Parramatta Eels 52
Brisbane Broncos 34
The Good: |
Dear doubters of Parra’s chances. Dear those who thought we’d simply make up the numbers. Dear those Tigers fans still hating on Mitchell Moses from their 15th position viewpoint.
Have a look at the tape, the scoreboard, the NRL Ladder. We are all of a sudden legitimate players in the race for the 2017 Premiership, and a real force to be reckoned with.
What is it about the Broncos that brings out our best? I’m hoping it’s the effect of big name clashes, because that’s all the Finals are about. Speaking of the Broncos, here’s one of my favourite takes from tonight:
Tonight marked only the second time ever the Broncos have had 50 scored on them at Suncorp, and the first time since 2005 the Eels have scored 50 on anyone. It helps when you only make 4 errors and complete at 88 percent (29/33). |
The Bad: |
There’s actually plenty. The Broncos scored a massive 34 points, and our on line defence was actually pretty average in parts. In fact, the last 4 minutes in general were flat out poor. We can’t let in those sort of tries or leak those sort of points and expect to be a serious force in this competition.
It’s hard once again not to mention that Ashley Klein is a woeful referee, both in favour of Parra (the Taka try) and against (the Milford passing the ball into the head of Kenny Edwards is one of the stupider penalties I’ve seen). Also, despite us winning by 20 for most of the game, we somehow lost the penalty count 10-2.
Still, we destroyed one of the competition heavyweights, and unless you have a significant injury toll (as far as I’m aware, we don’t), that’s always pretty good news. |
X-Factor: |
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest the final 2-3 tries conceded to the Broncos will do the Eels a world of good. Let’s be honest, our for and against isn’t troubling anyone in the Top 4, regardless of whether we let those tries in, and it will give BA something to go absolutely ballistic about in preparation for next week. Furthermore, here’s a sobering thought – despite all the well deserved cheering, and potentially 45 minutes worth of NRL highlight video, Parra actually lost the second half 22-24. In short, there’s still plenty to work on, and the NRL ladder gives out just as many points next week as it will this week. Speaking of points, there’s something unnerving about winning a game where more points were scored than there were minutes. Still, at this stage of the year, as long as we can get the win, negatives are simply areas to improve on for next week. |
The MVPs:
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I don’t care what the world thinks, but I’m awarding it to two blokes tonight – Semi Radradra and Nathan Brown.
I couldn’t not give it to Semi. In fact, I’m almost ready to institute a new rule that if an Eels player ever scores four tries, they automatically get MVP that week. Sure, Semi’s wasn’t a flawless game (see below), but 4 tries, 4 line breaks, a try assist, 240 metres and 8 tackle breaks generally locks things up in the MVP race. For the uninitiated, those are outer worldly numbers. Enter Nathan Brown. Cyborg managed to get through a ridiculous 21 hit ups tonight. The next closest Eel? Kirisome Auva’a had 11, then Tim Mannah on 10. To sum up, Nathan Brown as much hit up work tonight than the next two Eels combined. Oh, he also only missed a solitary tackle, beng just shy (31) of again leading Parra in tackles (Kingy had 32). He also had a tackle break for good measure. Semi is an easy choice, and deservedly so, but Browny’s motor is something else. Cheers to both of these blokes on a special night to be an Eels fan. |
The Starters
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1- William SmithFullback, Parramatta Eels I think William was told by BA in no uncertain terms this week to run straight at the oncoming defence, and tonight we reaped the rewards. Big Willie Style had some solid darts, a try assist, 2 line break assists and a tackle break, but on the other hand, also missed some opportunities to stop Broncos scoring opportunities (and there were plenty of those). As an afterthought, I can’t believe Ashley Klein didn’t go upstairs for that pass that lead to Taka’s try, but as an Eels fan I’m not going to lose sleep over it, either. |
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2- Semi RadradraLeft Wing, Parramatta Eels Yes, that is one phenomenal stat sheet, and all four of those tries were some sort of magic.
