Eels Blogs

Hi All,

New to this site, lifeling Parra diehard. Thought i'd put together some detailed points on how Parra can get out of there attacking hole. I'm actually a professional punter, and make a full time living from gambling, and spend my days analysing and betting on rugby league games. So the below advice comes from more than just your average supporter, i live and breath this stuff, and do what NRL coaches do in analysing games and oppenents, however i am obviously doing it from the point of view of backing winners and making a crust. Either way the point is i know what i'm talking about (even it i do say so myself!). So i'm sure there are people who read this site who know players/coach/officials etc of the club, or perhaps coaches/assistants read this themselves, so take it on board, or if your some who knows these people pass the info on (and for those that think that is fanciful, i know for a fact there are coaches/officals at other clubs read the forums).

1. Halves stand too deep in attack - The passes from the dummy half to Mortimer/Keating/Robson are very deep as thats where our halves stand, and find them flat footed. Giving the opposition plenty of time to rush up in defence, and shut down and room, as the possibility of being beaten by a step, or short inside ball is minimal.

Halves need to be hitting the ball on the run, and far shallower to prevent more of a danger to the opposition. Souths do this best, with Sandow and Sutton hitting the ball much closer to the line, and running onto the ball, and present a much greater problem to defences.

2. We play with NO decoys - Sounds like a minor thing, but in modern football, forwards running decoys plays, that prevents the opposition coming up too quick and makes the defence make a decision (come in, or stay out) as the half throws the ball out the back to a faster player is a BIG part of rugby league in 2010. Watch St George, Melbourne and Manly, they are best at running these plays. The whole point of them is to try and suck outside defenders in, and create some space for the outside backs to move.

This is one of my greatest pet peeves that parramatta doesn't do. The game against NZ was terrible in this respect, with virtually no decoys. It requires more efforts from the forwards, as they make alot more runs (where most of the time they don't get the ball) but it is this sort of teamwork that helps create opportunites. The 3 best teams in the comp over 4 YEARS, all do it, and do it ALOT, in fact several times every single set when in the 20m zone, so why doesn't Parra? This needs to change

3. No runners for offloads - A simple one, parramatta is going to the line alot one out. They need a few more runners off their hip, and running inside lines, so that when they make a tackle bust, or half break they can capitalise on it. Whilst the current version of Parramatta is well known as an offloading team, alot of these are coming off one out runs, with the players just dumping it backward, without necessarily finding players who are moving forward. Bottom line we are getting some offloads, but poor value for them.

4. Kicking game is woeful - I think any neutral fan watching Parramatta games knows how bad our long kicking game is, let alone the hard core parra fan. A few things here, so basically Mortimer is pretty ordinary kicker, and a very short kicker, Kris Keating isn't much better. My read it that once again Mortimer stands very deep and kicks flat footed, and really struggles for length. The only player who does this succesfully is Soward, but he has a MUCH larger kick on him, so afford to do it. All the other kickers try and kick the ball on the run, so they have better momentum through the ball. Just a personal opinion, but i also think Mortimer kicks the ball too far back in his stance, and need to make contact further out in front of himself.

Consistently our kickers are standing on the wrong side of the ruck. Right footers (Mortimer etc) need to be on the right hand side, left footers on the left (Keating), where possible of course. Sounds simple, but consistently we get it wrong, and struggle for momentum when getting kicks off. And quite clearly Jarryd Hayne needs to do more clearing kicks. He is by FAR the biggest boot in the team, and as a fullback he is standing in the centre of the park anyway so he doesn't need to be out of position to kick a bit more. And although seemingly a bit out dated, perhaps our shorter kickers need to try kicking a few torpedoes, as a torp obviously has greater length to it than a punt.

I understand where Daniel Anderson is coming from in persisting with Mortimer for clearing kicks, as it's pretty hard to tell your halfback who you've invested a heap of money in over several seasons "you can't kick anymore". But it needs to be more strategic, and Mortimer has to have less of a role in long kicking. 

Unlike alot of other supporters, who just cry out to 'ring the changes' or 'sack so and so', that's my answer. Parra has been playing close to full strength all year, with very few major injuries. The cattle in the first 17 are the right players, but very poor structure in our attack is hurting u

That's part 1 to improve our attack, stand by for part 2.

You heard the Gameplan, now pass it on.

Cheers, CJ.