Knights 29 Eels 10

Crowd: 13,141

Well what can you say? Out played, out muscled, out enthused. I thought retro week was last week but this week’s performance just reminded everyone of the Parra of old.

Let’s hope that this effort from the Eels was an anomalous blip, because we can’t afford another performance that just brings back terrible memories of wooden spoons. The disappointment felt by Eels fans was understandable given we were not just looking to cement our place in the Top 8, we were making a real charge at a Top 4 birth.

It would be ridiculous to apportion any blame for the loss on the refereeing. If the team we looking for a reason, they need only look in the mirror.

However, if Paul Green felt compelled to describe the refereeing of the Cowboys in the previous round as the worst he had seen, he might have to think again after this one. If Tony Archer believes that a first grade referee in action, he’s sadly mistaken.

Yet even in such circumstances, it was so impressive that Brad Arthur avoid any public referee bashing and instead put the onus on his team’s inability to meet required standards.

So if you can stomach this weeks Review let’s have a look at the numbers.

 

Score Flow

Parramatta Eels
H	Minute	Name	Event	Score
1	5	K.Sio	TRY	0 – 4
1	7	T.Hodkinson	CONVERSION	0 – 6
1	8	M.Barnett	TRY	0 – 10
1	10	T.Hodkinson	CONVERSION	0 – 12
1	17	M.Jennings	TRY	4 – 12
1	19	M.Moses	CONVERSION MISS	4 – 12
1	39	W.Smith	TRY	8 – 12
1	40	M.Moses	CONVERSION	10 – 12
2	53	L.Fitzgibbon	TRY	10 – 16
2	55	T.Hodkinson	CONVERSION	10 – 18
2	60	B.Lamb	TRY	10 – 22
2	62	T.Hodkinson	CONVERSION	10 – 24
2	65	K.Sio	TRY	10 – 28
2	67	T.Hodkinson	CONVERSION MISS	10 – 28
2	77	B.Lamb	FIELD GOAL	10 – 29

Full Time Stats

	Team Stats
41	Possession (%)	59
21/32 (66)	Complete/Total Sets (%)	32/38 (84)
32:47	Time – Opposition Half	47:38
13:41	Time – Opposition 20	20:39
1664	Metres Gained	2110
6	Scrum Win	8
1	Goal Line Dropout	1
5	Penalty Conceded	7
0	Forty Twenty	0

Haven’t the tables turned on the last few weeks’ statistics from the Blue and Golds! This was a completely dominant performance from the Knights. They played well to continue their recent purple patch and deserve all the accolades they get for this game.

 

1^st Half Stats

	Team Stats
49	Possession (%)	51
15/19 (79)	Complete/Total Sets (%)	13/17 (76)
17:33	Time – Opposition Half	22:31
11:30	Time – Opposition 20	7:35
1005	Metres Gained	948
3	Scrum Win	3
0	Goal Line Dropout	1
4	Penalty Conceded	6
0	Forty Twenty	0

We were in the game during the first half and this was reflected in the statistics. With a set completion at close to 80%, the foundation was laid and as a result we made more metres than the Knights. Although the Knights had slightly more time with the ball, the Eels were making good use of their time in possession. The penalties may have favoured the Eels on a count basis, but the strange decisions were already manifesting. Certainly the Knights were pushing every boundary in the ruck.

 

2^nd Half Stats

	Team Stats
35	Possession (%)	65
6/13 (46)	Complete/Total Sets (%)	19/21 (90)
15:14	Time – Opposition Half	25:07
2:11	Time – Opposition 20	13:04
660	Metres Gained	1163
3	Scrum Win	5
1	Goal Line Dropout	0
1	Penalty Conceded	1
0	Forty Twenty	0

For anyone looking to see why the Eels lost this game, check out these terrible numbers. There is no other way to describe this other than rubbish!

I never would have imagined seeing stats like this from this Eels team.

 

Attack

Top 5 Runs
	Name	R
	D.Gagai	21
	D.Saifiti	16
	D.Alvaro	14
	P.Mata’utia	14
	K.Sio	14

Top 5 Run Metres
	Name	RM
	D.Gagai	200
	P.Mata’utia	150
	D.Saifiti	133
	K.Auva’a	129
	M.Jennings	119

 

Full credit for the win must be extended to the Knights on a game well played. Their tactics and execution created the foundation for their victory.

