Eels Blogs

“If you have everything under control, you’re not moving fast enough,” said racing Legend Mario Andretti.

Last Saturday night, we had everything under control, at 24-12, with barely five minutes left. Many of us felt an air of fate, having a cigar with the fat lady. Until the Raiders flashed by, in a few split seconds of opportunism cracking our right edge. Sometimes moving fast enough is between the ears, as well. We’ll need to watch the Cowboys, too, this Friday night. They're the second most potent attacking team in the NRL, statistically, right now.

And last week, the Cowboys managed to rise off the canvas, breaking a three game losing streak to the Warriors, Sharks, Tigers, to put to the previously swash-buckling Knights to the sword, in a great first half performance: to seemingly come out of a dark tunnel with a prove a point. More rodeo bulls than cows.

We're still a work in progress. But, the good news is: despite never putting in a complete game of 80 minutes, not playing our best, we’re still winning games. We've also had a tough month playing high quality opposition: Manly, Panthers, Roosters, and the Raiders, last year's grand-finalists - for only one loss. The Cowboys aren't in that class yet, so there is the danger of complacency and over-confidence setting in. Sometimes you're your own worst enemy, on your own rodeo, tamed by the least lines of resistance and past habits.

Both teams are missing key players. We're missing our general, Mitchell Moses; our spiritual forward warrior Nathan Brown, and the revamped Evans. Meanwhile, pocket-rocket utility Jai 'Squeak' Field is listed at seven, in for Moses, in a bold strategy. The Cows are still without their superstars: Michael Morgan and Val Holmes, but Holmes might end up as a surprise inclusion in the 17. 

It’s also Gutherson’s 100th, congratulations.

We’ve struggled against them

It was four and a half years ago when we last beat the Cows in Sydney. In R2, 2016 at this ground, in its previous life as Parramatta Stadium. 

In the last ten years, since R4, 2011, we've only won 4 of the last 15. We've lost the last 4 of 5 games.

Ironically, the last time we beat the Cowboys, two years ago, we were also without Moses; and Reed made his first grade debut off the bench.

It was R14, 2018 in a Darwin home game, at TIO Stadium, which we won 20-14. Moses out for two weeks, then, and it saw Gutheron fill in at six with Norman at seven, and former golden-junior French given a go at fullback. In that game Hayne scored two tries and the evergreen Michael Jennings also scored. Jennings seems to be impersonating the curious case of Benjamin Button, aging in reverse. He’s now in the top 13 of all time try scorers with his 151st try, last week. Ferguson hasn't had the same luck, lately.

Ferguson has gone without a try for seven games. It's his worst start in his eleven year career, beating his previous worse start, in his Sharks 2009 debut year where he was tryless in his first six games. It’s not his worse losing streak (eleven in 2010) , though, but he’s on that trajectory.

The cracks under pressure; errors and right-edge an achilles heel, again

We cracked again last week in the dying minutes, letting in two tries in barely 2 minutes to almost hand the game to the Raiders. Against the Roosters in R7 we cracked in the 60th and they scored two quick tries in less than 15 minutes to vanquish our hopes after leading 10-8, and gaining ascendancy.

On both occasions it was our right hand defence that was targeted. Last week, ahead 24-12 with barely five minutes left, a Lane handling error gave the desparate Raiders great field position in Eels' territory.  And then they struck.

The first crack was was a 75th minute try: a brilliant opportunist chip by George Williams, taken by Nicholl-Klockstad. Williams currently leads the competition for tries off kicks, and it's easy to see why.

The second crack was a 77th minute try; a brilliant opportunist play by the wily Whitehead supported by the speedy Nicholl-Klockstad. A double whammy.

Matterson was fooled by a decoy that opened up space around Waqa. Waqa was already in between a rock and a hard ball, as Fergo and him were already in trouble with a three on two overlap.

And then, in a blink the game was levelled up at 24-24 going into golden point, almost defying belief. Even Ricky Stuart admitted the Raiders didn't deserve to be in that position to win. Fortunately, the Gods allowed the better team to win.

Michael Jordan once said: “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships”.

Well, a fraction of greater intelligence by the Raiders was the difference in those moments.

Fundamentally, our right edge is, as is our team: full of talent. But, it’s not always in chord. Our right edge is, at times, a non-legato, disjointed staccato.

It's no surprise the right has leaked almost 80% of our tries. They need to work it out, together. The issue isn’t only Waqa, although he has a tendency to shoot out of the line to make a crunching ball and all tackle, which looks spectacular when it pays off. When he misses, though, it sets the scene for even more trouble and Fergo often is dragged in. It’s not just about tackling techniques, it’s also the reading of play and not working in synch.

However, an important note is the Cowboys have even bigger defensive issues. Thay have conceded even more tries than us: on their right, their left, and their middle.

