EELS 26 defeat COWBOYS 6

Crowd: 14,247

What a way to head into the Rep week break with a win over the highly fancied Cowboys! Yes they were without Thurston, Granville and Coote, but the Cowboys are still full of quality players, Internationals and State reps, and yet the Eels played a great game to keep them in check.

Let’s also not forget that the Eels went into this clash without French, Pritchard, Terepo, De Gois and Takairangi. Parra then lost Moeroa in the first half and Edwards to the sin bin for the final ten minutes of the clash.

So as we have a break this weekend, the Eels sit on a 5 & 4 win loss record and look to be back on track for season 2017.

 

Score Flow

 

Parramatta Eels
H	Minute	Name	Event	Score
1	9	C.Gutherson	TRY	0 – 4
1	10	C.Gutherson	CONVERSION	0 – 6
1	24	C.Gutherson	TRY	0 – 10
1	26	C.Gutherson	CONVERSION	0 – 12
1	40	C.Gutherson	PENALTY GOAL	0 – 14
2	50	W.Smith	TRY	0 – 18
2	51	C.Gutherson	CONVERSION	0 – 20
2	64	A.Winterstein	TRY	4 – 20
2	66	K.Feldt	CONVERSION	6 – 20
2	74	T.Mannah	TRY	6 – 24
2	76	C.Gutherson	CONVERSION	6 – 26

 

Full Time Stats

 

COW	Team Stats	PAR
48	Possession (%)	52
22/35 (63)	Complete/Total Sets (%)	33/39 (85)
33:58	Time – Opposition Half	46:12
9:59	Time – Opposition 20	18:13
1925	Metres Gained	2352
5	Scrum Win	6
3	Goal Line Dropout	0
6	Penalty Conceded	8
0	Forty Twenty	0

The full time stats look very good for the Eels. Very high completion rate saw the Eels gain control of the match. The Eels game management this week was superb. Probably the best it has been all season. But again we did see the Eels hit the wall after the 60 minute mark again and this left the door ajar for the Cowboys to have a peak inside before Tim Mannah crashed over to seal a very important and morale boosting victory.

Parramatta’s game control came with better time in the opposition half and also in the Cowboys 20. This was a match where the Eels were able to turn their time in the Cowboys 20 into points. Something that has eluded them recently.

 

1^st Half

 

COW	Team Stats	PAR
45	Possession (%)	55
9/14 (64)	Complete/Total Sets (%)	18/21 (86)
8:29	Time – Opposition Half	31:34
3:02	Time – Opposition 20	11:43
971	Metres Gained	1237
1	Scrum Win	4
2	Goal Line Dropout	0
5	Penalty Conceded	2
0	Forty Twenty	0

 

The first half saw the Eels dominate and thus set up the victory over the Cowboys. Their high completion rate and the lack of ball to the Cowboys had the Eels heading into the sheds 14 nil and looking very confident.

The Eels held the ball for more than three quarters of the half and were planted in the Cowboys for a third of this time.

It was good to see the Eels force a couple of repeat sets.

Some ill-discipline from the Cowboys helped with our first half dominance. This is a natural consequence of controlling the ruck and possession. Opposition teams become frustrated and ill-disciplined. Errors will flow.

 

2^nd Half

 

COW	Team Stats	PAR
50	Possession (%)	50
13/21 (62)	Complete/Total Sets (%)	15/18 (83)
25:29	Time – Opposition Half	14:38
6:57	Time – Opposition 20	6:30
953	Metres Gained	1115
4	Scrum Win	2
1	Goal Line Dropout	0
1	Penalty Conceded	6
0	Forty Twenty	0

 

The second half for the Eels was better than previous rounds, but it remains a concern that the team are not focussed for a full 80 minutes.

Although the possession share was 50 – 50, the Eels did let their guard down after the 60 minute mark and this saw the game swing back a bit to the Cowboys. Ill-discipline this time from the Eels  and a resulting lop-sided penalty count, gave the Cowboys a sniff and this shows on the time the Cowboys had with the ball.