However, Semi’s defence on the Broncos’ first and last tries was pretty poor, and BA will no doubt let him know his thoughts, interspersed with some colourful language. Nonetheless, I suspect they’ll be a few who will want to disagree with me, but I can’t not give him a full marks for a night like that. |
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3- Michael JenningsRight Centre, Parramatta Eels James Roberts is also nicknamed ‘The Jet’, but we evidently have the b-b-b-better of the Jets. Another week, another Jenko tackle frenzy standing out like a sore thumb. Backline tackle counts: 4, 1, 18, 2, 9. Guess which one belongs to your mate, Jenko. He also ran for 101 metres, scored 2 tries, had a line break, 2 tackle breaks and only missed uno tackle. |
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4- Brad TakairangiLeft Centre, Parramatta Eels In the 65th minute, in what was maybe the least celebrated, game sealing try you’ve ever seen, Taka nonchalantly placed the ball over the try line with a look of a boyfriend who had been dragged along to a dance recital. Thankfully, the only two people in the world who actually thought it was a try was the touchie and Ashley Klein, and they’re the blokes who give out the points. The people, they love the Takairangi. |
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5- Kirisome Auva’aRight Wing, Parramatta Eels This guy is officially the record holder for quickest NRL try in history, but somehow went scoreless for the other 79 minutes – that’s sloppy.
A 94 metre yardage gain (from 11) and 2 tackle breaks and no errors round out another solid performance from Triple A. |
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6- Corey NormanFive-Eighth, Parramatta Eels There he is. Your mate, Normy. A stellar kicking game, and some outstanding leadership qualities were on show from Corey tonight. Highlighted by 12 sublime kicks and 2 try assists, Corey showed finesse and control the stat sheet simply cannot. Even when I thought he erred (kicking on the 3rd tackle of a 7 tackle set), it was still a high quality result for the Eels, with Darius trapped two meters out from his goal line. I thought Gus Gould said it best when he remarked during the coverage “Corey Norman could unlock a safe with his left foot.” Brilliant control, brilliant leadership when the Broncos made a run (he was screaming at the troops with each Broncos try), brilliant all around game. Welcome back to perfect score territory Corey – just in time for the Finals. |
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7- Mitchell MosesHalfback, Parramatta Eels The Prophet was in everything again tonight, and was a whisker from a line break on a couple of occasions. Moses had 7 kicks, 3 tackle breaks and as many missed tackles (so it evens out, right?) with his 19 makes. He and Corey just make beautiful music together, albeit with Corey more dominant of the pair (25 passes to MM’s 15) against his old club tonight. Still …
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19- Siosaia VaveProp, Parramatta Eels The 14 tackles from the big bloke were very necessary, but in a game where the Eels collectively missed 28, the 0 missed from Vave was his most important contribution. Ideally I’d like more than the 55 metres (from 6), but it’s a pretty hard marker who gets too upset tonight. |
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9- Cameron KingHooker, Parramatta Eels He had 99 passes, but a bitch ain’t one. Another outstanding performance from Return of the King, who just might be the best third choice dummy half in the history of the world. Long live the King. |
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10- Tim Mannah (c)Prop, Parramatta Eels As touched on previously, Mannah went to work tonight (not Cyborg work, but solid work for a human) with 10 hit ups, making a respectable 83 metres in the process. Timmah also had a tackle break, 24 tackles with only one miss and the most inattentive conversation with a ref you’ve ever seen. Kudos, big guy. |
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11- Kenny EdwardsBack Row, Parramatta Eels A quiet game by Kenny’s standards, but his ‘kicked in the face/poked in the eye’ stats were off the charts.
