Eels 52 – Broncos 34

Crowd: 29,058

As we close off Round 25, let’s all sit and ponder about what we saw on last Thursday. Records fell. Points were aplenty (there went my prediction from the Preview). One team signalled their premiership credentials whereas the other put a major concern into theirs.

I, like most Eels (or Broncos) fans, missed the first try. “What the????” – This would have been the call heard in many households, bars, clubs and Suncorp Stadium. After just 11, 12 or 13 seconds into the game (depending on the source) we saw the fastest NRL try in history. For me I saw the hit up then a flash and bang – TRY.

This stunned the all powerful Broncos and they never recovered. Our attack was sensational. Everything clicked. The Broncos helped us out no end with very poor ball control and defensive reads. But we will take that any time. You play what’s in front of you.

The officials were again poor with some baffling decisions. There was, I believe, the worst commentating I have ever experienced from the Fox Sports ‘experts’, and from what I have been told Channel 9’s wasn’t any better.

I think my biggest cheer of the night came when cameras panned to Brad Arthur after the final Broncos try and water bottles went flying. To me that shows how much he has invested in the team and from what I have been told he was none too happy with the edge defence at times which they have worked so hard on all season.

If I saw him just shrug his shoulders and be like ‘doesn’t matter we still put 50 on them’, I would’ve been a bit concerned at that attitude.

So now Round 25 is done and dusted, the Eels officially sit in 4^th spot and a top 4 finish is now ours to lose. We could even finish as high as 3^rd if results go our way.

So let’s look at the numbers that matter to Parramatta.

Score Flow

Full Time Stats

	Team Stats
49	Possession (%)	51
26/35 (74)	Complete/Total Sets (%)	29/33 (88)
34:09	Time – Opposition Half	46:09
13:38	Time – Opposition 20	24:45
1662	Metres Gained	1889
4	Scrum Win	6
0	Goal Line Dropout	0
2	Penalty Conceded	10
0	Forty Twenty	0

Total dominance in all aspects from the Eels. Even a very poor 10 – 2 penalty count against us couldn’t stop the might of the blue and gold on this night.

1^st Half Stats

	Team Stats
44	Possession (%)	56
11/16 (69)	Complete/Total Sets (%)	15/16 (94)
20:11	Time – Opposition Half	20:00
4:40	Time – Opposition 20	12:55
751	Metres Gained	1011
1	Scrum Win	4
0	Goal Line Dropout	0
0	Penalty Conceded	4
0	Forty Twenty	0

The first half set up the Eels win. The 4 penalties boosted the Broncos completion rate. So effectively the Broncos only completed 7 of the 16 sets they had without any assistance (44% completion rate to be exact).

2^nd Half Stats

	Team Stats
54	Possession (%)	46
15/19 (79)	Complete/Total Sets (%)	14/17 (82)
13:58	Time – Opposition Half	26:09
8:58	Time – Opposition 20	11:50
911	Metres Gained	877
3	Scrum Win	2
0	Goal Line Dropout	0
2	Penalty Conceded	6
0	Forty Twenty	0

Brisbane faired a lot better in this half but this  really was due to the officials once again. With the assistance of a lopsided penalty count, the Broncos completion rate looked better than what it was. There were 9 unassisted completed sets from 19 (47% completion rate without assistance). So in reality Brisbane match completion rate was just under 46% unassisted.

Attack

Top 5 Runs
	Name	R
	N.Brown	21
	A.Glenn	12
	C.Oates	12
	D.Mead	11
	K.Auva’a	11
Top 5 Run Metres
	Name	RM
	S.Radradra	240
	N.Brown	166
	C.Oates	161
	M.Jennings	101
	T.Moga	99

What a machine Nathan Brown is. Huge motor. He just keeps going on and on. The Energizer Bunny has nothing on Browny. Superb effort once again.

As Semi counts down his appearances in the blue and gold, he is upping his performance. Two weeks in a row he has now has topped the 200 metres made mark and this was another superb attacking winger game. We need to acknowledge that his defensive game really needed to step up the other night but that’s Semi’s Yin and Yang I guess.

In such an attacking dominated game from the Eels, it was surprising only 3 players made over 100 metres and 1 in the 90’s.

• Kirisome Auva’a 94m

Line Breaks

Eels – 5

Broncos – 3

Run Metres

Eels – 131 runs for 1274 metres

Broncos – 126 runs for 1163 metres

Set Starts

(running left to right >>>>)

Eels

A little bit misguided as there were a lot of kick offs to start our sets. But as you can see, there were set starts all over the field in very good field position for the Eels to attack from and they capitalised to no end.