So, the Cows are far from championship material, defensively. Even last week, in the second half, they showed plenty of cracks all over the park with Knights scoring consecutive tries: three in just over 15 minutes. So it’s likely we might see some more tries to Jennings and Sivo who has 15 tries from 16 games at Bankwest. Our right edge might even start to fire again. Right-winger Fergo may even break his drought with a bit of luck.

Conversely, in contrast to their struggling defence, the Cowboys have scored more tries on the left and right sides than us.

The Cowboys are equal second for scoring the most tries (31 tries v Roosters 33). We’re equal fifth (26). Conversely we’re second for least tries conceded after Roosters (our 14 tries v Roosters 11). The Cowboys are equal third last with the Titans (31 tries conceded) and just ahead of the Warriors, and Broncos, the worst. 

In a nutshell, it's our second-best defence with good attack potency, meeting their second-best attack with poorer defence.

 So, it's another good test of our defensive mettle; with an absorbing forward battle 

We’ll have to watch both their edges. Their left edge against our struggling right-edge: Drinkwater, Hess, Opaic, O’Neill. Opaic’s offload to a rampaging Hess last week was indicative of their potential. Plenty will come that way. And their right edge: Clifford, Wright, Marsters and the evergreen Feldt who has a penchent for scoring tries and is good in the air. Feldt has scored 8 tries from his last five games against us. Both halves Clifford and Drinkwater, also ran the ball really well last week, taking on the line.

Cowboys rake Reece Robson, also split them up the middle with some good dummy half running. He’ll have a good battle against Reed.

In the first half, last week, their forwards were on fire and set the platform for with hard direct running to the advantage line and played tough.

Meta-human wreaking-bull Taumalolo is a key man for the Cows and a good challenge for our middle men. He ran for about 300m last week, has a handy offload and tackle busts for fun. It’s no co-oincidence he’s often called the best forward in the game. He’s up there. He can't be stopped completely. He's a wild rodeo. It's more a case of how can you minimise his impact. He’s also ably assisted by McGuire and his nasty habits, McLean, Cooper, Molo, and edge forward Hess who can be a handful on his days. A large, tough but skillful pack. Ours is no push over, either. Junior, RCG, Kaufusi, Nuikore, Lane and Matterson will need to keep running straight, direct and to the advantage line to keep us on top.

Re-shuffling of kicking duties

With Moses out, Dylan, Reed and Gutho need to step up their kicking game. Taking the R6 Roosters game as an example kicking metres were: Moses 347m, Reed 123m, Dylan 95m, Gutho 45m. The committee will need to step up.

Former Dragons utility Jai Field will wear Moses' no.7 jersey, making his Eels’ NRL first grade debut, in only his 12th NRL game. But, how much of the kicking duties will 'Squeak' have? In his Dragons years (2017-2019) he has a kicked a total of 98m in play. 

The blistering-quick 22 year old Field has only once worn the no.7 jersey once. And he ended up playing 6 minutes off the bench. So, this will be Field's first proper game starting at no.7, assuming he doesn’t get switcherooed, as he did that one game for the Dragons. It might be unrealistic to expect him to lead the team around and replace Moses' kicking game. He has however, played four games as a Dragons' starting no.6 for four losses. He's a handy goalkicker, with 7 from 7, and scored a memorable try in support of a sublime Vaughan offload. You can see his speed being useful around the rucks as they open up.    

Maybe, Jai at half is a smoke screen? Will there be a last minute change ? Takairangi start at six and Dylan at seven ? Or maybe Gutho will play at six like he did when Moses was out two years ago? A bit like Stone’s second half try where the defence never expected he was the ball runner. Naturally, “All warfare is based on deception,” noted General Sun Tzu, in the Art Of War.

It will be interesting to see what eventuates. I imagine there’s a plan A and a contingency plan.

Ben Cummins: this week's ref

Cummins didn’t help us much against the Roosters, two weeks ago. Let’s hope he doesn’t offer as many gaffes as Klein did last week, and doesn’t sin bin any Eels players again. Last week, under Klein and the touchies tries were allowed off obvious forward passes, and tries were disallowed off passes that weren’t forward, or borderline at worst. At one stage Fox commentator Vossy exclaimed in the second half:

“ Is that forward ? Is that backwards? Rock, paper, scissors, make your mind up! ”

For mine, it’s ridiculous we don’t use technology to check forward passes, and utilise it where we could do easily, like other sports do, at least for try-scoring situations. Gibson would be shaking his head at the absurdity of not using the bunker to check obvious forward passes for critical tries, allowing refs to act like headless chooks. But, let's put aside the things we can't control.

If we win the middle, the battle of collisions, play direct, defending like mad-men, we have enough fire power to win. And the talent to win well. If we continue to crack in critical moments, we can invite any half-decent team in to snatch the game away. And a Cowboys team hitting top gear, playing as desparately as they did lat week, out to prove themselves, could present a challenge if they're on. It could potentially be another rodeo-riding thriller. Even an disturbing upset. There's no time to rest on our laurels and on what we've done so far in  2020. Will we be complacent, or crack again, thinking everything is under control?