In all seriousness, his pass for Jennings’ first try was worthy of a postcard. |
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12- Tepai MoeroaBack Row, Parramatta Eels You knew as soon as you saw the replay that Tepai wasn’t coming back. Hard to grade the bloke, but I enjoyed the fleeting moment I thought he’d scored another try. Feel better soon, mate. |
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13- Nathan BrownLock, Parramatta Eels I beg you, Eels brain trust. Extend the Cyborg’s contract before the NRL realises his true, robotic identity. |
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Interchange
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8- Daniel AlvaroInterchange, Parramatta Eels Unfortunately Polar Express couldn’t get in on the try scoring festivities tonight, and had an uncharacteristically high, team leading, 4 misses during his 27 tackles (with another 4 ineffective). His running numbers were also a little down (8 for 68 metres), but I suspect that was more a case of it being a brutal forward battle and expansive backs sort of game. Shine on, you crazy diamond. Shine on. |
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14- David GowerInterchange, Parramatta Eels The Good Doctor Gower was on call tonight, and I’m sure it brought a tear to the eye of many seeing him mercilessly bulldoze Broncos defenders in our attacking 20 on a couple of occasions. He also did a pretty good impersonation of a centre, scoring a try out wide late in the game. Still, his 3 tackle breaks and numbers of 7 hit ups for 62 metres don’t speak to his professionalism or blatant disregard of the Hippocratic oath. |
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15- Suaia MatagiInterchange, Parramatta Eels Despite Ray Hadley mistaking him for Peni Terepo, Suaia still managed 61 metres from his 6 hit ups, made 1 tackle break and ruined Korbin Sims’ right shoulder. So Mr Sims, get your head together. Try that crap again and Suaia Matagi will deadset eat you for breakfast. He can’t be stopped, he can’t be reasoned with. PS – Matagi apparently means “hunter” in Japanese, so do whatever you want with that. Korbin. Poked. The. Bear.
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16- Frank PritchardInterchange, Parramatta Eels To be honest, I didn’t love Fritchard’s game tonight (6 for 51 metres and a crucial missed tackle on our line), but we won against one of the better teams in the comp at Suncorp Stadium, and I’m feeling fine. I’m dishing out generous grades like Oprah’s giving away cars. |
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So, next week we get Manu, Beau and Kaysa back. Bevan hopefully the week after that.
Tonight we beat Brisbane. The week after next, we take on the world.
We are for real.
Go you Eels,
Mitch.
Photos courtesy of the Parramatta Eels. Stats courtesy of Champion Data.
Good read Mitch.
All I can say is poor (D) excellent (A).
He boys have to lift there defence if we are to go deep into sept.
Semi well done on 4 meat pies but you defence has slipped a little.
Over all a very good team win. To beat Brisbane in Brisbane n score 50+ against them we are doing something right.
#Eels4life#
It was a seriously crazy game – we were frequently up by 16, 18 and 20 points and I still felt like were open for the comeback. It was incredibly frantic and our D was not up to scratch.
Thankfully the Broncos’ defence was even worse.
Now that I know we’ve won, I can’t wait to watch the replay.
Our d was not up to scratch , good idea watching replay again mitch .
Also mitch saying we actually lost the 2nd half 22 /24 dosent work for me either ,actually won 36 minutes that counted 22 / 12. They won the 4 minutes that didnt matter of klein and a couple of lucky kicks !!!
Don’t get me started Anon. With that said, I imagine BA was ropable regarding Semi’s inability to snuff out that last try.
In short there’s good news and good news. The first is that we got the two points, the second is that we have plenty still to improve on.
Great write up Mitch! I was unfortunately on a long flight for tonight’s match but let me tell you, as soon as I turned my phone on once I landed and checked the score I almost jumped out of my seat!
I said floored by the boys in their last effort against the Broncos, but the score and stats tonight… In Suncorp. What the heck?!
Do I dare start believing for the first time in close on a decade that we’re an actual premiership contender? And this year, unlike 09, it’s not on the back of some freakish one in a lifetime individual brilliance – it’s from a team working as an amazingly cohesive unit.
And the best bit? We’re still finding areas to improve! For so many years I was just thankful for the odd win, no matter how we did it. But now, wins are enjoyed, but also dissected knowing that a premiership takes constant improvement all the way to the end.
Do I dare to dream? Right now it’s pretty hard not to!
Now let’s finish off the regular season with a solid win and see if we can cement a Top 4 finish!
Mate if I’m honest, I’m one of those terrified, weak Eels fans who refuse to let myself think of anything but next week’s game.
