna go home, let me go home”. You do not have to have been born yesterday or even in 2000 to know that’s good advice if you’re a star out past your bedtime. Welcome to Round 16.

Teams

Saturday 17 June, CommBank Stadium, Parramatta, 5:30pm (AEDT). Lands of the Burramattagal People. Referee: Chris Butler.

EELS: 1. Clinton Gutherson 2. Maika Sivo 3. Viliami Penisini 4. Bailey Simonsson 5. Sean Russell 6. Ryan Matterson 7. Daejarn Asi 8. Reagan Campbell-Gillard 9. Brendan Hands 10. Ofahiki Ogden 11. Bryce Cartwright 12. Andrew Davey 13. J'maine Hopgood 14. Luca Moretti 15. Joe Ofahengaue 16. Matt Doorey 17. Makahesi Makatoa 18. Haze Dunster 19. Jack Murchie 20. Ky Rodwell 21. Waqa Blake 22. Shaun Lane.

Head coach: Brad 300+ Arthur.

MANLY: 1. Kaeo Weekes 2. Jason Saab 3. Tolutau Koula 4. Reuben Garrick 5. Christian Tuipulotu 6. Josh Schuster 7. Jakob Arthur 8. Taniela Paseka 9. Lachlan Croker 10. Toafofoa Sipley 11. Haumole Olakau'atu 12. Samuela Fainu 13. Sean Keppie 14. Karl Lawton 15. Josh Aloiai 16. Ethan Bullemor 17. Ben Condon 18. Aaron Woods 19. Ray Tuaimalo-Vaega 20. Morgan Harper 21. Gordon Chan Kum Tong 22. Zac Fulton.

Head coach: AntMan Seibold and Flanagan the Drug Mule

Notes: For the Eels, Mitch Moses has parted the sea of well-deserved-recognition and is on Blues duty, along with Paulo. Ogden starts in place of Paulo and Ofahengaue will aim for more than 10 mins (Cowboys), while Hands may play 80 mins with Hodgson injured? Manly has a big pack, so the Eels middles RCG, Ogden, and Ofa/Makatoa off the bench, will need to be on their game. Moretti and Doorey round out the rotation, with Davey somehow retaining a starting left edge backrow position, to the surprise of anyone with eyes and a memory greater than a goldfish. The big change is the halves. Asi moves from #6 to #7. Ryan Matterson returns as 5/8 in a contest with Manly’s John Schuster for Bigger than Oliphant 5/8 aaaaaaand … wins: Matterson (194cm, 107kg) vs John Schuster (185cm, 106kg). Spine news also applies to Manly, with the prodigal son kind of returning: Jake Arthur playing #7 against Dad’s Army, and Weekes at #1 instead of Turbo (phew).

Observations from Last Week

Eels (vs Dogs), 34-12 (W), 53% possession, 65% completion rate, 6 linebreaks, 56 tackle breaks, 18 offloads, 37 missed tackles, 33 ineffective tackles, 15 errors, 8 penalties conceded, 1 ruck infringements, 0 sin bin.

Manly (vs Dolphins), 58-18 (W), 58% possession, 80% completion rate, 8 linebreaks, 33 tackle breaks, 5 offloads, 19 missed tackles, 4 ineffective tackles, 7 errors, 1 penalties conceded, 1 ruck infringements, 0 sin bin.

Eels/Dogs highlights HERE.

Manly/Dolphins highlights HERE OK actually HERE

The Eels won handsomely, with Mitchell Moses seemingly having a point to prove over Reynolds (who missed a heap of tackles against the Knights) and Hynes (who just sucked against the Storm). But the Eels had a poor completion rate, were constantly skirted around on the wings, and made more errors and conceded more penalties than the Dogs. What was pleasing was their ball control when in attacking positions, taking their opportunities, good hands, and their scramble in defence.

By contrast Manly slaughtered the Dolphins, enjoying 66% possession in the first half to lead 28-6 at half time before going on to play what looked like backyard footy in the second half. Their missed and ineffective tackle counts were also low. Absurdly, the Dolphins average set distance was higher, so too their completion rate, and their tackling not was shocking: 33 missed tackles (vs 19) and 8 ineffective tackles (vs 4). What happened? The Dolphins were not in the right position to miss or even be ineffective in tackles. DCE constantly found them short for numbers, with the Manly outside backs scoring 9 of the 10 tries. DCE and Turbo are on Origin duties, so hopefully this will even out with Moses and Brown away for starkly different reason, Mitchell in fine touch and Dylan in too much touch.

 Also, a nod to Brad Arthur, who became the longest serving Eels coach, reaching 244 in the win over the Dogs. BA surpassed Brian Smith’s 243 games as coach 1997-2006, with BA at the helm of the Eels for 6 games as interim head coach in 2012 before becoming full-time head coach in 2014. At this rate, sometime in 2025 BA will reach the 300 milestone, so we salute you BA (see photo of Future BA at the end of the preview).

