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
It's a major component of the job and worth mentioning. It's not cherry picking to point out bad decisions. The cumulative effect of a high performing GM of Football is continual roster improvement (or maintenance of a quality roster) over time. Yes everyone makes mistakes but overall the club should be strong or getting stronger on the field if the GM of Football is performing well.
Where does Gus Gould sit? Premierships as player and coach (NRL and SOO). GM at Panthers 2011-2019, made finals four times but 50% win rate overall. Panthers post-Gould is where all the magic happened. Gould not successful?
How about Gould at Dogs 2021 to present? Barrett had a sorry record 2021-23. Ciraldo starts 2023, they finish 15th, then finals 2024-2025. It's half-half so is Gould successful at Dogs or not?
What about the Storm. Is Frank Ponisi up for getting sacked after 6 losses in a row despite success 2007 to present?
The cherry picking is not strictly speaking the picking out of this or that decision as good or bad. The cherry picking is isolating particular decisions as the claimed "mark" of bad club mgmt. Sometimes that is going to be easy, like salary cap rorting. But as the Gould case shows, sometimes it is highly contingent. Pushed to its limit, a club is not well managed unless the club sits higher on the ladder than last season? Until of course you are minor premiers then you can only go down, maybe like Ponisi at the Storm?
Gus was literally fired from the Panthers. So yes, he was deemed not successful. Didn't mean he did nothing right, didn't mean he didn't play a big part in the success that followed. It did mean that he was deemed surplus requirements and he was moved on. The Panthers leadership did what needed to be done and success followed swiftly afterwards.
Now apply the same logic to MON Daz.
Gus was sacked from the Panthers before he reached 8 years in the gig. Less time than MON has had. And Gus was already a legend of the game...yet even his "we trust you'll come good" ran out faster than MONs. So even if MON had the profile, experience and track record of Gus Gould (lol, as if), he still should be sacked according to the Gus comparison.
The reality is MON did a few years at the Tigers when they were at their worst, got the sack for misconduct, and came to the Eels where he has remained for 8 inglorious years. That is his resume. This is the guy who is GM of our Football department.
Hardly Gus Gould. And yet he's outlasted Gus at the Panthers. It's sad that it has come to cherrypicking to try to get people to see the bleeding obvious, but at the same time let's not ignore the bleeding obvious. MON was an experiment in desperation at the time he was hired, and one that we seem to be clinging on to for some absurd reason almost a decade later despite a very average return on investment and a pretty poor current state performance of his department overall.
There's no way to polish this turd into a diamond. We've been trying for nigh on a decade and all we have are hands that smell like crap and a turd that is still very much a turd, just a decade older.
Captain, if I applied the same logic to MON as you aplied to Gould, I would start out talking about what MON did right when the Eels were in the finals 2019-2022, and then I would proceed to the period when the Eels have not been in the finals 2022-2026. I would ask what has changed. I would immediastely ocnur the dimished on-field performance cannot be solely the GM as the GM was the same through on-field success and on-field failure.
THAT is applying the logic you asked me to apply! I am just asking others to be logical, just as you demand of me.
PS: not sure why some 1EE folks persist in demanding logic from me without stopping to ask - not saying you Captain but just sayin' in general - if they got up early enough to ping me on a point of logic!
I agree with you MON should have been retained when things were going well. And he was. Just like Gould was.
The difference is the Penrith leadership saw what needed to happen to progress. They booted the coach in 2018, then as soon as the new coach had settled in they booted the GM in 2019.
They then went on to achieve the next echelon of success.
We should applaud MON and BA for the stint of success they were able to have, then when the tide turned we got rid of the coach. Tick. Smart move. BA had run his course and I truly truly appreciate all the success he had here, but in the end he absolutely had to go. Such is the life of professional sports.
MON deserves accolades for what he and BA did for those years of success. They were now a long time ago, and it's been downhill pretty sharply since.
And whilst I absolutely 100% agree with you that changing MON doesn't suddenly make us winners, that it's not like he is dropping the ball on the field or solely making recruitment decisions. But he is the GM. And as a GM you're responsible for total performance. If your people are failing you in R&R it is your accountability to fix that, either by improving the people or changing the people. And if you fail to fix that over the long term, then you are thanked, wished well, and moved on. The theory being that the new GM will go and find out why our R&R (for example) is underperforming and will address it (by improving or changing the people).
As a manager you never get to say "that wasn't my fault". It's all your accountability, even if it wasn't your direct responsibility.
MON held his tenure during the good years. Did he get us to the finals himself? Nope. But as a GM you get the kudos in the good times regardless if it was good luck or good management. Likewise as a GM you take the hits in the bad times.
Moving BA on was the right thing to do. It should have been followed 12 months or less later by MON with succession planning starting immediately after BA left. Penrith left the blueprint for us.
There are another 13 teams without a premeriship winning roster. Does that mean those CEO 's are also bad operators?
The Dragons just sacked their GM of Football. The Tigers brought Shane Richardson in to revitalise their roster. They're currently in 3rd place. It's an important role and which greatly effects the performance of the NRL side.
It's a great question Fiddy. Just because someone doesn't have the best results doesn't mean they have the worst. There is a whole range in between. Are our results acceptable under the current administration? It depends how far back you go.
What if Mutts, bare with me, we tried to and he said no he wants to see what Perth offers? Crazy to think that could have been a possibility.
You cannot force players to sign. A lot of players have been signing shorter deals in order to hear interest from Perth and PNG.
Russell leaving is what it is. What it does show is a consistency around our R&R. Who is Russell's replacement btw?
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