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
22–0
We didn't lose the game over 80 minutes.
For 67 minutes, we led 18-11.
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
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.
Lol, very fair Daz, maybe we don't actually disagree because I completely agree with what you've written.
I think I agree we agree, Captain. Onward ho!
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.
TolEllts, agreed the Eels have some issues in yardage. Of coourse when I checked in with the comments on 1EE during the Manly game, it was interesting to read some arguing that we lack strike edge backrowers. Of course we are missing Tuilagi, who beat Broncos almost on his own, and Kautoga, who many claim is constantly threatening to create breaks.
But maybe that just says that the edge backrowers at the Eels who are attacking weapons are defensive liabilities? And the edge backrowers at the Eels who are defensively more sound lack attacking prowess? And maybe that explains Su'A?
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.
Captain, maybe there is a reverse thing going on with Heller's quote? Some critics are attributing any Eels success or any decision about a player they like as just random good luck, while claiming all the bad luck has to be owned?!
If I remember correctly, that Heller quote is from God Knows? And the plot is a guy basically giving a deathbed account of his life, and he is bitter and whiny about it all? Kind of like what many fear will be our deathbed recollection of the Eels, so when I kick it at 101 (daughter insists I gotta beat 100) I'll recount decades worth of suffering at the hands of the Eels?!
Maybe supporting the Eels is like Heller's Catch-22? To ask if it is sane to follow the Eels is the most rational response to how insane it is to follow the Eels. If we could prove it was insane to follow the Eels we would be exempted from following the Eels, but not wanting to follow the Eels is totally sane and means we cannot be exempted from following the Eels on grounds of the insanity of doing so.
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
Nothing in the post suggests arbitrating opinions. It's a bloody opinions-blog style site FFS. I made a somewhat sarcastic request to those going off at "the club" to at least own not deny their inconsistencies. "Pay overs for Russell, yeah! + "Never said that" etc etc.
Another way to view my critique of the critics is that I share the critics' disappointment and frustration with the Eels being perennial also-rans. If there are going to be critiques, then, I just want them to be productive. Isolating individual decisions, outside of salary cap rorting of course, as markers of poor management ultimately obscures more than it illuminates. It looks like griping not productive suggestion.
For example, if critics think club management is on the hook for the on-field stuff, I assume they mean post reform? Or after the 2016 debacle of salary cap rorting stuff and being forced to the bottom of the ladder and the reforms that followed. Assuming that is the case, some extra care in critiquing the club should probably be made about a key feature of those reforms? The independence of football operations and leagues club mgmt? Hence loose talk of "the club" may obscure more than illuminate.
I take it productive suggestion is the aim. I am saying it does not look like that when the critique gets bogged down in stuff like paying Russell overs (we normally complain about paying overs), or blaming mgmt entirely for Brown leaving (which excuses Brown for bailing on a 2031 contract), or calling for speedy outside back recruitment (despite JAC and Lomax arriving). That's all cherry picking. I'm not the first one here to say such critiques start to lose credibility. What's happening with pathways? What is the impact of the centre of excellence? Are the contracts on more solid ground, no get out clauses? etc etc etc. I am sure there are lots of things to discuss related to under-performance, without sacrificing credibility via cherry picking.
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