Eels Blogs

"Played Strong, done fine" is what the great Jack Gibson might have said.

Before the game, Reed admitted "We want to prove everyone wrong", and last night they did. I'm ultra proud.

It was against the reigning premiers. Hungry, young lions, with a few high-octane bulldozers thrown in. They don't give you many opportunities to score, or win. Not at full strength, like they were last night.

How much of a difference does eighty-minutes make?

Sportsbet had the Panthers as red-hot favourites at $1.25 to $4.00, so the bookmakers were confident. Our premiership odds went from $11 to $9 over night (to now equal third favourites with the Sharks). Even the Foxsports commentators such as Greg Alexander started to talk about the competition really being a "three-horse race" with us in the calculations.

I think most of us Eels fans were devastated by the 35-4 massacre the week before, and thought, "here's yet another year of being pretenders." I certainly was extremely concerned about the trajectory we were on - our mental toughness - and how we are outside the premiership zone.

Last night was a sensational win of great mental toughness, desperate defence and resilience; with backs against the wall.

We won the battle, but what about the war?

What's next?

Although it was a great win, I still wonder about our on-off character, or that mystical idea of culture .

The good news is we have two big scalps. The Two Best. Penrith and the Storm, both at home, where we were underdogs - better for us, frankly.

And yet, we're a picture of inconsistency. On-off. One week, it's a 31 point loss against the Cows, the next a 2 point win over the Panthers. A two-point loss to the Sharks after inviting them to grab victory from the jaws of defeat was followed up by three-straight wins including a four-point win over the Storm at AAMI. But, then we put up a demoralizing, error-riddled one-point loss to the Tigers. Followed by, you guessed it, a 39-2 win over the Knights (everyone's whipping boys these days). It's what we're used to. Year after year. Except 2018. 2012. 2013. Let's not go there.

Is consistency unrealistic?

Maybe consistency during the year is too unrealistic to expect - especially for us? 

One could argue it's only the end of the year we need to worry about - a tomorrow - and maybe that's who we are. We're not as consistent as reigning or recent premiers. And does it matter? Perhaps, history means very little?

Well, let's look at a few things.

For one, you need to win a bare minimum of 3 or 4 straight games in the finals that are high-intensity, like last night. Back-to-back. There's no tomorrow, here.

And if you aren't battle-hardened by the season end (think the 101s, muscle memory, habits, genuine confidence, executing attacking and defensive systems), it's probably unrealistic to expect it's magically going to happen, qum Harry Potter wizardry. Perhaps, that is exactly what history shows.

Premiers are battle hardened

To give you an idea of the kind of battle-hardened standard you need - 19 of 22 NRL Premiers did not drop more than 3 games in the last third of the season (10-12 games, post-round nineteen). And they had a string of straight wins during the season which helped harden them. That's the kind of teams we're likely to be up against.

There were three in NRL history who dropped more than three post-round 19: the 2015 Cows, the 2016 Sharks, and the 2006 Broncos.

The 2015 Cows and 2016 Sharks dropped 4 games in the last third of the season (10-12 games, post-round nineteen). But both the Cows and Sharks won 4 of their last 5 games. Also, earlier in the season after round four, the Cowboys won 11 straight whereas the Sharks won 15-straight, so both were battle-hardened earlier in the year and proved in practice they knew how to win back-to-back games, and be consistent if they need to.

The worst run of all NRL premiers and probably one of the most inconsistent was the 2006 Broncos who dropped 5 games in the last-third of the seaon after round 19. But, they won the last 6 of 7 games of the season. They also proved to be able to win three-straight games (three times during the season) and one four-straight win, so get some measure of consistency. That's better than us, at the moment. They also had two blowouts scores (a 20 point margin or more; a 32-point loss in round 1, and 20 point loss in round 14), but not more. We've got one blowout to date. But, that was 18 years ago. 

Last Five

More recently and perhaps more relevantly, the last five premiers saw them only drop 1 or 2 games in the last third of the season (10-11 games, post-round nineteen). Even in Covid-shortened 2020 Storm won 7 of the last 8, and 15 of their last 17 games. That's some run, and this gives you an indication of what we're likely to be up against.

But, it's not just about the end-of-year run, it's what comes before that. 

The 2021 Panthers won 12 straight at the start (and 4 straight mid-season), the 2020 Storm won 8 straight mid-season, the 2019 Roosters won 8 straight after losing in round one, the 2018 Roosters won 4 straight, and 7 of 9 mid-season, and none had more than two blowouts over 20 point margins with the maximum being a 27 point loss (when origin stars were out). We've already had one 31 point blow out.

The practice of winning consistently in action, not potential. Being battle-hardened for war. The lessons of history.

Bottom Line

The scalps of the two best teams in the competition prove we're mentally capable of winning tough games against the best, and that we have enormous potential that has been building since 2019. But what about back-to-back for three or four of such games, when it really counts?

The next two months, the middle-third of the season, present the perfect opportunity to go up a notch. We come up against the Roosters (again in round 15), Manly, Penrith (again), Souths, Canberra in Canberra. Even the Dogs will come for us during this period. 

It's also about getting us in the position to finish in the top-four, for a realistic shot, and not allowing more blowouts (especially at full strength) as it undermines what's been built and erodes into confidence and history shows they aren't what premiership teams allow to become a habit. 

The other issue here is burn-out factor, and sure injuries to key spine players may decide our fate, but what's between the ears will count.

Sooner or later we're going to need to prove, at least to ourselves, we're capable of more consistency than we've shown; to be battle-hardened before squeaky-bum time at the end of the year. It's going to be an interesting ride.