EELS 18 defeat PANTHERS 12

Crowd: 14,070

For the second time in a week, the Eels have taken down another big cat – and this time it’s the Panthers. The Eels seem to be back on track with a 4 & 4 record now at the end of 2 months of rugby league.

In contrast, the Panthers have certainly shed their Premiership favourites tag by slumping to their sixth loss from the first eight games.

It was a match that once again emphasised that the Eels are yet to put together an eighty minute performance. Parramatta seemed in control for nearly 60 minutes but once again they let their opponents back into the contest. Unfortunately this is an 80 minute game and the Blue and Gold army were on the edge of their seats with 3 minutes to go.

Lets look at the stats that matter for Parramatta.

Score Flow

Full Time Stats

The full time stats were fairly even, especially in possessions and completions. Although the Panthers had better stats in some important areas, the Eels found the necessary energy to dig deep and hold out the Panthers.

1^st Half Stats

It was a dominant first half performance from the Eels. Arguably it was perhaps their best half of the season, as their high possession and completion rates allowed them to set up camp in the Panthers half. If you wanted to nitpick, you could be disappointed that the side were only 12 points up at the break. Nonetheless, BA would have been demanding a repeat effort in the second half. Without doubt, Penrith would have struggled if they were starved of possession again in the second stanza.

2^nd Half Stats

Wow what happened after oranges?? After a massive opening half for the Eels, the 2^nd stanza was, well, diabolical really.

By not even completing half of their sets, the Eels virtually dug their own grave and nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. No wonder BA was filthy in the post game presser.

Lets face it, Penrith are terrible at the moment. But we nearly gave them the game from our poor second half effort. It was apparent that the Eels failed to follow the coach’s instructions and their inability to complete their sets and control the game placed the team under great pressure. Arthur has spoken often about the physical demands that come from turning over the ball and gifting the opposition chunks of possession. Until the team focuses for a full eighty minutes, they will continue to work harder than their opposition.

Attack

A better performance from the Eels in attack saw 6 players run more than 100 metres. This week 3 forwards cracked the 100 metre mark.

A superb performance from Tim Mannah deserves special mention. Tim ran more metres in the first half (90) than the entire Panthers front row (70). Marvellous effort that. It was a much improved match from our forwards, though they have yet to match their output from the first two rounds.

*Special mention Tepai Moeroa 94m

Defence

Eight Eels made 20 plus tackles with Kaysa again topping the Eels tackle count with 50. He was outstanding in defence as he only missed 1 tackle. The energetic rake keeps getting better and better and looks to be handling his extra game time much better as well.

Overall, the Eels made 323 tackles and missed 16 while the Panthers made 335 tackles and missed 23.

All in all we weren’t 100% but we did do enough to win the game and two points is two points. We now head to Townsville to play a Cowboys unit that, even with Thurston, aren’t looking the Cowboys of old. I have no doubt that the Eels will lift for this game and walk (well hopefully fly) away from Townsville with our 5^th win of the season and our 3rd on the trot before we take a break for rep round. A big, physical effort against the Cowboys will be followed up with a two week break. So run hard, and hit hard fellas – I’m sure BA will give you that extra time to recover.

Tepai Moeroa

To close off this post I want to applaud Tepai. Where I sit at ANZ is right next to the players section, second row from front. While players walked off, crowd cheering, there were a few navy, army and police who were in the ANZAC ceremony standing at the start of the tunnel. Players went past and clapped the crowd, but Tepai stopped and shook the hands of all of those service people and thanked them for their service to community and country. I thought that was awesome and showed great respect. Hats off to you Tepai and if you read this, I for one saw your respect and applaud you for it. It was a memorable way to finish off a great day of rugby league and an important day of remembrance.

Stat Attack Player of the Week

Corey Norman

This round, the Player of the Week could have been awarded to a few players. Gutherson was outstanding once again, Browny, Timmy, Manu all played a great forwards game, but Normy showed a ton of class on the field and steered the Eels to their 4^th win of the season.

Norman’s form hasn’t been his best of late and it seemed as though he has been playing injured, but he came back strong on Saturday and showed he is close to his best. And with Corey at his best this just makes the Eels stronger and certainly a team that can shake the core of this years competition.

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.

Champion Data

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