Broncos

Again similar to the Eels, the Broncos did have a few kick offs to start their sets and also some decent field position. But very poor ball control from the Brisbane side killed their momentum. Poor defensive reads from the Eels helped the Broncos stay close, but not too close.

Hit Ups

Eels

Broncos

Again very similar heat maps for the two sides, mainly due to kick receptions and the forwards being used to cart the ball out from deep in their own territory. Both sides used their forwards up the middle and fairly deep into each others half.

Tries

Eels

Auva’a (0’)

Radradra (5’)

Radradra (13’)

Radradra (19’)

Jennings (36’)

Radradra (43’)

Takairangi (64’)

Jennings (69’)

Gower (71’)

Kicks

This match saw the Eels kicking game come back with some superb touches from both Norman and Moses.

Norman’s kicking was brilliant and precise. Maybe it’s his knowledge of the Suncorp arena that helped him out.

Both kickers stepped up in this match and it definitely showed with Brisbane making a few errors from kicks. Great pressure kicking boys.

Kicking Metres

Eels – 19 kicks for 615 metres

Broncos – 13 kicks for 526 metres

Corey Norman

12 kicks for 382 metres

Mitchell Moses

7 kicks for 233 metres

Defence

Top 5 Tackles
	Name	TAK
	M.Gillett	38
	C.King	32
	N.Brown	31
	J.McGuire	28
	D.Alvaro	27
Top 5 Missed Tackles
	Name	MT
	B.Hunt	5
	M.Gillett	4
	D.Alvaro	4
	C.King	4
	A.Glenn	4

Finally a game where we made less tackles then our opposition!

See what happens when we are defending less? It’s a massive difference. Our boys looked fresher and this was vital given we basically only the 13 players on the pitch available with a mounting injury toll wiping out the whole bench at times. The boys played superbly once again fronted by Cameron King and Nathan Brown.

Six Eels made 20 or more tackles along with great efforts from Moses and Jennings who made 19 and 18 tackles respectively.

Discipline

(Penalties Conceded)

Eels – 10

Broncos – 2

Errors

Eels – 4

Broncos – 11

So what a performance from the Eels. This was only the second time at Suncorp that the Broncos have conceded over 50 points.

But with this astounding attacking display, the defence was somewhat below par. I wasn’t really comfortable in getting the win until the Takairangi try. This is the consequence of being an Eels fan for way too long I guess and I know we have slipped up many times before.

In attack, it was really good seeing the Eels keep the foot on the throat and keep piling on the points.

Brad Arthur will be working, again, hard on our defence. Some very soft tries and poor attitude in defence gave Broncos 2 to 3 tries they should not have got.  I can’t  think of too many that the Broncos worked hard for.

But that is something that will be targetted this week as we come up against the Rabbitohs in our last home and away match for 2017.

How refreshing is it that we finally get to see more Eels footy after Round 26?????

I am hoping for a bumper crowd on Friday night. We can expect that plenty will be jumping back on so lets look for a 30,000+ crowd Friday night to wish our boys well going into the semi finals.

Finally for this post, I am looking forward to tonight (or last night was a great night, depending on when this gets published).

The Ken Thornett Awards were held earlier this year so the boys can concentrate on finals footy and for some the World Cup after that.

Early betting would be on Clint Gutherson to take out top honours and I will say Nathan Brown to take out Coaches Choice. (flip this – Ed)

No doubts the TCT table will be updating everyone throughout the night. (Props to Forty – Ed)

Stat Attack Player of the Week

Corey Norman

This could have gone a number of ways. Of course, Semi’s 4 try effort can’t be ignored or Jennings with his tries and both defence and attack.

But I gave to it Corey as he just played all over his opposing halves combination. Masterful performance.

His short kicking was on song, his passing and positional play was nothing short of exceptional. Knowing when to run the ball and inject himself in the play, this is something he has worked on tirelessly this season and the hard work has been paying off. Again he played all over Anthony Milford and showed why he should be the Maroons number 6 from 2018 with the retirement of Thurston.

I really enjoy watching ‘Normy’ play. It’s much better watching him “live” as you can’t see his ‘orchestrating’ on TV as it’s in the back play.

His game has gone to the next level after last year’s hiccup. He has thanked the club in spades on the field with the faith BA has put in him and he’s a major reason why we are in the position we are in this year.

Well played Corey.

Corey’s 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
• Follow @championdatanrl
• mc.championdata.com/nrl/

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