How good are fringe benefits ladies and gentlemen?

Has anyone here been fortunate enough to receive them in their line of work? I know with the varying roles I’ve undertaken across my career to date I’ve been lucky enough to receive some. Free corporate tickets to major sporting events and music events; a year’s free service to subscription TV; even discounted luxury car prices have been made available to me and while this may be part and parcel in some lines of work, when it comes to rugby league and our Parramatta Eels, there is no better benefit to our side than when we play on the fringes.

The performances of the Eels backrow against the South Sydney Rabbitohs last week was phenomenal. Manu Ma’u, Tepai Moeroa and Kenny Edwards, take a bow. The inroads they made into the Souths defensive line set up our sets beautifully. We were able to make strong yardage back through the centre of the ruck on the back of quick play the balls from these three, as well as the metres they made themselves.

Many an Eels supporter have called for a middle forward overhaul, citing that our forward pack lacks the ability to dominate other teams through the middle third. Although their claims are not completely unwarranted, and some better balance will be struck across our middle forward rotation with the acquisition of Kane Evans from 2018 onwards, even the most cynical of Eels fans must have taken delight in the way we played through our edges last week. Sure it may have been against a less than stellar South Sydney side, but one must remember, this is an Eels team missing the following players who would all regularly be in the top 17 side had it not been for injury: Michael Jennings, Corey Norman, Isaac De Gois, Peni Terepo, Frank Pritchard – all players who make a significant difference to our shape either side of the ball. Only the absence of Greg Inglis prevented the Rabbitohs from fielding their strongest line up, so a win in the fashion in which we won, without five key players, should not be underestimated or underappreciated.

Fringe Attack: Manu Ma’u always brings his best for the Warriors

What this win did lend itself to however was a blueprint. A way in which we should be looking to play our attacking footy moving forward. I referenced in my post last week the because of the quality of our edge players we should be looking to play one or two passes wide from dummy half as much as possible, before we throw it back to one of our middle forwards hitting it back up the centre with leg speed. This sets the perfect platform for the likes of Mitchell Moses, Bevan French and Kaysa Pritchard to take advantage of with their acceleration and support play. It also gives our bigger bodied creative players like Clint Gutherson and Brad Takairangi, the ability to play against a retreating defensive line. In short – it bodes well our attacking formations.

This will only stand to improve when the aforementioned injured players return (and personally, I think it’s the way we’ve always wanted to play under Arthur, we’ve just lacked the consistency of another half to support Corey – yay for signing Mitchell Moses!) but for now, and more importantly tonight against the Warriors, we have to do it without them.

Benefactor: The arrival of Mitchell Moses has already benefited Tepai Moeroa

In Forty’s brilliant post Understanding Tepai Moeroa’s role (you really need to read it!) he referenced the way in which Tepai’s time on the field has been split between both the edges and the middle. His unique role afford this team so much latitude with the way it plays and allows Brad Arthur to use three big players who can make inroads on the fringes across split minutes – an every attacking edge presence, if you will. It is this benefit that will be most advantageous to the Eels tonight given the late withdrawal of both Tim Mannah & Siosaia Vave. Their absence leaves the Eels short another 278 first grade games, along with the further 913 NRL games already sitting on the sideline (1,191 games sitting on the sideline in total!).

So how do we combat this lack of experience on the field? With our fringe benefits of course, but let’s see who we have to manage off the ball to give ourselves every chance this evening.

Roger Tuivasa-Sheck: A sneaky try against the Broncos last week will do his confidence the world of good. Having struggled for consistent form after an injury interrupted first year at the Warriors, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck has been slowly getting back to his best. Not in the forever linebreaking devastating game-breaker kind of way, but he’s been consistently averaging a 175 metres a game and a linebreak every two games. Not bad for someone who is supposedly out of form, huh? I mentioned the last time we played that kicking in between and behind RTS and Ken Maumalo will go a long way to winning the field position battle. The acquisition of Mitchell Moses gives us someone who can do just that. Preventing the Warriors outside backs from rucking it out of the red zone puts a lot of pressure on their forwards in the late tackles of the set to produce metres – and that’s not something they like doing after they’ve had to defend quick PTB.

Ken Maumalo & David Fusitua: Haven’t these guys been impressive this year? Both break tackles with consummate ease. Maumalo with brute force, much like his Warriors team mate, Manu Vatuvei and Fusitua with his deceptive strength, much like Penrith three-quarter, Waqa Blake. If these guys are given room to move on attacking sets close to our line you better believe they’ll make us pay. In fact Maumalo’s try in our last encounter was the telling blow that allowed the Warriors to come away with the ‘W’. The easiest way to take these guys out of the match is with a smart kicking game. Isolating the space in-between Maumalo and RTS will force the big man to turn around. Bombing to his wing forces him to take the high ball with a defensive line immediately in his face – both tactics stop him from returning the ball with time and space. Execute this tactic correctly and we’ll force the Warriors to play much of the game in their own half.