Next Man Up

With Dylan Brown out indefinitely for the same charge George Burgess got nothing and a similar total charge sheet for which Wighton/Mitchell got nothing, and Moses on Origin duty for SOO2 and hopefully SOO3, what will matter over the coming weeks is that old cliché about ‘next man up’. Specifically, in the halves, where the touch of our halves and spine in general is keeping us in the game. Though not always the game we want to be in. Let us make three points about the Eels’ spine and then look at the general picture of our attack and defence.

1) Moses is vital to the Eels’ success because Moses’ kicking game often saves the Eels’ bacon. With due acknowledgement to the statistical tracking over at The Rugby League Eye Test (RLET), we know that Moses is responsible for a statistic that is a vital cog in the Eels’ machinery. Up to Round 15, the Eels rank first for the average metres downfield for their opponents’ first play the ball. The Eels’ opponents start, on average, 33.6m from their own try line, thanks to Moses’ long-kicking game. Maybe the Eels just motor downfield all the time, so if we remove the first tackle from the stats, the Eels still force their opponent to start from an average of 25.9 metres out from their own try line, again the best in the league.

2) Our spine is performing. According to RLET, up to Round 13, the Top 20 players by player contribution include Moses (5^th), Brown (17^th) and Gutherson (20^th). The Eels are the only team with three of their four spine players all in the Top 20 for player contribution.

3) The first two points were about our spine performing in attack. This third point is that our fourth spine member is not performing in attack or defence. We are of course touching on Josh Hodgson’s behaviour. Hodgson is ranked in the Bottom 20 for player contribution. Indeed, it gets worse, because every other player in the Bottom 20 averages 70 minutes per game but Hodgson averages 55 minutes per game. Only two players - both outside backs - rank worse than Hodgson (Jojo Fifita and Paul Alamoti). An illustrative comparison is that Hodgson has the same number of errors as Damian Cook despite having 40% fewer touches of the ball. Given the Eels depend upon their spine, for how long can Hodgson retain the starting hooker position before BA decides that Hands introduces fewer issues?

All teams need good spines, but the Eels depend upon their spine. Why? I suggest because the Eels are average or worse in some important statistical categories, but their spine is providing polish and direction in attack, and helping the Eels outperform. I say outperform because, up to Round 14, the Eels were having no trouble scoring but conceded almost as much. See Plot 1.

Plot 1: on average the Eels win 25-21.

But if we update by including Round 15, where the Eels had a big win and Cronulla and Souths were flogged, we can say that up to Round 16 the Eels are still improving and widening the gap – in a positive direction - between how much they score and how much they concede.

HOE and I use some magic algorithms and blood, sweat and tears – really hands on stuff – to produce the following Table 1.

Table 1: points scored, and points conceded, adjusted by actual games played.

The Eels are the best attacking side in the competition, on average. Yes, we all complain that the Eels can build a lead and then not go on to pad the points-for tally by scoring 40+ or 50+. Souths, Storm, and Penrith, and Manly have joined them, have that ability. But one could say any team can rack up a cricket score on any given day, because even the Tigers, otherwise the worst attacking team in the league, can still manage to get their grubby hands on 66 points in a game. But the Eels are scoring the most on average every game. The Eels are a reliably high-scoring team, grabbing their opportunities, with both hands of course.

Nor can we truly prosecute the Eels for being a lousy defensive team. The Eels are now ranked 6^th best for points conceded. The Panthers are the stingiest team by far, but the Eels are a try-or-penalty conversion off being a Top 4 defensive outfit. This must seem a strange thing to claim. The eyeball test always suggests the Eels are vulnerable defensively. But in the Eels’ seven losses, the losing margins have been close: once by 2 points, three times by 4 points, twice by 8 points, and once by 10 points. By contrast, when the Eels win, they tend to do so by decent margins: in seven wins, four of them have been by 20+, two by 8 points, and one by 1 point.

Despite those close losing margins, though, the Eels are prone to indecent points tallies against them when they do lose. The Eels have conceded 16, 26, 26, 26, 28, 30 and 34 in their seven losses.

What is happening is that the Eels’ attacking prowess is keeping them in games they lose but overwhelming the opposition in games the Eels win. The Eels’ defence is not doing justice to their attack, despite their defence not being awful. This duality in the Eels’ play, like taking away with one hand what the other hand gives, will certainly be important against a Moanly team prone to scoring 20+ points against the Eels no matter what.

Conceeding a 30-point average over 3 years against Moanly is a warning sign for the Eels. Any team standing behind their own line 5-6 times in a game is asking for trouble.

Though not trouble for fans, who can probably expect a high scoring and entertaining affair vs Manly.

But let us return to those spine players. The Eels’ spine of Moses, Brown and Gutho have been playing exceptionally well, though Hodgson is dragging the tail. But the Eels face being without their starting halves for several big games and possibly without Dylan Brown until a) acquittal, or b) the Club sues the NRL for rank inconsistency in the stand down policy, or c) DB gets career counselling from JH and returns in 5 years (who knows FFS). Yes, we need the stand-ins to perform, but what we also need is for an uptick in performance across the park. We cannot expect inexperienced halves to brain it. Everyone else must share the load.

