Parramatta Eels 20
Manly Sea Eagles 12
Manly Sea Eagles 12
The Good: |
We won and had a pretty impressive completion rate. |
The Bad: |
There are few other words that better capture Manly’s completion rate. Our inability to put the game away in the last 30 minutes was also a little concerning, but I’ll put that down to Round 1 rust. |
X-Factor: |
The Matagi vs Manly forward pack battle (namely Marty Taupau) was delightful. |
The MVP: |
I thought Corey was far and away our best, but Bevan French didn’t do a lot wrong either. Matagi almost got it for his feature frequency in the highlights package. |
The Starters
|
|
1- Bevan FrenchFullback, Parramatta Eels It was like he had spiders on him. Tough in defence too, forcing a number of dropouts through sheer strength. That dropped ball on the Eagles line will return a try next time he attempts it. A great start to the new season for the Super Freak. |
 |
 |
2- Semi RadradraLeft Wing, Parramatta Eels To the relief of Eels fans everywhere, Semi came to play. 13 runs and 147 metres is a good showing. |
|
 |
3- Michael JenningsLeft Centre, Parramatta Eels Big game from Jenko. 17 runs (that is not a misprint) for 156 metres is electric involvement. More of this please, Sir Jet. |
|
 |
4- Brad TakairangiRight Centre, Parramatta Eels Went very close to scoring, but I would have liked to have seen him with more ball (only 6 runs for 41 metres). |
 |
 |
5 – Josh HoffmanRight Wing, Parramatta Eels Loved what he brought to the game, a shame he didn’t get that forward pass four pointer (it was forward, though). He’s a tough kid for a winger, and BA loves tough. |
 |
 |
6 – Clinton GuthersonFive-Eighth, Parramatta Eels Easy does it. He’s obviously going to be a run first five-eighth, but he does need to have a crisp passing game for when the defence rushes at him. Many pundits have dubbed the 6 our biggest positional question mark, but that wasn’t a bad start at all. Interestingly had 31 passes to Corey’s 33. |
|
 |
7 – Corey NormanHalfback, Parramatta Eels I don’t think it’s a stretch to say Corey could soon be entering the top echelon of halves in the world. That pressure kick where he dropped it onto his foot in order to force one of Manly’s 381 dropouts was sublime. |
 |
 |
8- Suaia MatagiProp, Parramatta Eels Holy crap. |
|
 |
9- Kaysa PritchardHooker, Parramatta Eels I actually thought his service was pretty good, and he morphs into a forward as soon as he gives himself permission to run. Tough game with a team high 32 tackles. |
|
 |
10- Tim MannahProp, Parramatta Eels A seriously good game. Made the most hit ups of any Eels forward (18), resulting in the most forward running metres (177). Nice start to 2017, Timothy. |
|
 |
11- Manu Ma’uBack Row, Parramatta Eels Manu was ordered to the blood bin mid-way through the first half. What the referees didn’t realise was that it wasn’t Manu’s blood. He had 9 runs for 87 metres, but gets bonus points for maybe the most ridiculous try assist you’ll ever see. Also, he’s scary and I don’t want to upset him. |
|
 |
12- Tepai MoreoaBack Row, Parramatta Eels It annoys me he’s in a singlet and everyone else is in a shirt. Not as many metres as he would have liked (82), but Manly felt every one of his 28 tackles. |
|
 |
13- Beau Scott (c)Lock, Parramatta Eels Good captain’s knock, but nothing special in the stats department (missed a team high 5 tackles, only 69 metres). Still, we know his presence means more to the team than stats can show. If nothing else, he’ll come back angrier. |
|
Interchange
 |
14- Nathan BrownInterchange, Parramatta Eels Thought he should have switched his two halves around – offloads for the second half, tuck it under the arm in the first. Still, 3 offloads and 134 metres is a good showing from the new bloke. |
|
 |
16- Rory O’BrienInterchange, Parramatta Eels Looked off the pace for mine. The stats (10 runs for 69 metres) seem to agree. With that said, it’s hard to make metres when you’re attacking the Eagles’ line. |
 |
 |
17- Frank PritchardInterchange, Parramatta Eels The Tank, on the other hand, was brutal. Thought he’d be fatter and older. Do you think we could get more than 20 minutes out of him, though? |
|
Go you Eels,
Mitch.
Photos courtesy of the Parramatta Eels.
Stats courtesy of Champion Data.
All fair grades there I reckon! I thought Mannah was really good – and Matagi was a machine. Thought Alvaro got touched up a bit, and Taka was a little off pace.
Normys accidental 40/20 was a gift from league heaven haha.
But more than happy to get the 2 points this week – if we work on those weak spots I think the Dragons should be a victory, despite their win against Penrith seeming huge
ha, don’t count your chickens Gem – no easy game in this comp.
we could still be rocks or diamonds I think, the jury is still out for mine.
we’re just lucky we held onto the ball.
What’s happened to the default A’s for Manu, Miatch? Don’t let him see that you posted that!
Although we looked a little short of a run, I was thoroughly impressed with our control and patience. Sure, it would have been nice to rack up 30+ but that will happen in due course as combinations get more used to each other. The fact that we were willing to roll it into the in-goal and force repeat sets was a joy to watch from my end, and as our timing improves, so will the scoreline.