Only five Eels made 100 metres or more. In comparison seven Knights exceeded this standard with running metres well in excess of any Eels player.

 

Kirisome Auva’a	129m
Michael Jennings	119m
Nathan Brown	109m
Manu Ma’u	107m
Daniel Alvaro	107m

We had no platform to work on from our forwards. Out of our 10 forwards, 6 starting – 4 bench, only 3 ran for over 100 metres.

Vave and Terepo only played 39 mins between them and ran for a combined 43 metres. I’m not sure what BA’s plan was with them but from my seat right in front of the bench, they were both fit. Tepai played 40 mins for only 35 running metres.

Line Breaks

Eels – 2

Knights – 5

Run Metres

Eels – 1213m

Knights – 1547m

Set Starts

 

(teams running left to right >>>>>)

Eels

We did have good field position at times to start our sets. But nothing came of it.

Knights

Great field position from the Knights to start their sets helped them with a convincing victory. Errors (and some poor officiating) gave the Knights a tremendous leg up to get great field position.

Hit Ups

 

Eels

Knights

For the Eels, it’s a far cry from the Heat Maps of the last few weeks’ Hit Ups. We just couldn’t get any decent runs out of our own half. Having no time in the Knights red zone doesn’t help either.

 

Kicks

 

Our kicking game was non-existent against the Knights. The difference between the kicking game in the Bulldogs match and this one is poles apart. No pressure kicks. No game management kicking. It was just not there.

Kicking Metres

Eels – 16 kicks for 452m

Knights – 21 kicks for 563m

Corey Norman

5 kicks for 184m

Mitchell Moses

7 kicks for 199m

 

Defence

 

Top 5 Tackles
	Name	TAK
	C.King	57
	N.Brown	52
	D.Alvaro	51
	J.Buhrer	36
	T.Mannah	32

Top 5 Missed Tackles
	Name	MT
	M.Moses	5
	C.King	5
	T.Hodkinson	4
	S.Mata’utia	3
	S.Matagi	3

These really aren’t stats you want to be leading in for a game. I can’t remember a game recently where 3 players off one team made 50 or more tackles.

We put ourselves under so much pressure with poor handling that we just tackled ourselves into exhaustion and out of the game.

Although there were mighty fine efforts from King, Brown and Alvaro, these are stats you don’t want to see on a regular basis. And Mitchell Moses’ missed tackle tally was not what we wanted to read.

Taking a look at the below table, we made nearly 120 more tackles than the Knights. That’s an extra 20 sets of six we had to defend. Let that sink in. Mostly from poor handling. The poor officiating couldn’t be blamed for that.

	Tackles	Missed Tackles	Ineffective Tackles
Eels	406	29	6
Knights	288	27	5

Discipline

 

Penalties Conceded

Eels – 5

Knights – 7

Errors

Eels – 15

Knights – 6

Well there’s not much more to say about this game but to throw it all away and start again next week.

We definitely don’t need a repeat performance against the Titans. The Titans have been very poor in recent weeks. Of concern is that when we play the lesser teams we seem to play at their level and stuff up all our good weeks.

So here’s to hoping that next Thursday is a much better performance and that we can again try to crack that top 4 berth.

 

STAT ATTACK PLAYER OF THE WEEK

 

 

DANIEL ALVARO

 

For the second week running, Polar gets the weekly gong. This time it’s for a fine individual performance in a very poor showing from his team.

The workhorse prop worked tirelessly in attack and defence, but unfortunately not many went with him to build any moment for our halves and speed men to work with.

Maybe Daniel will again be in the starting line up as BA may need to shake things up a little. Some complacency may have entered into the Eels ranks of late that no doubt Arthur will get on top of very quickly.

Congratulations to Daniel on his tireless effort.

Possessions	16
Runs	14
Run Metres	107m
Tackle Breaks	3
Tackles	51
Minutes Played	53

Alvaro Runs

 

• Colmac

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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