As the Eels prepare to fly to the Land of the Long White Cloud, the team will be looking to re-boot their 2017 campaign with a win against the Warriors.

Last start the Eels showed glimpses of what they can produce, while the Warriors had a hard fought win over the Titans. Both sides let their Round 5 opponents get an early lead, but the Warriors held on to come back. In contrast, the Eels paid the penance for a diabolical first half and couldn’t quite catch the Raiders

If the Eels get the lead this week, I don’t think they can be run down.

So lets have a look at the recent history between these two clubs.

Since 2010, the Warriors the Warriors hold a 6 to 4 lead with aggregate scores of Warriors 253 to the Eels 207. With an average score of Warriors 25 – Eels 21 you can see these games can be very high scoring.

The complete history has seen these two teams play each other 36 times with the Eels holding a 20 – 16 winning record.

Over at Mt Smart Stadium they have played a total of 17 times with the Warriors holding an 11 – 6 lead there. For the past 10 games there, the Eels are 4 and 6.

Undoubtedly the playmakers in the halves run the attack for both sides. Let’s have a look at Norman v Johnson.

In key areas both teams rank highly with All Runs. The Eels rank  2^nd with an average of 161.4 runs per game and the Warriors rank 3^rd with 160.8. But both teams are mid rank with metres run with the Warriors 8^th (1459m p/g) against Parra 9th (1438.8m p/g) .

In offloads, that desire for second phase play sees Parra’s 11.8 per game ranking 2^nd against the Warriors 6 per game ranking 15^th. When it comes to line breaks, the Eels are ranked 10^th with 3.6 per game and the Warriors with 3.8  rank 7^th overall.

Unfortunately, the error count has a tale to tell.  We’re all familiar with why the Eels have strung together 3 losses. Their 11.8 p/g ranks 13^th (not good). In comparison, the Warriors 11 p/g ranks them 7^th.

In the game time break down it shows that the Warriors struggle in the 2^nd period of the 1^st half and also the opening stanza of the 2^nd half. In contrast, Parramatta do have a better win record in the first 3 quarters of the game than the Warriors. Significantly, the last 20 mins is still a big issue with Parra showing zero wins in this time period of the game.

From my perspective, this quarter mark of the season is a point where the Eels will want to be 3 and 3. The team needs to execute much better than they have been recently if they wish to return to the winners circle.

Colmac

Champion Data

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.

– Colmac

Champion Data

Follow @championdatanrl

mc.championdata.com/nrl/

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