Whenever Tepai Moeroa comes up in conversation among Parramatta fans these days there seems to be a pervading sense of disappointment. Supporters wistfully (and understandably) point to the likes of Jason Taumalolo and even Sio Taukeiaho and question why the 22-year-old backrower never transformed into the blockbusting forward we all had envisioned when he broke into first-grade back in 2014.

Injuries have played a major part in delaying his development. Chronic nerve damage in his left shoulder, a nasty blood infection in 2015 and a recently corrected vision problem have all stymied his growth both physically and as a player. Conversely, just as the media like to mention how Corey Norman has dealt with a carousel of halves on the opposite side of the field…so too has Moeroa suffered for a lack of a regular play-maker on his inside shoulder for the same period.

Now in 2017 we are seeing Moeroa transform. Not into the offensive powerhouse we fans still crave for but rather into a highly versatile forward entrusted with the one of the rarest of responsibilities – playing through both the (right) edge and the middle. Furthermore, while Tepai might lack the eye-catching explosiveness that Taumalolo possesses he has quietly evolved into perhaps the most technically and fundamentally sound forward at our club.

Let’s jump into the tape against South Sydney and see how it plays out.

Moeroa and his new halfback Mitchell Moses started proceedings with a real bang when they crossed for first points in the 6th minute of play.

Mitchell Moses (Parramatta 1 above) begins the play on the open side of the ruck and in a move that featured prominently through the first half, switches to the opposite of the field as the ball is played. Sam Burgess (South Sydney 1 above) retreats from the previous tackle to the short side before Moses makes the switch to actually give the Rabbitohs a 4-on-3 numbers advantage. Burgess however fails to ‘check-in’ on the 10m onside marker until Moses has well and truly launched his short-side raid and with Moses utlising his nimble acceleration he is able to take four (Four! Both the markers, Sam Burgess and John Sutton) defenders out of play.

We can see at this point that Moses has clearly put Sutton in two minds with potential threat of the Parramatta play-maker tucking the ball under his arm and straightening up. Sutton has planted his anchoring left foot and begins to square up on Moses, thus turning a defensive 4-on-3 into an offensive 3-on-2.

Tyrell Fuimaono, a talented ex-Eel’s junior, has never been a noted paragon of defence but in his defence (pardon the pun) he was on a hiding to nothing here. With the aid of the overlap, Moeroa baits Fuimaono perfectly with a subtle ‘overs’ line that squares him up on Tepai’s outside shoulder. From there all Moeroa has to do is straighten up – which he does with ease – and there is a saloon passage to the try line.

While the true flashiness of this play lies in the excellent work of Mitchell Moses, this also serves as an excellent introduction into the cohesive understanding of football fundamentals that Moeroa possesses. If you want to see something really minor but also really neat, recall back to last week when I lambasted Canberra Raiders’ flyer Nic Cotric for fending across his body en route to scoring first points.

Note what Tepai Moeroa is able to do in under a second as he catches the ball and then comes into tackling range of Fuimaono. He switches ball carrying hands away from the primary defender and frees up the dominant arm to fend. It is the sort of footballing move that doesn’t mean anything for dozens of plays until it crucially does on that one play. If Moeroa was actually tackled by Tyrell Fuimaono he placed himself in a prime position to offload to Kirisome Auva’a or fight for a fast play-the-ball (PTB).

Tepai Moeroa Try – South Sydney 34m mark (6:01)

Understanding Tepai Moeroa’s role in Brad Arthur’s system

Before we go any further, let’s break down exactly how Moeroa fits into the Eels’ pack. Tepai began his NRL career in 2014 as a right-edge backrower before serving an apprenticeship in the ruck through 2015 and parts of 2016. This is important to note because the groundwork done in his first three years in the NRL has led to the unique role he now performs.

Moeroa begins each round starting on the right-edge for the Eels where he generally does an excellent job of absorbing early pressure in defence. It seems trivial but forwards that are agile enough to defend on the edges but strong enough and in possession of a big enough motor to also work through the middle are a fairly rare commodity. Moeroa’s ability to pull double duty here is note worthy.

Until recently he has been something of an attacking afterthought in our lesser preferred (we have been a heavily left-edge biased team with Norman, Ma’u, Jennings and Radradra operating on that flank) edge. The arrival of Mitchell Moses could be the catalyst to change all that. As highlighted above the opening try in our Round 12 victory featured excellent play from both players and if Moses is able to regularly create mismatches for the 190cm and 111kg backrower, Moeroa might feature on the scorer’s sheet a fair bit more often.