But what is pleasing with this half’s stats is that we did use the ball better than the Cowboys and still managed to gain more metres than the Cowboys.

Another pleasing statistic was that the completion rate again was excellent for the Eels.

 

Attack

 

Top 5 Runs
	Name	R
PAR	N.Brown	22
COW	M.Morgan	14
COW	J.Taumalolo	13
COW	K.Feldt	13
COW	A.Winterstein	12
Top 5 Run Metres
	Name	RM
PAR	N.Brown	186
PAR	C.Gutherson	148
COW	K.Ponga	141
PAR	S.Vave	137
PAR	S.Radradra	135

 

The attacking stats look sensational this week from the Eels.

Awesome stats coming in from Nathan Brown saw him lead the charge for the Eels to gain territory. His second half was inspirational. In the first half Tepai led with 10 runs and nearly 100 running metres, but after he was injured, Browny stepped up and had 15 runs for 120m in the second half alone. Great work there Browny.

In an outstanding effort, the whole back five for the Eels ran over 100 metres each. Ten Eels ran for more than 100 metres each, add in another 3 in the 90’s and this was Parramatta’s best attacking effort for the year.

 

Nathan Brown	186m
Clint Gutherson	148m
Siosaia Vave	137m
Semi Radradra	135m
Michael Jennings	130m
Suaia Matagi	125m
Corey Norman	109m
Tim Mannah	104m
Josh Hoffman	104m
Kirisome Auva’a	102m

90’s – Kenny Edwards 96m, Manu Ma’u 90m, Tepai Moeroa 90m

If only Kenny didn’t have a brain snap and Tepai stayed on the field, both would’ve joined the 100 club this match. These are excellent numbers from a team perspective.

Eels Run Metres – 1757m

Cowboys Run Metres – 1266m

 

 

Defence

Top 5 Tackles
	Name	TAK
COW	C.Hess	40
COW	G.Cooper	37
PAR	K.Pritchard	34
COW	S.Bolton	34
COW	E.Lowe	32
Top 5 Missed Tackles
	Name	MT
PAR	K.Pritchard	5
COW	M.Morgan	4
COW	G.Cooper	3
COW	R.Thompson	3
PAR	K.Auva’a	3

 

Isn’t it great to see another team feature prominently in the defensive stats as this shows we had a lot of ball.

Ten Eels made 20 or more tackles, which shows that the effort was shared in defence. The Eels made 319 tackles with 20 misses.

The impact of this Eels defence was telling, with only one Cowboys forward (Taumalolo) making over 100 metres. For a forward renowned for his ability to exceed the 200 metre mark, this statistic alone was evidence of the job done through the middle by the Eels forwards. The go forward of the much vaunted Cowboys pack was completely nullified.

With the Eels dominating the Cowboys forwards this made the Cowboys backs work harder to gain ground and it killed off their attacking prowess. Michael Morgan and Coen Hess (who has been brutal with his runs this year) were both well contained and had no answers to the Eels defence.

It was an awesome effort from the Eels this week and now makes every Blue and Gold fan wishing there was no break as we endeavour to keep the winning streak going.

With no senior footy this week for the Eels, make sure you will cheer on our SG Ball side who will take on the Sharks in their grand final at Leichhardt Oval, Saturday at 2pm.

Come on boys. Lets bring it home.

 

STAT ATTACK PLAYER OF THE WEEK

NATHAN BROWN

 

Again Nathan Brown takes out our weekly award.

With Browny concentrating on his footy, BA has transformed this running back rower into one of the games in-form forwards.

Plying his trade with no mess and no fuss, Nathan is showing why he has been rated one of the  best young forwards in the NRL over the past couple seasons. It’s his controlled aggression and footballing skills that are now attracting the headlines.

Kudos must be handed to both BA and Brown himself for this transformation. He is still a tough and aggressive player, but he is now both disciplined and mature – and arguably one of the leaders in the Eels pack.

Well done Browny.

 

Possessions	33
Runs	22
Run Metres	186m
Offloads	2
Line Breaks	1
Tackle Breaks	1
Tackles	30
Minutes Played	71

Go Parra

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.

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