Eels Blogs

It's all about cohesion, chaos and death zones.

Our defence sits dead last at round five. Our middle concedes the most tries of any team. 40 percent of our tries are leaked there. 

Why? Ah, yes. Our rituals say Mark O’Neill is the reason. No, the front office. Or Ryles. Gulp.

Peter V’landys’ need for speed isn’t helping much. He's got refs handing out restarts like smarties laced with some good stuff. The Millennium Falcon in hyper-warp speed. Brake lines cut. And no-one is wearing seatbelts. 

This round epiimizes that. Blowouts aplenty.

We already know one thing. More tackles. More points conceded. Nrl.com tells the story of round five and more:

Storm vs Panthers: 75 more tackles. Lost 50-10
Dolphins vs Manly: 180 more tackles. Lost 52-18
Dragons vs Cowboys: 70 more tackles. Lost 32-0
Eels vs Panthers (R4): 70 more tackles. Lost 48-20
Eels vs Storm (R1): 110 more tackles. Lost 52-4

Dolphins coach Kristian Woolf called it a mystery why his side leaked so many. Shane Flanagan wasn’t sure either about the Dragons, but promised answers. We’ll get to the Panther's hiding of Storm.

The Panthers are not just beating teams. They’re demoralising reigning premiers, both grand finalists, the most dominant team this century, and the most expensive roster in the game. 26-0 vs Broncos. 26-6 vs Sharks. 40-4 vs Roosters. 48-20 vs Eels. 50-10 vs Storm.

190 to 40.

The best points differential after Round 5 in NRL history. Only the 2021 Panthers conceded fewer.

Cohesion and Redemption

This time last year? They were third last.

By Round 12? Last. Bottom-four defence. Their era was meant to be over.

What's changed?

Not recruitment. Not new stars. Nor the end of Mercury retrograde.

It’s the same new and old faces.

But players like Blaize Talagi, Casey McLean and Isaiah Papali’i, who replaced departing stars such as James Fisher-Harris, Jarome Luai, Suruva Turuva at the end of 2024, have had another off-season to fit into the system and fix last year’s Achilles heel. Their Left edge defence.Talagi was missing tackles for fun last year. Not this year. It's a story of Cohesion and better Connectedness.

And something else. They have a chip on their shoulder. They seek redemption. They're playing like men possessed.

They just handed the Melbourne Storm their worst loss in Craig Bellamy’s 23-year era.

For Bellamy defence is simple. “You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to be a good defender. You just need to work hard and be determined," he concluded in the post-game pressor. Or play reggies.

Here’s the part that's interesting.

Storm completed better. 94% to 84%. They made fewer errors. They won the penalty count. Restarts were close.

So what happened?

Death Zones

“If you lose momentum, there is a four to seven minute period of the game where it’s called a death zone where you just might have to defend," Reni Maitua told Braith Anasta on their recent BTFU podcast.

That buzzword momentum again, but less fuzzy. So, it's about three or more consecutive sets. Sustained possession. While the other hangs on for dear life. Mental and physical fatigue builds. Line speed drops. Contact softens. Structures break. Decision-making goes out the window. Scoreboard pressure comes. It's a vicious cycle.

3–4 minutes. Survivable.
5–6 minutes. Damage.
7 plus. Collapse.

Think the Richter scale. Near the epicentre.

Storm Collapse

Here is their first 28 minutes against the Panthers.
Panthers  | 9-min zone | 8 v 1 sets | 2 tries
Storm       | 4-min zone | 4 v 0 sets | 1 try
Panthers | 7-min zone | 5 v 1 sets | 2 tries
Some major quakes. 16 minutes vs 4. 20-6.
Second half? Similar story. 50-10.

All in all, the Panthers had five larger zones for nine tries. The Storm had two smaller zones for two tries.

Essentially, the Panthers did to the Storm, what the Storm did to us, except in round one we had less zones to work with and they had even more severe ones.