After copping the opening onslaught from the opposition through the opening ~20min, Moeroa then gives his coach Brad Arthur the flexibility to either sit on an interchange and ride the hot-hand with Moeroa on the edge or inject the dynamic Kenny Edwards at an opportune time. Edwards can either directly replace Moeroa or more commonly, replace a starting prop and let Moeroa relieve the front-row rotation through the middle. Before succumbing to concussion in Round 9, Moeroa’s rampaging first-half effort was a prime example of the former while our most recent game better highlights the latter option. Edwards entered the game in the 18th minute and played through to the final whistle. Tepai played a total of 62min on Friday, with 18min coming on the right edge and 44min of hard work through the middle.

It is in the ruck that Moeroa’s technical and fundamental strengths come to the forefront once more. For what he lacks in flashiness in attack, Moeroa is a strong runner for post-contact metres and regularly ends up on his stomach – avoiding getting turtled by defenders. On the flip-side, he has shown excellent proficiency in turtling attackers while he is defending and is one of the few Eels that has shown consistent ability to win in the wrestle.

While he doesn’t always flash on the first viewing of a game, when you sit down for an encore screening Tepai Moeroa starts to pop off the screen here and there until you wonder how you missed so much stuff in the first place.

Tepai Moeroa the edge forward

It was an eye-catching but rather limited showing for ‘Tep’ on the right-edge this week. The breakdown of his try earlier in this blog is obviously the pinnacle of his work against the Rabbitohs but there is a little more to break down.

Offence

In the first GIF he works a late out-breaking ‘unders’ line off Mitchell Moses. Moeroa’s footwork before the line gets him into the outside tackle zone of Kyle Turner. The carry itself ends up as a simple tackle after Moeroa fights for several metres through Turner and Sutton but it is important to note the time (11th min) – this is a set-up piece to force the Rabbitohs to respect the short option in the future event that the Eels want to use Bevan French as the sweeper. While it didn’t eventuate in Round 12, Parramatta’s lethal edge movements are often predicated by their backrowers holding up interior defenders on decoy lines and this is the Eels laying that groundwork.

The second GIF is interesting once more for what doesn’t happen. Moeroa runs a regulation ‘overs’ line and does well to fall forwards through the attention of three defenders. However, it is the alignment of Bevan French that stands out. French initially works inside Moses but shoots forwards as the ball is played outside to Moeroa – suggesting that there was the potential for an outside/inside option play from the backrower to the fullback. The Eels have begun to flirt with more misdirection play (especially involving French) lately and this is just another indication of that new-found intent.

Defence

To be perfectly honest, Kaysa Prtichard quite literally does all the heavy lifting in this ripper of a tackle on Sam Burgess. Moeroa (working as the right-edge backrower) is shoring up the middle in this set due to the nature of the Eels’ compressed defensive structure. While Pritchard has done a stellar job of rocking the world of Sam Burgess, Moeroa does a sneaky good job of sliding in to wrap up the ball and prevent an offload.

This GIF serves to better highlight Tepai’s defensive capabilities on the edge. Moeroa plays square off of Sam Burgess, mirroring the lead runner’s movements until the ball is released to the outside. Tepai’s outside defender in Moses makes the correct initial movement to line up opposite Kyle Turner but is then slightly caught off-balance when the outside runner in John Sutton steps off his left foot. Moeroa immediately collapses onto the massive five-eighth after initially maintaining his gap discipline.

Tepai Moeroa the ruck forward

Offence

The GIFS above really encapsulate Tepai’s value through the ruck. His runs may lack flair but he consistently carries mulitple defenders forwards and almost always wins the battle to fall on his gut. GIFS 1, 2 and 5 highlight that while he may not explode for chunk yardage, he has the requisite footwork to beat a lead defender – even as the game wears on (GIF 5, 65th min).

This all culminates in the crucial 62min try to Josh Hoffman that takes the Eels to a 22-6 lead, as we will see below.

Moeroa skips inside Kyle Turner on the penultimate tackle of the set and then throws off Sam Burgess as he lowers his left shoulder into contact. In doing so he is able to secure a fast PTB in which both markers are out of play. From there, Mitchell Moses – even with a hip-pointer injury – is able to feast on the weakened defensive line. He runs down the short-side, free of any marker pursuit, and puts Kirisome Auva’a outside Tyrell Fuimaono with a timely pass that in turn sees Hoffman touch down in the corner in sensational fashion.

The effort from Moeroa here won’t get any credit in any official statistics you can find but it was obviously crucial lead-up work for the try.

Defence

Plenty of good to work through here, let’s go!

GIF 1 features the gruesome twosome of Kaysa and Tepai in action once more as they rudely unseat Robbie Rochow. Again Pritchard owns the impressive component of the tackle but Moeroa is on Rochow in a flash on top and pins the backrower-come-prop (without performing a chicken wing) cross-body so as to slow the PTB down.