Our prop roation was fantastic.Tim Mannah in particular was outstanding with practically 10m a carry, 29 tackles and only one miss, followed closely by Suiasa Matagi.
Corey will be better for having got the oxygen into his lungs, but the player I was most pleased with was Semi Radradra, he looked switched on. Performances with that kind of energy and commitment will go a long way. He looked much improved.
*Suaia
agreed. Was ecstatic that Semi showed up.
And yes, our starting prop rotation of Mannah Matagi was something else. Huge game from those two.
don’t tell Manu, but I’m happy to leave that feature in 2016.
I saw him smile recently, so I’m not sure what to think.
Agree with most grades. Thought the tank would be more damaging coming on with 20 mins to go and the Manly pack fatigued. He was solid and strong but thought he’d be more explosive. A bit harsh on Taka as a lot of the ball went straight to Hoffman. Jennings needs to work on his passing vision.
Yeah I saw a couple of comments to that affect re Jennings. The only time he messed up was when he dummied when we had a thousand man overlap.
Loved Taka’s game, but 17 runs to the bloke inside Semi vs 6 for the other centre? I just wanted more Taka.
I love Taka, but his defensive reads were not up to his usual high standards.
Bit tough on Alvaro, he did make 130 plus metes !!
I think you make a fair point, so I have upped his grade to a C.
as I said to Sixties below, I found myself giving everyone a B (it was that sort of game where no one really gave an inch either side of the ball), so I deliberately tried to space the marks a little.
to be fair, that first mistake happened to be Alvaro’s, so I think he left a bitter taste in my mouth. he’s still very young, he’ll come (consistently) good soon enough.
If it was high grades all round, Mitch would not be doing his job. Today was not champagne football and the grades reflect it. However, from a team perspective there were pleasing aspects. If the grading was for resilience and game control, it would earn an overall B+ from me.
I actually found myself giving everyone a B, so I did try to space them out a little.
I think a B or B+ is a fair overall grade.
As I’ve said about a million times – Round 1 rust. Still – we got the two points, so I’ll definitely take it.
Dour and hard game. Kaysa showed he can play 80 minutes and do well over the whole game.
The 3 musketeers were standouts for me, Mannah, Ma’u and Matagi. Oh, Gutho is no 6 and we have problems with goal kicking/? Weee
to be devil’s advocate, all of Gutho’s kicks were relatively straight forward, but it is excellent that he made the ones he needed to.
I’d love to see him up the ante and hit a few from the sideline though.
The positives was our ball control but several times we were exposed woefully on our right side and it was just lucky Manly couldn’t control the ball otherwise they may have scored more points on that side.
The big disappointments to me are Alvaro who tries very hard but just doesn’t make an impact for some reason, O’Brien who looked like a good reserve grader and Jennings, made many runs but has glue in his fingers. At times even Semi didn’t follow him apparently knowing he wouldn’t pass the ball and he bombed a certain try by not passing to a 10 man overlap.
yeah I agree, Jenko is a good passer when he chooses to – it just must be hard knowing you’re that fast and backing yourself for so long.
you make good points re Alvaro. he’ll come good, he’s just not there yet IMO (others will likely disagree)
Dear Miatch, you are once again a hard marker, so you won’t mind being marked similarly I’m sure.
I would agree with most of your assessments if not your marks but do have to call you to account over one of your remarks.
Both our starting frontrowers are sincere, committed and devout believers in Jesus Christ as are many other players at our club and would probably not mention to you the fact that words matter to them otherwise Matagi would not have written Psalm 27:1 on his wrist today. It might interest you to look that scripture up. It has real substance to those who believe. There is no such thing as “Holy Crap”! Those two words have no correlation regardless of your best intentions.
Now you’ve been “hard marked too” Miatch.
PS: I’ve enjoyed all of your other contributions to date. Keep up the good work.
ha Rowdy, you do make an excellent point.
however, as a man of faith myself I can assure you the boys would be more familiar with ‘holy crap’ than you might expect. in fact there were other words I could have used, but I thought it’d be better if I toned it down.
I did have to look up Psalm 27:1 – The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?
I think after yesterday, many of those without faith will be scared of things such as Matagi.
Semi a B. You are kidding ,outstanding game was everywhere ,actually made a chase tackle that stopped manly getting back into the game ,
Yeah I agree with you mate – thought Semi was awesome. But I need to save the As for truly unbelievable games. If I gave Semi an A for this game, what would I have left to give him for when he scores 2 tries, runs for 250+ metres and destroys the will of opposition wingers to live with his defence? I keep the As in the bag for those sort of games.
C is a par game, B- a good game, B+ is a really good game, A is unbelievable.
I gave both our starting props a B+, thought they were equally brilliant.
Matagi got an A off me and off the people that count ,coaches and team mates
agreed Bubbles – he was terrific, but I thought Mannah was equally brilliant with his 18 for 177m, Matagi was 14 for 120 by comparison.
gave them both a B+, only one grade below an A-, so we’re not that far away.
Mannah was the rock & Matagi was the roll… Great game from both big boys, however I can’t wait to see Vave in there for a different body type up front.