No doubt the Blue and Gold Army is still buzzing after a stellar performance against the reigning NRL premiers. A win always feels great, and what better way to test yourself than against the Jonathan Thurston led Cowboys.
In concluding the post match wrap ups from Round 2, Colmac presents his weekly column and analyses how the stats told the story of the match.
Team Statistics
A much discussed focus for the Eels this year has been discipline. The stats from Saturday night’s performance highlight that we were a very well disciplined side against a Cowboys team who conceded more than double our penalties. You could put a case forward that the strength of our performance contributed to this penalty count. Great defence, with great discipline really upset the Cowboys, creating a very poor completion rate and frustrating them into giving away more penalties than they usually do.
Essentially, the Eels stuck to their game plan and the results speak for themselves.
Attack
Looking at this week’s Top 5 runs and Top 5 run metre earners, the Cowboys had the top 4 spots in the latter while the Eels occupied the the top 2 spots in the former.
As you can see, 3 of the top 4 Cowboys Top Run Metres came from their men at the back. No doubt this was largely due to Corey Norman’s great kicking game.
Corey kicked 15 times for 700 kick metres. Outstanding effort Normy!
In comparison, the Eels had 7 players top the 100 metre mark compared with the Cowboys 9 players. While their runs may not have been the most efficient in their young careers, Manu Ma’u and Junior Paulo shouldered a hefty burden as they led the way in total runs for the Eels. The similarity between the metres earned in the forwards indicated the ferocity of the forwards contest, whereas the disparity between the backs was largely indicative of a Cowboys kicking game which required minimal work from our back 3.
Parramatta Eels |
North Queensland Cowboys |
| Junior Paulo | 127m | Antonio Winterstein | 165m |
| Manu Ma’u | 125m | James Tamou | 137m |
| Kenny Edwards | 119m | Kane Linnett | 133m |
| Tim Mannah | 114m | Lachlan Coote | 130m |
| Semi Radradra | 108m | Jason Taumalolo | 124m |
| Clint Gutherson | 105m | Scott Bolton | 117m |
| Danny Wicks | 104 | Ethan Lowe | 116m |
| Kyle Feldt | 115m | ||
| Gavin Cooper | 107m |
Defence
The defence stats again demonstrate the commitment made by Nathan Peats. In another great effort Peatsy racked up 39 tackles (4 missed tackles and 1 ineffective tackle). Amazingly these figures were accumulated despite leaving the field early due to injury.
Nathan’s stats for the night also included 1 try, 1 tackle break, 5 runs for 42 metres and 76 possessions. It was a tremendous performance and he will be sorely missed over the next couple weeks with that elbow injury.
The Halves
In the lead up to the game everyone was talking about how our new halves in Corey Norman and Kieran Foran would fare against the premiership winning halves in Michael Morgan and Johnathon Thurston.
The stats below point to each team fielding running five eighths paired with organising halves. Of course, both Thurston and Foran have the capability of playing the running game, but this was not how this match panned out.
If we examine the kick metres of Norman, the importance of his kicking game is exemplified. To double Thurston in kick metres was an outstanding result. Coupled with his great all-round performance, it’s little wonder that “Normz” picked up the players award.
Overall, the table below shows some pretty good stats for a combination on their first outing together, against arguably the best halves pairing in the comp. Congratulations to our forwards for keeping things tight on both Thurston and Morgan. You can’t forgot Junior’s shot on Thurston late in the game.
| Corey Norman | Kieran Foran | Michael Morgan | Johnathon Thurston | |
| Runs (Metres) |
4 (42) |
2 (16) | 7 (52) |
3 (22) |
| Possessions |
58 |
45 | 30 |
59 |
| Line Breaks (Assists) |
0/0 |
0/1 | 0/0 |
0/2 |
| Kicks (Metres) |
15 (700) |
3 (44) | 2 (34) |
9 (371) |
| Tackled |
2 |
2 | 8 |
5 |
| Tackle Breaks |
1 |
1 | 1 |
0 |
| Tackles |
14 |
16 | 15 |
15 |
| Missed Tackles |
0/1 (ineffect.) |
2 | 1/1 (ineffect.) |
2 |
| Errors |
0 |
1 | 2 |
0 |
| Penalties Conceded |
0 |
0 | 1 |
1 |
Stat Attack Player of the Week
Kenny Edwards
It was hard to single one player out this week after a fine performance all over the park, but I have settled for someone who just keeps impressing week in week out – Kenny Edwards.
After a horrid 2015, Kenny is showing his ability and taking up from where he left off in 2014.
Kenny’s figures for the game against the Cowboys are as follows:
| Possessions | 16 |
| Tries | 1 |
| Runs (Metres) | 13 (119m) |
| Passes/Offloads | 2/0 |
| Line Breaks/Assists | 1/0 |
| Tackled | 10 |
| Tackle Breaks | 3 |
| Tackles | 12 |
| Missed Tackles | 2 |
| Errors | 3 |
| Minutes Played | 36 |
Very impressive figures for 36 minutes played. Three tackle breaks and 119 metres in less than a half a game is outstanding. Well played Kenny! Just get some smaller shorts or at least get a pair of shorts with a drawstring in them!
Stats courtesy of Champion Data. All these stats and more can be viewed on our match centre at http://mc.championdata.com/nrl/ including live game stats. Or download the Telstra Sportsfan app and/or Triple M NRL app.
– Colmac
Follow @championdatanrl
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Great stuff Col, really impressive stats rundown, cheers
Serpent, sorry missed your reply about line drop outs last week. If you look in the first stat table for team stats, goal line drop outs are there. So for both Rounds 1 & 2, both Broncos and Cowboys made us drop out twice but we didnt force a drop out on either team in the opening rounds. Hope this answers your question from R1 post.
Nice article. I think part of the disparity in the kicking metres is that the Cowboys use Coote as a kicker on the left side of the field. He kicked 5 times for 196 metres – a lot more than Morgan, who is not really a long kicker in their current structure.
The match contribution of Corey Norman highlights how much he was missed against the Broncos. You can’t lose halves in a match and not have a significant impact.
Very interesting Col and a nice diversion from today’s headlines. Thanks for your contribution.
Good to see Norman taking the long kicks and doing well. There was some talk in the off-season about who was going to be our main long kicker, seems as if Mr Slide on in has taken to this role well.
Good to see sets completed percentage is up, if we could get that up to 80% (only need 2 more completed sets on last week’s game) I think that would really put a stranglehold on the opposition and would be very difficult to defeat. We could definitely do it, there were a few unforced errors last week that we could fix up.
Great read Colmac!
As a lover and reader of all rugby league stats, it’s awesome to have your weekly input Col.
The kicking stats of both sides were most telling from last weeks game and I think it’ll be the same tonight.