Maybe that’s why I’m so keen on making the Top 4 – even if we lose we get another crack at it.
I can’t imagine what it would have been like to try believe what happened last night without seeing it. I’m a man of faith, but believing that outcome, and that score at Suncorp is unbelievable. And I saw it!
“but his kicked in the face/poked in the eye stats were off the charts.” You’re a funny bastard. I love it. I snorted up my cornflakes on that one.
If Semi gets an A+ then Jenko surely should too. 18 tackles! You know where the trys didn’t get scored against us, which is just as important as where they did. He added to the right side of the ledger too.
Thanks mate.
And re Jennings – I agree. I’m changing it up. Jennings was brilliant.
Love your work Mitch. How good is it to be an Eel?
After last year, I’ll file that under “Phrases I Didn’t Think I’d Hear in 2017”
It is something else.
You know what? The run will end at some point, and Melbourne will probably still raise the trophy at the end of the day, but this ride, this season, last night in particular –
It feels very, very good.
>Melbourne will probably still raise the trophy at the end of the day
I’ve heard that before! Melbourne have often been premiership favourites in recent years, but they don’t have that many trophies to show for it. They’re definitely the benchmark, but you only need to beat them by 1 once.
We’re definitely an outside chance, but I’m just thrilled that we’re still a chance. I still can’t believe we’re guaranteed finalists this year before the final round.
Pinch me!
It’s a wild ride. I’m just excited for whatever games we get to play.
Good times.
Excellent write up Mitch and I’m enjoying sucking in every bit of detail about last nights game from all sources.
Yes there were some negatives with the points conceded but I’m definitely in half glass full mode. However, in defence of the teams defense, they were down to 16 for the last half and I don’t ever recall such a dominant team being caned in the penalty count as the eels were. Just imagine what it could have been with the penalty count had been reversed, or even split?
Why I’m having recollection issues….I can’t recall in my time of following the game any player who has scored as many long range tries as Semi. He is a freak with a capital F.
As for Moses, what a pickup. I never rated his kicking at Wests but he is killing it and every try of late has seemingly been turned into 6 points. I think that has a lot to do with his growing confidence, but I’m sure that he must also be putting in a lot of extra practice which speaks volumes for the blokes attitude.
It feels like an eternity but how good is the feeling to be following a team that will be involved in finals football again.
cheers
I’m taking our kicking game for granted, but it is deadset winning us games.
Is it more important that I thought? I suspect so.
We are suddenly hungrier and are rarely trapped in our own end.
Oh to be in the Finals – I’m going full travelling fan this series and I cannot wait.
Great work Mitch; superb to read and thanks for the write ups. Will Beau and Tep be ok for next week? Tep has been v good imo. Def has to be better and we can do this….
Tep I couldn’t tell you – depends how he feels/recovers.
I’d say Beau will come straight in for Fritchard, but I guess we’ll see. Manu back too.
I always know I’m going to have a good weekend when we get up nice and early on!
I’ll be honest I didn’t expect to win this game, I thought they would be too good at home, but i am more than happy to be wrong on this occasion!
Hell I would have been happy to win by 1 point. I expected them to even things out in the second half, and had our defence been better we really could have held them to a low score – I love how angry BA was at the last try, and he acted like we lost in the presser haha.
We had a rotation of players going off for HIAs which probably didn’t help our D either but I think having Manu and hopefully! Scott back next week will help. I feel sorry for old Franky P, has a long injury layoff then comes back and gets some kind of injury again. Unlucky.
Finally – gotta show some love for my favourite player, one David Gower!!! How good was that, maybe he can replace semi on the wing with that speed! Haha.
Up the blue and gold!!!
After that fleet footed try, you’ll be able to tell your grandkids “I saw David Gower’s finest hour”
He wouldn’t be BA if he were happy with a 34 points in the against column,. Love his passion.
Your best update this year Mitch. Oh how great is it to be an Eels fan. Just being in the top 4 give me goose bumps. On BA, love his high expectations and only satisfied with excellent delivery for 80 minutes. Bring on round 26 and the finals
Thanks big mate. We’re pretty big fans of BA in these parts.