Unfortunately, the Eels rank poorly in some key behavioural modes. Really, seriously, oh whatever. So let us grapple with where the Eels could look to for improvements.

Eels fans should be sad that Wiremu Greig is out for the season with injury. Greig had been a standout: 6^th best in the league for completing a run with the ball (adjusted by minutes played).

But otherwise … according to RLET stats there is no Eels outside back in the Top 20 for ball runner rate, no Eels player at all in the Top 20 for total run rate (which includes support and decoy runs), and no regular Eels starter in the Top 20 for involvement rate (total run rate + tackle rate; though Murchie makes the list, based on 5 games).  

The Eels also have the worst average for complete sets in the first half (~14.3) and rank 9^th (~15.3) for completed sets in the second half. See Plot 2.

Plot 2: completing your sets.

Should we ask for more from the attack? That would seem to be akin to asking a strength to get stronger without expecting the weaknesses to pull their socks up. The Eels score more points than field position and possession would indicate they should score, as in Plot 3.

Plot 3: outperforming in attack

But as indicated by the Eels ranking 6^th best for points conceded per game, the Eels also concede less points than would otherwise be indicated by their opponents’ field position and possession, as in Plot 4.

Plot 4: not as defensively bad as we might think.

Note the Eels sit in the bottom left ‘dominant’ quadrant for actual vs expected points conceded, right at the fringe of being ‘inefficient/unlucky’. Put differently, the Eels are flirting with conceding more points because they are flirting with letting teams downfield too often. We saw glimpses of this ‘potential’ pattern against the Dogs in Round 15, especially in the first half when the Dogs attacked our extreme flanks and went around us several times. The Eels scrambled well in defence. Again, back to those halves. Moses’ cover defending tackle on Jacob Preston. Recall Moses’ crunching tackle on Bromwich last finals series. Each indicate the good defender into which Moses has morphed. And Dylan Brown is a very confronting defender, grabbing with both hands obviously. Brown’s game against the Cowboys featured try saving tackles (e.g.: Townsend tackle) and stopping second rowers in their tracks.

The Eels will miss their starting halves but need to focus on micro-improvements across other dimensions to make up for the absences. Thus, the Eels are average to below-average in too many facets of play, as Table 2 outlines.

Table 2: where the Eels could pull up their socks. Lower number is better.

What is going on with 14^th (bad) for percentage points conceded over expected? Let’s see a chart from RLET (which was focused on Brisbane and Roosters).

Chart 1: the Eels concede more than the field position they permit would indicate.

The Eels yield the second fewest expected points in the competition behind the Tigers (see Plot 4 above) but allow one third more points from that possession than an average team would. Recall from Plot 4 that the Eels are flirting with being an inefficient/unlucky defensive team, and that is making them vulnerable to conceding more points than they should whenever they are a) not winning the possession battle, or b) suffer large changes in momentum due to poor completion rates, errors or conceding penalties.

Now go back to Table 2, and you can see why the Eels are ranked as a ‘dominant’ defensive team (Plot 4) but are nevertheless ranked poorly (14^th) for percentage points conceded over expected (Chart 1). On RLET this could be explained better, to be honest, and one must build a picture from other stats of where the Eels are falling down. In Table 2 you can see where: too many errors, too often bogged down in run metres (hello outside backs), permitting a little too much per carry by the opposition, and poor first half completed set stats and only middling in second half (Plot 2). Note the Eels tend to complete poorly in the first half (Plot 2) and concede the most penalties in their first half (Table 2), before improving on both counts in the second half, where not-coincidentally the Eels also often put the queue in the rack and do not run up extra points against teams.

Maybe the Eels play more conservatively in their second halves, improving their completions and lowering their errors? A flood of points does not ensue. Maybe this strategy to run up first half points and then play safer in the second half will work long-term, though failure to fix a defensive structure prone to leaking when things do not go their way might undermine this strategy? If the Eels could halt points in the second half, relying on big points in the first half, and consistently won that way, would anyone complain?

The Bottom Line

So, it could go either way vs Manly. Literally.

One person we would all like to see run riot, with our first-choice halves out, is Mika Sivo.

What might happen in the game? According to statsinsider.com Moanly scores their tries evenly across the park: 35% (L), 33% (M), 31% (R). The imbalance for Manly is in tries conceded, conceding a whopping 53% of their tries down their left side, where Josh Schuster defends. The Eels score 35% of their tries down their right side (Moses out to Russell) versus 45% down their left side (Brown out to Sivo). In this game we will hope Matterson at #6 (presumably right side because Asi is a left foot kicker) can challenge Schuster’s defensive fragilities. The Eels concede 43% of their tries down their right side, so they will have to make sure the right-side defensive formation of Cartwright-Matto-Penisini-Russell can keep Fainu(Bullemor)-Schuster-Koula-Tuipulotu at bay.

I hate Moanly. Go Eels.

PS: Future BA