Eels Blogs

Gus Gould is right when he says defence starts with your attack.

In V’landyball, that’s truer than ever. Average margins are over 20 points and average scoreline is over 50 points in total. The highest in history.

The old saying is defence wins championships. Maybe that's still true. It's hard to know what the game is evolving into. Touch footy?

But it's who wins the momentum and fatigue battle that wins games. Whoever faces the least amount of death zones.

The Panthers have been the best defensive side of the last 5–6 years. Potentially one of the best defensive systems in NRL history.

Three Sets: Three minutes 

Their best defensive performance this season was surviving 13 consecutive plays without conceding a try.

3 completed sets. Around 3 minutes of sustained pressure in a Death Zone.

That’s the benchmark.

Anything approaching that has defences vulnerable. 

The Eels have also defended multiple consecutive sets without conceding points. The issue is not whether the can. But how often they are forced to do it.

Eels v Melbourne

Against Melbourne, Parramatta endured 22 minutes of Death Zones to just eight of their own.

8 v 22 minutes. 2 v 6 tries. 8-34 loss.

That's still better than round one: 3 v 36 minutes. 1 v 9 tries. 4-52 loss.

That level of defensive exposure is unsustainable for any system. More often than not, it leads to blowouts.

The Lesson of the Panthers

Not even the Panthers can win facing 20 minutes of intense collective momentum against them in a game. Let alone what the Eels face regularly.

Penrith’s only loss this year was when for the first time they almost faced 20 minutes.

13 v 19 minutes. 3 v 5 tries. 16-32 loss to the Dogs.

By comparison, Penrith’s close 18–16 win over Manly featured a near-even momentum battle.

10 v 9 minutes to the Panthers. 3 v 3 tries. A 18-16 win.

That’s why attack, yardage, completions, errors, poor ball-handling, and late-set restarts matter so much.

Yardage

According to NRL.com, Penrith make the most run metres per game. Parramatta are second-last (Broncos worst).

It’s one reason why if Mitchell Moses doesn’t kick for 600 metres or more (Fox Lab), the Eels are generally not in the contest. And in games the kicking yardage fades in the second half, the game usually follows the same course.

The Warriors operate similarly but are humming. Their systems are built around high completions, low errors, strong kick yardage, and territorial pressure layered on top of physicality.

Overworked Forwards and Back Five

Penrith forwards are responsible for only 36.6% of total yardage. Parramatta's 48.8%. 

Junior Paulo and Jack Williams in particular are carrying massive loads simply trying to establish momentum. Far more than the Panthers.

Leota and Lindsay Smith have made 1800m at 7.9m/ run. 

Junior Paulo and Jack Williams have made around 2200m at around 8.5m/ run.

You wouldn't think so. But maybe we don't always appreciate hard work when you're losing.

What’s interesting is that Parramatta’s halves and forwards actually average slightly more metres per carry than Penrith’s equivalent.

But that also reveals the structural problem.

Essentially, the Panthers get punch from their back five. No surprises there.

Penrith’s back five generate: 8,576m from 932 carries. 9.2m/ run (Fox Lab Reports)

Parra’s back five generate: 6,591m from 804 carries. 8.2m/ run.

That gap becomes enormous over the course of a match and a season.

We need more punch from the ruck

Somewhere.

Whether that is forward-heavy recruitment of power players, more punch from dummy half or more from the back five like the Panthers. Or ideally, all.

The Eels need more “urgent athletes” as Coryn often calls them: players capable of generating immediate ruck pressure and momentum. Players who create urgency, chaos, and mayhen to create space and momentum.

Taylan Da Silva is a good example we need to use more out of dummy half and targetting the ditch behind the ruck and both A & B defenders better with good support play and lines. We aren't doing much of that.

Against Melbourne in the first half he had 0 runs for 0 metres. Against the Cowboys he ran for almost 80 metres, made two linebreaks, and scored a try in the opening half.

Against the Storm we spread it to Moses mostly and Volkman looking to exploit the Storm's vulnerable edge defence this year. It was of little practical purpose other than the first try when we had a 3-minute death zone.

It's probably no co-incidence in 2001, another high scoring year, the Eels had a lot of dummy half punch. The PJ Marsh-Drew one-two punch. Whether we see more threat with the ball from Ryley Smith when he returns from injury is also a question.

It might also be the game plan to have the ball in Moses' hand as quickly as possible ala 2022. 

The issue is if you aren't getting ruck momentum, spreading it wide is less effective on set defences.

It's an issue the Dogs have had before their break out win against the Storm this week.

Sure, some teams might have freaks like Latrell Mitchell or Reece Walsh, but if you don't?

It also erodes confidence when you're up against 13 in the line in the 20m zone, and unable to score.

Worst still, when you're playing catch up footy, and hot potato coast-to-coast, the likelihood of an error increases. Invites momentum swings and death.

That's also where elite systems matter so much.

Elite Systems

The Panthers’ elite systems is the foundation of winning momentum by a thousand cuts; suffocation. Patience. Waiting for mistakes. To strike.

Their punch from the ruck, kick chase, support play, ruck and game management are elite. It's also small things like avoiding quick belly play the balls and gang tackles to jack up players and push them back to slow the ruck and help the defensive line reset.

Man-for-man, Penrith average roughly 300mm more per carry overall than the Eels.

But when that involves nearly 2,000 carries, it becomes overwhelming.

It's not just striking first and beating the opposition to the death zone punch.

We also need more consistent systems: a big thing Ryles is looking to achieve. Or failure awaits. 

 Stats taken from Fox Lab Reports.

Individual yardage