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
Russell leaving is what it is. What it does show is a consistency around our R&R. Who is Russell's replacement btw?
But what consistency? He tested the market, as a lot of players are doing, he got a 4 year deal for $2.6mil over those years. He couldn't turn that down. Now Russell is a steady player but similar to Opacic you can find a Russell type easier than you can find a Farnworth or Crichton on the market. Doesn't mean all work out but if looking there are more of those types than the stars.
Whoever we are after or see as the replacement wont be realised til the off-season. We normally do not, as a club, announce signings during the year. If we do they come out of nowhere with very little to no media talk around it. But his replacement has nothing to do with the fact he was given an offer it would have been crazy for the R&R to match and him wanting to see what Perth had to offer is not the fault of R&R either.
I reckon Russell might have been still concussed from that Tigers match. He is off his game as compared to his previous performance before the concussion. Unfortunately, he was again hit hard on the head by Olakuato that was missed by the field referees. Olakuato was belatedly on report for that high tackle.
Muttman, some did suggest paying overs for Russell. And you endorsed their messages. FFS
You think because he had one bad game yesterday it somehow vindicates the decision to let him leave. Until he got knocked out he was our best centre this season. It's a bold strategy to let our best players leave year after year. FFS.
Daz, If you're in extended death zones, the game is too fast for everyone.
Let's compare 20-minute zones, early in the second half.
Panthers v Dolphins
70% possession against Panthers.
11/13 v 3/4 sets
4 tries conceded
Us v Manly
Almost 80% possession against us.
13 /15 vs 2 / 4 sets
4 tries conceded
It's almost a given, you'll crack given fatigue mentally and physically. It just doesn't happen to them as often to be an issue.
On Russell: is he still feeling the after-effects of concussion and it's affected his confidence? He's been great for us in recent times. But he seemed a shadow of that yesterday, and it was a weak-link they exploited. Hopefully, he's okay. If the club paid overs for Russell or didn't, either way, they'd cop it. Personally, I hope he succeeds and continues to improve for us and in his future at the Bears (except when he plays us).
The issue for the Eels is despite being talented and coming of age recently, he's probably not quite a marquee player, so any third party TPAs wouldn't be falling over themselves and it would need to go fully on the cap.
It is no secret the club is on the hunting for outside backs and middles (the six question aside) with money to spend. I also wonder whether Su'a might be experimented in the middle (a bit like Kobe Hetherington for Manly who switched to prop from second row)? R&R has never been trickier or more competitive and challenging.
Agreed, HOE, the new 6-Again Regime creates huge runs of possession. Ironically, Vlandy's and the NRL over pre-season talked incessantly about how their proposed rule changes were all about creating changes in possession. If one were a conspiracy theorist, one might suspect the NRL has set about ensuring by end-of-season that everyone will be clamouring for whatever rule change ensures changes not gluts of possession!
As for Russell, it was one his worst games for quite some time. He seemed off-the-pace. Hopefully he is OK. Head knocks are no longer treated as "get over it ya wuss', rightfully so.
I want to push on you on this Daz, cause whilst I get your "armchair R&R experts" narrative and I agree it definitely holds true to a small minority, I think it's flawed. And I respect your opinions a lot so I'm going to go toe to toe with you on it.
Here's where I sit on the matter - I am by far and away not an expert in R&R in the NRL, or in any other sport for that matter. I have decades of real experience running organisations with hundreds to thousands of people so understand a lot about people as capital, human behaviour, management at scale etc...but I don't for a second think any of that experience crosses over usefully into the world of the NRL - I'm not that naive nor that impressed with myself.
But (and here's where I disagree with your narrative) you don't have to be an expert to criticise someone who is paid to be an expert.
I would certainly hope that MON is better than me at R&R, and at running a football operation. That is the premise for his employment and has been for many, many, many years now. Being better than me doesn't mean he's good - I am an objectively terrible bar for that (as are all of us on this site). I could find a thousand dodgy mechanics who know more about cars than I do but are still objectively bad mechanics. I'm not comparing him to me or my opinion. I'm comparing his outcomes to those of his peers. And as evidenced by our squad over his tenure...he is underperforming his peers regularly and routinely over a long period of time.
On Russell in particular, his stocks have gone up and down and up and down. He was originally touted as one of the juniors that would show us exactly why our pathways were now great. Then the tide turned and everyone said he was bog average. Then he had some good games and everyone jumped on the Russell train again, and then he signed with Perth and the knives came out and he was going to be the next Hayne.
There's definite FOMO in the Eels supporter base and it leads to super silly conversations. But none of that means we can't hold professionals to professional standards, compare them against their peers, and call out that they're not objectively doing a great job even if we ourselves can't do the job. I'm not saying I should replace MON, I'm saying someone better than him should...and that given his performance that shouldn't be that hard to find.
FWIW I don't think Russell is worth fighting for - he's NRL standard, but not exceptional and is defintely replaceable. To me he's just another example of us over-valuing the potential in our juniors and trying to dream up a scenario where our juniors are all suddenly the next coming of Andrew Johns. It's what makes me equally concerned at the talk surrounding the next batch of juniors who are all apparently going to deliver us to the promised land (which is why it doesn't matter that MON is bad at his job).
Good point on that since someone is better than someone at something doesn't automatically make them great at it.
Its where many people use the "he's played footy and you haven't so you can't have an opinion" claim. I mean not many people have been PM but many abuse whoever is PM.
Im more in the boat of giving credit where due, not using small examples to make argument stronger and not solely blaming one person when others have a say
Hi Captain, let's first clear some under-brush. You say the following: "But (and here's where I disagree with your narrative) you don't have to be an expert to criticise someone who is paid to be an expert."
I never made that assumption and would never make that assumption. Indeed I may even have written a whole book in which it is argued, in part, that non-experts can certainly make valuable critiques of experts. Note I also argue that domain specialists are probably best placed versus non-domain specialists to make judgments about domain-specialism claims. Both claims can be true!
How can both claims be true? Your dodgy mechanics analogy tells us how. We do not have to be a mechanic to know if a mechanic might be swindling us. The mechanic can know more about some engine than us but we have some non-mechanic knowledge relevant to assessing if the mechanic is swindling us.
Thus, my critique of the R&R experts is NOT that they are NOT R&R experts. My critique is of the cherry picking in the evidence they offer as part of their critique. I am simply saying an argument that relies on cherry picking is probably more agenda than reasoned case. Also, I very much doubt that there is a direct, linear, deterministic relation between GM and on-field performance. Of course there are strong relations. But the 'movement' we have seen in some of these critiques, like NOT paying overs to keep Russell as a sign of poor mgmt, are just completely overblown.
I don't know if we actually disagree, to be honest. It is a fair point to say that IF a GM has been overseeing a decline since a 2022 GF appearance, questions should be asked. I am only saying, for instance, that the critique gets a bit ridiculous when appearing in a GF in 2022 is discounted from consideration, along with appearing in the finals 2019-2022. Yes the wheels appear to have fallen off, but we know at least that we cannot infer deterministically and linearly from GM to on-field success if our GM's relation to on-field success has been finals 2019-2022 and non-finals 2023-2025 (yes 2026 soon too!).
I am being a critic of the critics not because they are not GM experts but because their critique has a giant flaw in it.
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