The second GIF features stellar hand and arm placement as Moeroa (and Beau Scott) gets outstanding leverage on Fuimaono and his ball-carrying arm, forcing the ball free legally as the Parramatta backrower begins to pivot through his hips.

Each of the remaining GIFS (GIFS 3-6) show why Moeroa is a consistently effective defender through the middle. Moeroa is able to track the ball-carrier laterally before they reach the defensive line, enabling the Eels’ enforcer to initiate front-on contact, which is the first directive of winning the wrestle. Once supplementary defenders arrive, Moeroa transitions to winning the battle for leverage and working to force the runner on their back.

Of course it wasn’t all perfect for Tepai, even if his effort in defence was excellent on the whole. Below are three examples of less than perfect defensive outcomes.

Here we see Moeroa make good initial contact on Fuiamono but the ex-Eel chalks up a minor victory on Tepai as he momentarily breaks free. The tackle ended up completed without any further drama but there was the threat of a late offload. While Moeroa was able to flip Fuimaono on to his back on other occasions this game, the South Sydney backrower displayed remarkable strength to fight his way in to a position where he could fall forwards.

While relatively innocuous in and of itself, above we see Tepai concede a penalty for a hand on the ball. Fatigue was definitely in play in this sequence of action with Moeroa making his third consecutive tackle for the set – including the kick-chase tackle.

Now we see Tepai make an important tackle in 59th minute as we witness something nearly as rare hen’s teeth as Adam Reynolds runs the ball on the fourth tackle. The obvious issue here is that Moeroa cedes a fast PTB and then nearly compounds it by holding onto the right arm of Reynolds. The officials would have been within their rights to penalise the Eels here. Without the benefit of an alternate angle it is difficult to ascertain whether Brad Takairangi’s outside-jam actually hindered Moeroa by making contact with him more so than Reynolds.

Champion Data has jotted Moeroa down for 36 tackles with 0 missed and that shows up on the tape. In spite of the three minor blemishes in the above GIFS, Moeroa was excellent in both of his defensive responsibilities (edge and ruck). He displayed discipline in respecting the lead runner, tracking the ball-carrier laterally and maintaining his gap discipline when the ball moved outside him while his work in the wrestle was top-notch. To harp back on the original posit of this blog, Moeroa’s extremely well-developed fundamentals along with his rock-solid technical understanding of the game really shine once you start scrubbing through the tape.

Bonus – Off the ball work

It is probably the least glamorous thing you can do as a monster edge forward but off-the-ball work and more importantly, quality off-the-ball work is a hugely important facet of the game that doesn’t show up on the stat-sheet. I didn’t capture all of the pertinent GIFS here (who really wants to watch a load of decoys, supports plays and kick chases?) but there is some stuff worth discussing here.

Moeroa sells his decoy lines quite well. He doesn’t phone it in by jogging into the defensive line as a blocker but rather he comes steaming in. Earlier I mentioned the importance of holding up interior defenders and both he and Kenny Edwards played that role in the first half when Mitchell Moses made a nice break in the 18th minute by skipping the outside and then dancing back across the sliding defenders. Without the decoy work of Moeroa and Edwards there likely isn’t the space on the outside for Moses to start hot-stepping against the run of traffic.

Late in the game when Alex Johnston scored from a scrum set-piece there was one forward who pushed across from the interior to give chase to the death – albeit to no avail. That forward was of course Tepai Moeroa.

Finally, as I was wading through the game waiting to clip each of Moeroa’s touches or involvements one thing really popped out. Moeroa is the forward that consistently works laterally with a ball-runner as the double. He rarely gets the tip-on or late pass but he is there none-the-less in the periphery of the defence. That sort of motor and effort is to be applauded, especially with the workload that Moeroa is starting to shoulder in his dual-roles for the team.

The Last Word

While obviously I, and all Parramatta fans, hope that the partnership between Mitchell Moses and Tepai Moeroa can really flourish in the coming weeks and seasons – it is clear that as it stands Moeroa plays an important role in our team. As our front-row rotation improves (BA finding better balance of current starters and rotation props, addition of Kane Evans etc), so too will Moeroa be able to exert greater influence on the game. He will never be a Jason Taumalolo (nor will he command a $10,000,000 deal either!) but at the still tender age of 22 (and still 21 until October mind you) and with 60 NRL caps already to his name, just being Tepai Moeroa ain’t so bad either.

All images and GIFs are sourced under Fair Dealing (Copyright Act, 1968) for criticism and review. The rights for all imagery used belongs to the NRL and their broadcast partners; Channel Nine, Fox Sports and Telstra.

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