Round 7 Drink of Choice – Bundaberg Rum Master Distillers’ Collection (Limited Release – 2014) Like today’s game; raw and crude at first, probably not worth the price of entry – but with a surprisingly pleasant finish. Double shots all the way too, baby.
We have talked about probably needing to win ugly if we are to break the nasty little drought we found ourselves amidst heading into this game and by George we were right. Well, sort of. In a way that perhaps only the Eels could achieve, we have won ugly but by playing some of the better football you will see this year. Go figure.
There is finally a nice chunk of good material for Whiskey Musings to sink our teeth into but also enough bad to still give cause for concern. Let’s break it all down as the Eels finally get their 2017 campaign back on track.
I’m going to mix things up this week and begin proceedings with the big negative to come out of today.
Our control of the ruck is still awful.
It may sound overly sensational but our season arguably teetered on the abyss until the 55th minute or so of play. The Tigers were romping through the ruck for criminally easy gains up until that and it particularly showed up in our red zone where Wests were constantly attacking a defence that barely had time to plant a foot on the goal line. Whatever switch was flicked in the team at the 55th minute mark went some way towards remedying our woes around the ruck from there on (although far from perfect) but it does invite the concern that a better team would have done far more with the leeway we showed again today. It remains the single most important area of concern for our team moving forwards.
Our execution still lacked the composure we came to enjoy in 2016 but the shapes and timings were much more apparent this week. Baby steps in this regard it would seem but any progress is to be appreciated after a trying month. As with our ruck control, we dialled up our execution in the final quarter of the game and the Tigers simply could no go blow-for-blow with us once we started playing our own brand of football instead of getting swept up with the flow of the game.
At this point it wouldn’t be a Whiskey Musings blog without a shout out to Clinton Gutherson and Nathan Brown. They are both clearly talented players but what really jumps out when you watch them is just how indefatigable they are no matter how late in the game it is. They are always around the ball, always pushing up, always giving their team a chance. They embody the competitive spirit that you want pervading your team. As such you would not be shocked in the least to read that they were at the heart of everything as the Eels ran the Tigers down in the final quarter.
Gutherson showed a bit of rust in his defensive positioning for a couple of the early tries scored by the Tigers but it was certainly well within the realms of expectation. He was however almost always the key link man in the Eels’ final quarter comeback and his work out of dummy half kept his team on the front foot through the ruck. In the opening exchanges Gutherson also showed impeccable touch and timing as he chimed in down the left-edge several times to torment the Tigers. It is probably too much to bill Gutherson a budding superstar but he is the next best thing at this point in time.
Brown started the game strongly, as he has been wont to do in recent weeks, before an early substitution took Kaysa Pritchard off the field. Brown quickly took over ruck responsibilities where he performed adequately before the timely re-injection of Pritchard freed Brown up to shine in his preferred running role. There is a little bit of circa-2014 James Graham to the way Brown plays at the moment. Teams are starting to respect his ability to ball-play at the line which is helping isolate defenders. This in turn allows his great leg drive to get him over the advantage line and often offload once he can pick off that isolated defender. Like Gutherson, Brown has all the makings of a fan-favourite as the season wears on.
There were a number of other quality contributions across the board for the Eels, touched on in no particular order below.
Michael Jennings was impressive down the left-edge, scoring the opening try of the game and threatening to take the space outside Jamal Idris throughout the game. Kirisome Auva’a bounced back from a mixed club debut against the Warriors to score two tries and more importantly – defend reasonably well.
Brad Takairangi sprung to life late in the game to help orchestrate the come back. His defensive reads were greatly improved this week and he made a number of crucial jams that didn’t leave his outside men posted. With Corey Norman easing through a relatively dry spell, Takairangi’s ability to straighten up the attack and promote the ball proved invaluable today.
Peni Terepo continues to impress since returning from a 3-game suspension and is rivalling Siosaia Vave as the most impactful interchange forward for the Eels. Terepo brought aggression and direction to our attack and desperation to our defence. With Kenny Edwards finally due to return next week, the Parramatta bench is finally taking shape.
I could ramble on about a number of other things, both good and bad, to come out of today’s victory but ultimately the most important thing is that we did win. This team has been due for a bit of luck for a while now and in today’s result we got that. We need to harness the positive signs shown in the last 25 minutes of play and rapidly build from there as our schedule does us no favours over the next month. The Panthers, Cowboys, Roosters and Raiders are the gauntlet through which we will run and even with form given, there are no easy games in that bunch.
