Eels coach Brad Arthur has fired a reality check at his inconsistent side after they failed to back up their win over the Panthers in a 31-24 loss to the Roosters.
The Roosters led 21-6 at halftime, but despite a spirited comeback, Arthur believes his side is not defending well enough to challenge the top sides consistently, particularly early in the contest.
“Our defence is not at the standard it needs to be at if we want to be serious about what we are doing,” Arthur said.
“It is just not good enough. You score 24 points it should be enough to win a game of footy.
“I’m not taking anything away from them because they are a quality football team, but if we score 24 points that should be good enough to win a game of football.
“The two elite teams at the moment, they start well and they do the same every week.
“That’s not conditional. They go after it every week physically and without question and we don’t at the moment.”
Arthur was disappointed the Eels lacked intensity early in the game, which allowed the Roosters to get the jump on them.
“Our start was poor,” Arthur said.
“I think the games that we have lost this year we have been beaten to the punch at the start of the game.
“We are waiting to see what the opposition is going to do. We need to go after the game at the start.
“The games that we start well makes a difference to us. I was happy that we had that fight in us in the second half. We didn’t go away in the contest.
“But against good teams if you give them that much of a start in terms of the scoreboard it is very hard to peg back.”
Arthur conceded Joseph Suaalii’s freak try to seal the result for the Roosters was too good, but he believes his side got the opposition into good field position in the lead-up.
“That was a great try and there is not a lot we could have done on that play, but the two plays before it we needed to be better,” Arthur said of the Suaalii try.
“Getting them into that position and then no kick pressure because it was fast, but the kick was perfect and he executed it really well.”
Arthur challenged his side to get their defence in order from the start of the game if they are any chance of breaking their premiership drought in 2022.
“I don’t think if it is a high scoring or low scoring game should make much difference,” Arthur said.
“If we start the same every week regardless of who we play. Our start needs to be really important for us and then on the back of that your start is reflective of your defence.
“I think it was four or five minutes into the game and they scored straight away. In the games that we have lost they have scored way too easily at the start of the game.”
Arthur was proud of his side for coming back in the second half, but believes they are still shooting themselves in the foot.
“I’ve got the confidence we can still fight our way out of it as we did,” Arthur said.
“We talked about it halftime that we can still win that game. We got close enough to win it but we weren’t good enough in the end.
“But it probably wasn’t what they did on the try line there, it was how they got to the try line. Out of the back-field they are getting offloads on play two out of a kick return. That came fast and that’s how they got down on the try line and they shouldn’t have been there.”
Arthur was asked about the crucial sin bin of centre Opacic, which resulted in a try to Sam Walker, but he refused to use it as an excuse.
“Look they are big calls, but you saw Canberra have three of them and win a game of footy,” Arthur said.
“I think maybe Tedesco touched the ball before he was tackled.”
Eels skipper Clint Gutherson admitted the Eels need to start games better to be taken seriously in the competition.
“We were always confident we could get it back, but you can’t give a quality team like the Roosters that many points to kickstart their game,” Gutherson said.
“We are just disappointed in how we started that game.”
Replies
Is Kidwell the defensive coach? Why isn't he held accountable?
Yes spot on, We only just re signed kidwell go figure
Kidwell is not the defensive coach and there is only one person accountable!
Got to chase the collision and front load the effort.
You need to remind them Brad !
Lol haha
Rinse and repeat same old from ba, maybe if he had some football nous he could come up with a decent game plan rather than rely on effort alone
Regardless of the plan, there isn't a NRL game plan in existence that doesn't rely on effort. BA is 100% correct about the need for effort. His issue is making his players believe it. He probably needs to axe a few to start with, stop trying to be best buds with a few too.
That's exactly what I was thinking Muttman. Just axing one player out of the blue would make the rest of them take notice. If I had to make someone a scapegoat, it would be Nathan Brown because we have a ready made replacement. Perham could go too simply because he is not a 2022 winger, and we have Russell back on deck.
Even if BA were a master tactician (which he's not imo), you can't win anything of substance without the "effort areas", the one-percenters, even the whole "being physical" and "chasing the collision" is a part of that.
All of those things are really catch-phrases for being mentally tough enough.
That involves so many things. Being mentally on the ball: with the ball or off the ball. Being disciplined and focused, over and over again during the match, never surrendering an inch of your tryline without a battle to the death. Being in support, chasing kicks with a fire in your belly, counting numbers, seeing opportunities, and icing opportunities, being ready for the critical moments in the game... etc.
It's what Lombardi calls something like "perfectly disciplined will in action" : to "relentlessly chase excellence". That's also about courage under fire.
How can a team execute a game plan properly or deal with the opposition's game plan without all that?
And it's also a key reason we're off-on, game to game, half-to-half. The perennial Jeckyl-Hyde. We fail here too often.
All things that let us down last night on too many occasions. But, at least we fought back which is a good sign. We didn't crumble into a complete rabble despite threatening to.
I said effort alone Muttman
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