Strong Carrier: Limiting the metres of Ken Maumalo will help the Eels towards victory tonight

Solomone Kata: Nothing has changed with this guy, he still genuinely worries me and that hasn’t changed since the last time we played them, so I’m just going to do the old c+p here: He is an absolute handful to tackle at the best of times and always seems to find his way to the try line when we play the Warriors. The fact that he plays on the left edge should also be something our right edge should be concerned about too. Pressuring him as he receives the ball and strong first contact are a must. He’s always going to bounce of some tacklers, but preventing him from making inroads on those occasions determines how much damage he’ll produce. The old ass-to-grass ball-and-all tackle technique comes to mind here.

Kieran Foran: No doubt a vocal reception awaits the former Eels Captain this evening and I’m sure a parochial Eels crowd will let him know their thoughts and feelings about his departure. Still, a big game player who will no doubt thrive on the pressure and be psyching himself up for a big one. We failed to adequately handle him in our previous match, but there should be no excuses this time. We know he will straighten the attack by running to the line with the ball in both hands, we just have to be ready to meet him quickly and be in the face of his support runners as he delivers the ball. The best defence on Foran is slowing down the play the ball and the ruck. Even he can’t use his powers without a forward pack that’s on the front foot.

Pressured Man: Kieran Foran is likely to feel the full force of the Eels defensive live and supporter base!

Shaun Johnson: A timely return to form for Kiwis halfback Shaun Johnson is the last thing an Eels fan wants to see (he always seems to find it just before our games doesn’t he?), but alas a weakened Broncos team provided the platform for a running Shaun Johnson to build some confidence heading into tonight’s match. If slowing down the play the ball and ruck is the key to taking Foran out of the game, it goes double for Shaun Johnson. While the former has patience and is willing to absorb pressure, Shaun Johnson will always look to flash his way out of sustained pressure. Sometimes it comes off for him and he looks like a star, other times it goes horribly wrong and he puts his side under even further stress. Always, always, always, be looking to shut down the Warriors forwards and field position. When you do that, players like Shaun Johnson will start making the mistakes that’ll earn you cheap scoreboard points, so long as he doesn’t regather the ball and run 100 himself to swing the points his way.

Bodene Thompson & Ryan Hoffman: Strong hole runners and decoy runners on either edge, our boys are going to have to be on point when it comes to the role these guys play inside our 20. An opportunity lies within to run their weary legs around and I believe our backrow can cause enough trouble for them to do just that, just don’t allow them (along with the rest of the Warriors pack) to get in a mood.

Hole Runner: Eels fans will have bad memories of Bodene Thompson’s golden try the last time the Eels played the Warriors in Sydney

The Prop Rotation: If we work these guys over defensively (especially the inform James Gavet), then we can tire them out completely with our edges strategy and hitting the likes of Nathan Brown, Daniel Alvaro, Suaia Matagi and Beau Scott back up the middle. The game will be won and lost on how well we (or not) we do this.

Issac Luke: Never, ever, turn your back on a Warriors play the ball, otherwise you will feel the wrath of Isaac Luke. He eats a retreating defensive line for breakfast and he can be the real game breaker if we do not slow down the play the ball and control the ruck. Having the likes of Beau Scott and Tepai Moeroa defending in the middle, as well as the addition of Will Smith playing some relieving minutes for Kaysa, fills me with great confidence that we can slow down the PTB and not afford this man any cheap runs.

Schemer: Issac Luke is always a danger with ball in hand

It surprised me during the week to learn this is the first time in six years that the Warriors have played at ANZ Stadium in Sydney (seriously, wtf NRL scheduling?) and it’s something we as Eels supporters should use to our full advantage – by creating a sea of blue and gold throughout the inner bowl and letting the Warriors (and Kieran Foran) whose home ground they’ve come to play at.

The losses of Mannah and Vave do make things more difficult with our middle forward rotation, but only goes to prove how much more we should be looking to play throughout our edges and on the fringe of the ruck.

We should be looking to make as many cheap metres a pass or two wide of the ruck; or down a wide short side, with either a forward with leg speed hitting it up back throughout the middle third, or looking to shift the ball wide with runners off the inside and outside hips of Moses and Gutherson.

Try Time: Bevan French enjoys playing the New Zealand outfit

Support play will also be important. As Moses and Pritchard showed against the Rabbitohs last week, their junior reps combination is still strong and therein lies an opportunity for the likes of these two to expose the Warriors with their pace up the middle third, as well as the likes of Bevan French the opportunity to finish off these opportunities.

A saying I used to use with teams I’ve been involved with in the past was “if you utilize your fringe benefits your fringes will benefit” and I think the blueprint we established against the Rabbitohs last week should be built upon – a strong opening 20, force a repeat set or two and get on the scoresheet first. Our kicking game and edge forwards can play the field position game tonight, but we have to be prepared to back up the defensive effort that we displayed in the first half last week for the entire 80 this week. We do this and our fringes will benefit.

Clint

All images courtesy of the Parramatta Eels, NRL.com and Getty Images

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