I must say Ive doubted BAs tactics at times but I guess like me it takes time to develop combinations on his part and time to understand the process on my part. Ive seen plays recently where great coaching is evident. Ive also seen BA totally out coach Bennett on both recent occasions. Im learning as an avid supporter as BA continues to learn as all good coaches must. Our club is obviously in great hands.
Re your gradings. I cant agree Vaves assessment as equal to Tim and Matagi. Both were clearly better performed to my untrained eye. My assessment would be Vave C and Pritchard C minus. Cant wait for Scott and Manus return. Was Peni injured are you aware?
I actually agree. Mannah and Matagi each better than Vave. To be honest, I wasn’t really grading the full spectrum for last night’s game. I was too excited and buoyed by the win to give anything lower than a B-
With that said, Vave’s misses in defence have been an issue in recent weeks so I was pleased to see him with a clean sheet. I’ll probably end up adjusting him down to a B-, but then again, he was better than Fritchard so it just runs into another issue when I cram them all together. As I said above, I was pretty generous with some of the grades tonight, and Vave and Fritchard are two such examples.
Ha, damn inspiring wins ruining the fairness of my grades.
Loved how Matagi got over the top of Korbin Sims. When Sims went after him I don’t thing he expected Matagi to react as he did. I thought Sims backed away.
My mvp , cameron king has changed the game for our 6 & 7 giving great ball service and more opportunitys at the right times.
100% agree Anon. King has added so much to our game. Apart from his excellent service from DH where he brings the forwards onto the ball, his long pass to the halves has been fantastic. Hes always available for the off load and dosent just run back into the forwards as has been the past case for the Eels. CK immediately looks for options away from the ruck. He is quick out of DH when its “on” not to mention his kicking game. To be honest there are few NRL “9s” Id trade him for. Just loving his contribution.
I can understand your excitement Mitch. Im still coming down from my high.
How BA uses both he and Kaysa next week/onwards will be an interesting subplot. I’d always thought Kaysa made a terrific, live wire 14 option, however I thought he’s gone a long way towards proving he could legitimately make it as a 9 as this season went on.
Having a chat to some fellow Parra tragics on the way home after the game and one of them commented that it’s amazing how many of the Blue and Gold troops emerge from seemingly nowhere when the boys play at Suncorp.
I’ve gotta agree, much power to the away supporters in the corner – magic chants and cheers, but i have to say there was a solid – very solid(!) number of fans in the our colors in the crowd.
Props to the Parra supporter (and his dad) beside us in the upper tier who would just not shut the hell up too! I think he single handedly took at least one section of the upper western stand as the property of Parra 😉
I can barely imagine how good it must have been. Kudos to all those who went, particularly for those who travelled to get there.
Nice wrap, it’s all been said but I just wanted to add a comment on the dramatically improved defence of Moses. He pulled off a brilliant 1 on 1 tackle on Alex Glenn 2m out. I thought he was harshly penalised, for my eye, he hit Glenn that hard the ball jolted out, well done Mitch.
P.S. what a player Jenko is, his good every week
Surely there’s part of Moses working on his technique, but plenty of credit for our coaching staff (Bumper has done a lot of work with him) too – he’s come an incredibly long way in a very short period of time.
Jenko is our barometer – if he’s playing well, we’re playing well.
After being at the game the previous win against the Broncos ( and every Homebush game this year) I was on a high for nearly 4 days. Thursday was a bigger (not better) win but the high almost bypassed me, the difference being at the game vs watching TV. You’re right Mitch it’s time to travel for the finals!
On the game swap Bev for Will the score goes Parra 60+ Broncos 20- .
See you all Friday night!
Completely agree – it’s ten times more enjoyable at the game than it is at home. There’s no leaving the room, or changing channel if you don’t like how it’s going (although I admit to having my head in my hands from time to time).
Friday night SHOULD be a terrific way to see out the regular season, so here’s hoping we can secure 4th spot.