Trauma snowballing syndrome and the urge to blow things up isn’t just something buried in human DNA. It's now rebranded as “high standards". Forty Years can do that. Sometimes, all it takes is a few minutes.
But let’s park the emotion for a minute. What actually happened yesterday?
The good news? We fought. Fought hard. That’s two weeks back-to-back. Despite being undermanned, we’ve already used 28 players - the most in the comp - and have the worst injury toll in the game.
The bad news? We didn't stick to what works.
Foxlab shows we made 15-9 errors. That’s the game.
If you’re handing over that much ball, you’re not winning too many.
Fair dinkum. You could have a $17 million roster and a recruitment team featuring Jesus, Mary, Mohammed and Buddha. You’re still getting beat.
Even the Panthers lost 32-16 to the Dogs with 15-8 errors two weeks ago. The Storm made 13-9 errors and lost 48-6 to Souths this week.
Given the injury crisis and rebuilding roster and the fact we’ve been losing the yardage battle every week (see table above) and possession except for once (Broncos game), the adjustment isn't complicated. It's obvious. We have to kick longer, at least over 600 metres, chase hard, hold the ball, make no more errors than the opponents, and complete above 80%.
When we do that, we compete or win.
When we don’t, we lose, usually badly.
Yes, it's boring. It’s not revolutionary. It's not sexy. It just works.
In the first half, despite errors, we kept largely to that blueprint. The kicking game and chase was doing its job - close to 500 metres - was keeping things within possibility of an upset. We were still in the fight at 7-6. Hanging in by our finger nails.
But in the second half, we fell away from that. Kick metres dropped to around 240m. Errors kept piling up at critical moments in the wrong places. We invited Manly to "please enjoy almost unlimited possession and field position." Game over.
Emotions will point to the highlight reel.
Saab and Hopoate, right and left wingers, combining to slice through the middle.
Garrick making a break on our left edge.
Sean Russell missing a tackle and getting steamrolled.
Oka bashing Walker out of the game and running over blokes like he’s late for a Sunday roast.
But cold-hard stats tell a deeper story.
The game didn’t slip away gradually.
Thirteen Minutes of Choas
It snapped. Between the 50th and 63rd.
The score went from 7-6 to 27-6.
4 tries in 13-minutes.
Lights out.
But that thirteen minutes of chaos didn’t happen in isolation.
It sat in within a mammoth 20-minute momentum swing. Almost one long fatigue-feast of a death zone.
Between the 46th and 66th.
Possession was almost 80% against us.
13 /15 vs 2 / 4 sets
87% v 50% completions
It all kicked off with a single error.
Then the avalanche.
5 errors
2 restarts
1 penalty
1 sin bin
4 tries
20–0
We didn't lose the game over 80 minutes.
For 67 minutes, we led 18-7.
Uncomfortable Truths
When momentum shifts nowadays, it doesn’t just shift, it accelerates. One error becomes two. Two becomes a set restart. Then a penalty. Then fatigue. Then someone’s in the bin. Then you’re watching wingers carve up the middle with your head spinning.
Naturally, the You're Fired Posts were inevitable. Sack R&R. Sack the Team. Sack Ryles. Sack the board. Sack the Club. Rebuild the club by Tuesday morning. Get Shane Richardson in, he'll bring us Galvin. Get Matt Cameron. He'll bring Ice and Talagi back along with Alamoti and Jenkins. Job Done. Who said running a $200m organization was hard and needed 5-year plans?
Right now, until we get troops back and new signings like Su'a, this team doesn’t have the punch or luxury of intricate playing loose or expressive footy for long periods. Or to look hot. We’ve got to stick to a simple blueprint, and it’s about as exciting as a trip to the dentist. Hard yakka.
We know exactly what works. We just don’t always stick to it. And when we don’t, we get thirteen minutes like that or worse.
Replies
Nice analysis HOE. Our forwards and backs cannot get us the important forward metres. Thus we are losing the yardage. Only saving grace is Moses big boots. However, our middle and backs are always getting steam rolled against bigger counterparts. It initially causes fatigue that results in missed tackles. This is the time when dumb penalties and errors coming in and 6 agains rears its ugly head causing more tackles and more fatigues. Then it is rinse and repeat throughout the remaining minutes of the game. It only takes one error or one penalty or one 6 again to put our players in this ugly cycle.