Now Us

In the last three rounds, against the Panthers, Broncos and Dragons we’re down 64-16 in the first 28 minutes. Then, we're up 74-36 up in the next 50 minutes.

Per game, that's down 21-5 down early after twenty-eight, then up 25-9 for the next fifty odd.

Our starts are killing us. Let's have a look at the early zones. 

Round 1 (First 27 mins)
Eels     | 5-min zone  | 3 v 0 sets   | 1 try
Storm  | 10-min zone | 8 v 2 sets | 2 tries
Storm  | 4-min zone   | 4 v 1 sets  | 1 try
No comeback.

Round 2 (First 27 mins)
Broncos | 5-min zone | 5 v 0 sets | 1 try
Broncos | 6-min zone | 6 v 1 sets | 1 try
Eels         | 3-min zone | 3 v 0 sets | 1 try
Broncos | 8-min zone | 5 v 1 sets | 1 try
Comeback last 12 minutes of first half.
Eels | 8-min zone | 7 v 1 sets | 3 tries

Round 3 (First 27 mins)
Dragons | 4-min zone | 3 v 0 sets | 0 tries
Eels        | 3-min zone | 4 v 1 sets | 1 try
Dragons | 3-min zone | 4 v 0 sets | 1 try
Eels        | 2-min zone | 3 v 0 sets | 0 tries
Dragons | 5-min zone | 4 v 1 sets | 1 try
Comeback last 12 minutes of first half.
Eels | 5-min zone | 4 v 0 sets | 2 tries

Round 4 (First 18 mins)
Panthers | 11-min zone | 6 v 1 sets | 3 tries
Eels          | 3-min zone | 6 v 0 sets | 1 try
Panthers | 5-min zone | 3 v 0 sets | 2 tries
A small comeback of sorts, in the second half, but no where near enough.

It's usually all happens by the first 27 minutes, when most of the restarts quotas (say 60-65%) are met.

Image: Off a penality in the 5th minute. The start of the Panther's first brutal death zone that led to 18-0. Panthers attack right edge, then shift to the middle, then left, right, left, and right again to create disorder and mayhem and a lack of cohesion. They let the "ball do the work". Moses Leota attacts 4 and pulls Williams and Ryley Smith out of the middle as well as attracting Iongi. Next play, Yeo runs through the space created by snowballing pressure. 

In almost every game, early on, we face 8 to 11 minute killer zones. Off the Richter scale.

The Panthers have only faced smaller zone, and one 6-minute zone in five rounds. Against us. 

They leaked two tries then. 

It shows they aren't immune either.

The Fix?

How do we avoid those rolling 10-11 minute zones that cause structural collapse as Penrith do?

It's said defence is the hardest part of the game, and all about attitude and desire. A mental thing.

Gus Gould reminds us defence starts with your attack. What you do with the ball. That includes your kicking game and chase.

Injuries are making the task tougher. But do we need to change our game management? Or our starters? Jason Ryles has stuck with the starting pack, so he's giving them another chance. 

Part of the answer lies in discipline. In the first 27 minutes we've had collectively 14 errors, 10 penalties against us, 13 restarts against us. But sometimes, it's not about discipline. The Panthers made as many errors as us in that period last week. They just had too much momentum.

A former international I spoke to, “The Boss”, kept it simple for me.

Improve Line speed. Better first contact. Better shape in the defensive line. Our line is often too staggered.

Image: On the first play, Williams is jacked up and driven back over 10m, and the Eels struggle to get out of their 40m zone.

It's also the chicken and the egg when it comes to all that and zones. Or until Penrith punch you in the face.

We’ll be tested again today on Easter Monday. Benji Ball with their best defence since Ivan Cleary coached them. Matty Johns pointed out they seem to be a more resolute Tigers side winning plays one, two and three on both sides of the ball. That creates momentum. Gulp.

How do we get better earthquake-proof design? Still, our in-goal defence scrambling, at least for the final 50 minutes has been decent in most games.

Although we haven't lost our games in moments, we have lost them in minutes. And to date, we keep losing the same ones.