I've had some decent luck picking the Eels wins this year, and I was asked last night why I picked those particular games. Thought I'd share
1. Jarryd Hayne must be in the team
Without Hayne we don't have another attacking penetration to suck players in and create any space. It's why we've struggled to win basically any games for the past three years without him.
2. Parramatta must be playing at Parramatta Stadium
I rate Parramatta a six to 12 point superior team at the Stadium. Whereas when they are playing at other grounds they tend to drift in and out of the match - at home they tend to switch on for most of the match
3. Any excuse for them to have that little bit of additional motivation that might bely their odds and make them for particularly good value.
There are only five games this year that even matched criteria 1 and 2.
Round 2 v Warriors: We were leading the Warriors until Jarryd Hayne got taken from the field
Round 5 v Manly: Came after the club was really starting to get some stick and they hit back with a 29 to 20 win
Round 8 vs Tigers. I couldn't really find any motivation factor for this game, but still the game was close 31 to 30
Round 13 vs Sharks. Another win at very good odds at home with Hayne in and the pressure really on for the club to find a win
Round 20 vs Storm. Hayne back, Kearney going out at the Stadium. Was never in doubt at 3.65 :-)
Moral of the story.
1. We still need more attacking options or we will continue to only win matches when Hayne is in the side. A really dominating second rower is still the thing this side misses particularly with Tonga not providing the expected thrust out wide we thought we may have gotten from him
2. We are not a mentally strong side. We can lift for games and the home crowd keeps the side in the game when playing at home, but there is not the leadership or across the board focus to win consistently when they don't have conditions to suite
3. I wish we would reconsider those home games we take away from Parramatta Stadium. Our record at ANZ is pitiful and its going to cost us a finals point at some point in the future.
Replies
This year is the final year for taking our Home games to ANZ isn't it?
Ricky Stuart is the coach who can get us to switch on mentally. He's a tough coach and he's someone who can push a team to their limits.
Ask the Roosters and Sharks fans if he got their team to switch on mentally
He got NSW to switch on. He's an improvement on SK and has the experience needed to deliver us a Premiership.
He'd matured from those days. Like Super said, he'd improved since then the way how he got the NSW team play for their mates and for their states...I'm stoked to have Sticky in our team...said to see SK go, we should've offered him a better poisiton like Junior develp0pement officer...
COPY N PRINT, couldnt you have told us this at the start of the year ?? we could have all been rich....now im upset n dirty.
Collingwood cost me a motza this weekend as well.
I'm 2 from 2 this year as far as backing the eels goes.Backed them round 6 or whatever it was vs Manly and last night.
But there was a bit more involved than just the above. Manly had there 4 best players out - pretty hard for any team to win in those circumstances (although they got pretty close!).
As for last night, the only team playing worse attacking footy at the moment then Parra is Melbourne (with St George not far behind). They are just going pitiful without Slater.
I always give Parra a thought if they are going to be in an arm wrestle rather than playing teams who can score at will like the Bulldogs who we are simply just not going to be able to score enough points to beat.
Agreed, M.E. It's fair it say I wouldn't have backed them against Manly with Williams or Melbourne with Slater. Cronulla's roster wasn't anything to be scared of. Which is probably why I didn't bet against Tigers - I was concerned about Marshall and Farah dominating.
It's actually probably adds another Moral. While our defence can hold up pretty well against your typical attack, we're very vulnerable to freakish attacking players. We just give teams to many opportunities and if you do that enough against a Brett Stewart, Billy Slater, Greg Inglis, Ben Barba, etc they'll slice through you. Without Slater Melbourne didn't have that player.
I think that's the one thing Kearney just couldn't get out of our game. Even when we played it safe, we still gave away too many penalties or dropped the ball at critical times, constantly inviting the opposition to attack. When we've won it's been more so on the back of great line defence, rather than dominating possession/territory.
Hayne's impact on a game goes without saying.But I agree we must have more attacking options than him, that is we need the opposition to be concerned about what other players in the side are likely to do. Hayne being our most dangerous attacking option has led him to be heavily marked and being swapped between positions has not helped either. When the whole team was moving forward and defending solidly in the back end of 09 Hayne could more readily and freely spring into the attack with much greater potency !
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