I appreciate the efforts of our middles especially the younger ones for their effort, but in any other team, our middles will not play FG. Unfortunately, our senior middle Junior has an on again, off again performance. JDV no longer has strong carries. I agree that we currently do not have the right roster for the current NRL game. Who is responsible for this? Is it the coach? R&R? the pencil pushers who do not have any in depth knowledge and field experience of the game? Whoever it is, we need to find the root cause of the problem and take the appropriate solution to it. It is not enough that the club is earning revenues, it should also be winning Permiereships.
Great breakdown HOE, and I completely agree that this one wasn't on the players and their effort, or the coaching staff and their plan. We are playing a hodge-podge first grade side at the moment and thus we need very simple plans that we can execute. This means we will probably be outplayed regularly, but it also means that if our opposition makes more mistakes than us we will be in a position to capitalise on it.
I thought we played with high effort and I thought the overall gameplan was solid. I also don't hold scorelines in the same was as I did a few years ago because it's clear the game is being driven to have high scores which means blowouts will be more common and margins need to be taken with a grain of salt.
This season a margin of 12-18 points between teams at full time is a "tight game", not a demolition. In prior seasons that wouldn't have been true.
I still think our Top 30 is poor in comparison to the average team in the NRL and on paper we deserve to be in the lower quartile of teams (on paper). I don't think Jack Gibson could have lifted this squad to Top 4, injuries or no injuries. I think the only team who is very objectively worse than us on paper is St George, which ironically. is where we're poaching our great signing for next year from.
Injuries have definitely hurt us this year and have made us sit lower than we otherwise would have on the ladder. The change in game refereeing has made our For & Against worse than it would have been in other years because fatigue is deliberately being used by the games administrators to get more tries per game.
Both of those aside, our roster is not a very good roster. Fully fit and with the rules of last year, we are still getting regularly beaten. The shape of our roster is entirely within our control as a club and if we try to play it off as just happenstance then I truly believe we're doing ourselves a huge disservice.
Your uncomfortable truths turn into uncomfortable excuses...and that is where I straight up disagree. Our Top 30 is not a great Top 30 and that is our lesson to learn. Whether we choose to learn it or not is entirely up to moments like these where we either take acocuntability, or we say it's all not our fault.
There's a brilliant quote by one of my favourite authors Joseph Heller that I quote a lot in my professional life, and I think it applies to the Eels a lot as it shows how many in the world like to accept good luck as their doing, and claim no ownership of the bad times:
Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.
Our squad is not simple bad luck. We did this. And if we don't face into it we will keep doing it.
Love your work as always HOE and I know I'm one of the annoying agitators on this. It comes from a place of passion, not for internet drama points. I truly believe if we don't face into this we will continue to be mediocre regardless of the coach and player churn.
So now you’re the arbiter of which opinions are allowed here? I’ll keep expressing mine, even if you find it boring.
I’d personally like to see the club win a premiership while I’m still around to enjoy it. It’s hardly treasonous to acknowledge that we’re underperforming and that change is needed in the areas that matter most. If you’re content with finishing 9th–17th and never really contending, that’s your call, enjoy it.
But let’s not pretend that pointing out obvious issues is somehow out of line. Or perhaps we should bring BA back and change nothing for the next 20 years. FFS
Nice blog HOE (as always). One thing I do know is that we need to send Pezet off now...Get the youngsters ie Lorenzo in now and get them used to first grade.
Pezet has shown he is at best on par with a rookie and why should we help the premiers by getting NRL miles into him.
Thanks HOE, thats a great write up and while watching the game new the stats were heavily against us.
When we had the ball fuck we looked good, rolling up the middle making 70 meters every set. When we had equal possession we defended brilliantly but ultimately the errors got us and it was the fatigue that led us to soft tries. At least three errors were simple errors in our red zone which shouldnt have happened.
Also did i see two short drop outs and both occassions they scored.
Some of the strongest and most intelligent posters have commented on this blog.
I dont deny any of the opinions and to reinforce one aspect is that Hoe's "dead zone" is just about proven and cannot be denied.
Of course our judgements always come after whatever event has just happened and this applies specifically to the Russell anecdote, we have seen many turnarounds this year, JDB, Junior, Moretti, Guymer, Smith, TDS,Kelly, the list goes on and Moses probably has application in different views......Daz talks about scapegoats, we will always have them.
No one could put their handup for consistency.
This where JR has to screw this down to understand all the reasons.
Is he smart enough.....lets wait and see. The judgements against him come from some of the lessor intellects , now that is not surprising.
I have just had a reverse shoulder replacement and am in agony typing this......good news is Poppa has no corner for a few weeks, you should all be grateful for that small mercy......LOL
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