Finally, a new means for me to sign off this week as I give a raise of my glass and a tip of my head to the best thing to come out of the round of footy for the Eels.
This week the entire club gets my seal of approval after achieving a rare quintuple of victories across the NRL, ISP, NYC, SG Ball and Harold Matthews. We all saw the NRL victory today but Wenty ground out a much needed win over the Bulldogs on Sunday while our boys in the Holden Cup walloped the Tigers 48-16 earlier today. Both our District Representative teams will get the week off and proceed directly to the Preliminary Finals following seriously impressive victories over the Cronulla Sharks in the U/16s and the Canterbury Bulldogs in the U/18s.
After a testing month for all fans, I will damn well drink to that!
Don’t know hat to make of Corey’s game today, he seems to be carrying an injury or struggling to get match fit, it’s a puzzling issue
Thought when Taka came into the game with about 25 minutes to go, the whole game straightened up and it enabled space creation at the line , amazing what someone with a little organisational ability can create ( from an unexpected source too)
The first 2 tries resulted directly from a failure to control the ruck , is it Kaysa lacking the upper body strength to keep players in check or just poor technique. We certainly have the backs to open up games, but until we have the line speed and ruck control that we see from teams like the Sharks and Storm, they will not enter the game.
The last 25 minutes were a display of what can be achieved, the first 55 minutes ( maybe not the first 10) , underlined what our problems are. Confidence like momentum can be a quick fix, hopefully today’s end of the game provides it
Good to hear a win, as well as having one finally. The NRL win really provided the total bill for the weekends games, all Eels teams won their respective matches and more especialy the top two in Wenty and Eels win was tight and ugly, but a win is a win.
I did not see the game but read a few reports and some seem to indicate Norms had another patchy game, while the remaining team members seem to have lifted. I beg therefore a question.
With Moses coming to the eels either this year or next, what position will he take over? He is listed as 6 at Wests, which is Normans preferred position at the eels, while he has filled in at 7 to allow Gutho to learn the 6 spot, would the aspect that another import is now to take over his preferred spot and he’s not really liking it?
Forty,
You mention in your musings that Gutho spent time at dummy half, which is sort of interesting as many have been at odds with Kaysa in the 9 spot, mostly with the aspect of missed tackles but more so the aspect that his dummy half service is not up to scratch.
Options have been suggested to have Kaysa come on to replace a primary 9 who would be more of a running and ball playing 9 with Kaysa for defence which he has been doing well at. Having Gutho as a real utility to be able to cover backline is one thing but what thoughts might be in him being the attacking 9 and dropping back to allow Kaysa off the bench. ????
I should have clarified what I meant by spending time at dummy half, Colin. Like any outside back worth his salt, Gutherson was jumping into dummy half to cart the ball up late in the game and help his forwards.
Having said that, I would not be surprised in the least if Gutherson reached into his kit bag and showed that he can also cover #9 – he has done a damn good job everywhere else we have thrown him in to!
Thanks Mate
For me, the only back line position I would not like to see Sticks play in again would be the 5 spot. So far he has pretty well adapted to every other position with a fair degree of ease, along with a fair amount of different players around him as well.
So, maybe if the coach was also able to pick up the idea and not waste Brown at dummy half having sticks relieve there could be a fair option. Could do worse I would think.
Sorry boys but gutho at 9 ridiculous , complete waste of a very dynamic open field player and energy drain in defence would negate a truly talented player , sorry col silly suggestion !!
Mate, at first it may seem a silly suggestion but if you think about the prospects of having Sticks in closer to the ball area he would provide another option in attack that seems to be lacking at the present time, and the 9 spot is likely our problem area as most say that Kaysa is not an 80minute player. Some say he would be better off the bench for 30 odd minutes before and after half time or similar minutes.
Kaysa really is spending too much energy in the amount of defencive work he does and needs some more bulk and experience help to play more than 40 minutes ATM.
When French comes back he should slot back to the 1 spot, and lets assume that we get another 5/8, at the same time as French’s return who drops out for Sticks to get another spot, as it is we affectively will have 3 5/8’s vying for the positions of 6 & 7.
Gutho going to 9 for a period to give Kaysa a rest and come back allows for a player like Taka to play in a change position from Bench to the forwards or backline centre/5/8 or the like. With Sticks at 9 he could develop a very good kicking game that is shown already, as well as runs from and his passing game from dummy half.
I do not suggest that he shifts to the 9 spot permanently but very much to be a tactical play for someone who could add more to the team overall than just holding down one spot, be it in the halves or other backline position other than wing.
Sorry col but still dont agree ,backward step for a lot of players and way to many changes to rhythm , players have enough problems following 1 role without chopping and changing , I respect your opinion but will 100%stick to mine , the modern day game is so finely orchestrated that to many role changes bring chaos ,the handover drastically changed the a lot of opportunitys to alter players roles .
Couldn’t agree more about our ruck control Forty.
It’s becoming highly concerning the amount of times we have no markers after the completion of a tackle and how often we are having to defend as we are retreating. No opposition is being forced to make metres against us at the moment. Our first up contact is simply not good enough to trouble the top sides, and we won’t improve until it improves.
i think this in part comes down to the absence of De Gois and in part down to our forward rotation. I couldn’t be more excited about the return of Kenny Edwards, he’ll add some much needed starch. However our middle third just isn’t getting the job done defensively at the moment and I think we need to consider some tactical reshuffles with our prop rotation.
Once we rectify the ruck issue, the majority of our problems will disappear.
Secondly, we conceded another try today directly on the back of having only one kicking option available. The Kevin Naiqama try was a direct result of a momentum swing on the back of Corey Norman being pressured on the last and giving up cheap field position.
Until Moses arrives, Corey needs greater support – if not merely for the sake of changing the point of attack and making the defensive line question where the ball is going. At the very least it will give Corey more time to produce an effective clearing kick when the ball does go to him, but why was a left foot kicker receiving a left to right pass on a no metre set for a clearing kick? This was not intelligent play leading into half time.
On the other side of the coin, Brad Takairangi really stood up in the last 25 minutes and as Derek noted, really straightened the attack after we went forward. Gutherson was brilliant and Auva’a had the type of energy our team needs across the 17.
i feel moving forward, once Kenny has a game or two under his belt that we consider starting him on the right edge, Moeroa back into the middle where he can help stiffen up the defence and Brown into the starting prop role. While all other hooker options remain unavailable and Kaysa is playing longer minutes than he anticipated, we need to adapt ourselves to help provide him as much defensive support as possible. Whatever we can do to help provide this, while still maintaining balance across our 17 could go a long way to rectifying our ruck control situation. Many people lamented Moeroa’s attack when he played 13 last year, but his defence was unbelievable and a big part of our early success in 2016.
Can’t agree more 40:20 and Clint about concerns with our ruck control of which there is little. Apart from that there still seems to be so many areas that need attention, but that said a win is just that and even if it was as ugly as it was.
Amongst the negatives are that there seems to be a lack of confidence and communication between the group. Watching the replay when I got back home from the game I noted that the commentators said one time that Gutherson tapped the ball over the dead ball line was because he didn’t get a call on how close the opposition were. Then there was the try just before half time when both Hoffman and Gutherson were beaten to the ball and some of the “tactical” kicking, my Lord, how bad is that on occasions. Taka kicking deep as second option direct to Tedesco with a broken line of defenders cost a lot of territory and could have cost points.
The efforts of Gutherson, Jennings and Brown were impressive though and a win will help boost the teams confidence. I also thought that some of Moeroa’s defence was quality.
I echo the comments of others, our control of the ruck area is non existent, they destroyed us with quick play the balls and dummy half runs and let’s not kid ourselves the Tigers are an average side with very steady dummy halves. Our lack of line speed is alarming, last year we were almost “attacking with our defence”, this year we are being dictated to.
I have grave concerns about Takaz in defence with his rushing defence, a good half will have a field day against us, we are defending as individuals not a unit.
In fairness to Takaz he was the catalyst for the win and lifted us over the line to which others jumped on the back of his momentum and we steamrolled them in the space of 10 min. Gutho is a great old school footballer, in an era of athletes playing league its great to see a our footballer. Jenko is such a conundrum he produces some great plays to create space and them bombs seemingly simple draw and pass situations, he is frustrating.
Another issue with Kaysa at the moment is that when he goes off, Brown plays dummy half and we lose one of out best go forward men, which is a big problem for us at the moment.
Let’s hope the last 20-25 min was the spark the lads needed to kick start the year, they show us glimpses we just need a solid 80 min. If we get over Penrith, we then play a Thurston less Cowboys outfit, albeit up there, a real chance to create some momentum.
On another note I have only seen two 20’s game this year but that Stone kid looks right out of the box. He has that Tallis like power at the point of collision that you just can’t coach.