The Cumberland Throw

Stat Attack Review – Round 3, 2018: Eels defeated by Sharks

STAT ATTACK REVIEW: ROUND 3

EELS – 4 (Tries: Auva’a)

Defeated by

SHARKS – 14 (Tries: Townsend. Goals: Townsend 5 from 5 Attempts)

ANZ Stadium

Crowd: 25,106 (Combined Double Header Crowd)

 

First, the obvious statement: not as bad as the previous week, but still a lot to be desired.

The match saw a much improved defensive effort than the Manly debacle, but the spark in attack is still missing in action.

On another note, this is already the second game this year that the Eels have scored the same number of tries as their opposition, with goal kicking and relatively easy penalties close to the sticks decided our fate.

Time to dig into the numbers:

Full Time Stats:

EELS Team Stats SHARKS
44 Possession (%) 56
23/30 (77) Complete/Total Sets (%) 28/36 (78)
36:14 Time – Opposition Half 44:01
10:35 Time – Opposition 20 17:12
1740 Metres Gained 2190
8 Scrum Win 7
3 Goal Line Dropout 1
9 Penalty Conceded 6
0 Forty Twenty 0

 

Despite a much better completion rate this week, and a rate on par with the Sharks, the opposition still enjoyed much more ball than the Eels. The penalty imbalance continues to be a concern, especially as it took 50 minutes for the Eels to receive their first. Parramatta’s errors also gave the Sharks more opportunities.

 

1st Half Stats:

EELS Team Stats SHARKS
40 Possession (%) 60
8/11 (73) Complete/Total Sets (%) 15/18 (83)
23:28 Time – Opposition Half 16:42
4:34 Time – Opposition 20 8:21
733 Metres Gained 1114
4 Scrum Win 4
1 Goal Line Dropout 0
6 Penalty Conceded 0
0 Forty Twenty 0

 

So the Sharks were the perfect side in the first half with no penalties given away?

Despite this, Parra still enjoyed a territorial advantage!

The Eels spent more than half of the 1st half in Sharks territory and alarmingly didn’t do anything with it. We basically spent 20mins between the Sharks 50 metre and 20 metre lines.

Without doubt, the Eels attack is a major concern.

2nd Half Stats:

EELS Team Stats SHARKS
48 Possession (%) 52
15/19 (79) Complete/Total Sets (%) 13/18 (72)
12:46 Time – Opposition Half 27:19
6:01 Time – Opposition 20 8:51
1008 Metres Gained 1076
4 Scrum Win 3
2 Goal Line Dropout 1
3 Penalty Conceded 6
0 Forty Twenty 0

 

Of course the penalties started to even out. But despite getting more ball! the Eels did nothing with it. The ball we did have was either in our own area or just not enough time in the Sharks half to build any type of momentum. Were we getting the ball under too much fatigue? The differential in possession rates and tackles made would indicate this. Nonetheless, even in the dying stages when the Sharks were gifting us possession, we just couldn’t break their line.

Attack:

The good news is Parra cracked more than 1000 running metres this week. Only just!

Only two Eels ran for more than 100 metres whilst nine Sharks broke the 100 metres run mark.

Nathan Brown ran a game high 185 metres with some great hit ups but unfortunately no one went with him. Manu Ma’u ran for 114 metres and Daniel Alvaro 99 metres but that was it.

Kane Evans again proved disappointing with only 5 runs for 42 metres, though he was an early exit with injury. Here is a player with the big body our pack has been needing but he’s struggling. If it’s a confidence issue, perhaps some time at Wenty might be beneficial. Maybe BA needs to look at starting Polar again. The Eels did well in the opening exchanges at Penrith with Mannah and Alvaro laying the platform..

Run Metres:

Eels – 1057 metres from 132 runs

Sharks – 1492 metres from 164 runs

 

Defence:

Conceding more penalties than the opposition means that the Eels defence was put under massive pressure again. The Eels nearly racked up 400 tackles in this match. A tackle difference of 83 tackles in the match nullified Parra’s attacking capabilities and put them under unnecessary pressure.

Cameron King topped the tackle count in this game with 49, closely followed by Alvaro with 47 and Tepai Moeroa with 44. Unfortunately, the old Mitchell Moses seems to be rearing his ugly defence head again with 8 missed/ineffective tackles (7/1).

Tackles:

Eels – 393

Sharks – 310

Missed Tackles/Ineffective Tackles:

Eels – 25 missed / 16 ineffective

Sharks – 17 missed / 4 ineffective

Effective Contact:

Eels – 90.5%

Sharks – 93.7%

 

Heat Maps:

Hit Ups

With this graphic shows that we just couldn’t get any decent foot hold in the Sharks half. Our main runs were in our own zone with little else to show.

Set Starts:

The Sharks made it extremely hard for us to gain any ascendency. Few restarts in the opposition red zone means no pressure applied. The Sharks just gritted their way to their first win of 2018.

Errors and Discipline:

Penalties:

Eels – 9 conceded

Sharks – 6 conceded

Errors:

Eels – 9

Sharks – 7

When you have a look at both the game and stats can you have a definitive argument that this was a much improved performance from the Eels, or did they just face a side also lacking in attacking confidence? I will leave that question up to you.

Watching the match live, it felt as though Parra were trying to rush things. They weren’t being patient with the footy. They didn’t get their grind on. It was slippery conditions and the Eels still tried to play dry weather footy. It also seemed that when these plays didn’t work out, heads went down and that was that. Confidence shot. There seemed to be no attempt to try it again with patience.

How many times this year has Bevan been bundled into touch as the Eels work sideways or down a very short side. We need to fix up the middle before we can start moving the ball out wide. We need to compress the opposition defence before starting to bring our edge attackers into play.

No doubt there would have been a long video session today to review this match at Eels HQ.

BA and the rest of the Eels brains trust would have had a few looks at this game now and would still be thinking about what is needed to chalk up a victory on this upcoming weekend of celebrating a resurrection.

So maybe this is a sign from the (footy) gods. This Monday the Eels season will be resurrected and confidence be restored back in the Blue and Gold followers that we can be a competition threat after all.

So as we close off Round 3, there are other questions to be asked.

Will BA change the team for the Tigers clash or give this group one last shot at redemption? This is probably the most asked and thought about question this week.

 

Yours in Blue and Gold.

 

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

https://i0.wp.com/thecumberlandthrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Champion-Data.png?resize=194%2C79

If you liked this article, you might consider supporting The Cumberland Throw.

3 thoughts on “Stat Attack Review – Round 3, 2018: Eels defeated by Sharks

  1. Pou

    Once we got behind by more than six we didn’t have the maturity to stay with them on the scoreboard. If your attack isn’t working take the two. Don’t worry about the opposition celebrating it. Without the buffer of a converted try they’re the ones under pressure to not make a mistake or cheat in defence.

  2. Colin Hussey

    Colmac, even though we got no penalties in the first half we got 6 in the second, how many of those penalties that we got were within goal kicking distance of the sharks line?

    Reason I ask is that both teams scored one try each and the sharks 5 goals, taking one as a conversion it shows how opposition teams are prepared to take a goal attempt with penalties, and like the horses and storm, they take every opportunity they get to take two points, yet the eels for some reason are too reticent to take penalty kicks when in range.

    Its a criticism I have put up for a couple of years now, and for me those 2 points from a penalty kick may be the difference between winning and losing, its something I find is incomprehensible.

  3. John Eel

    Agree with both comments above. Also it would seem that once the Sharks got into our half they found it easy to get into our twenty. Our attack was not as good as theirs from that perspective

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

%d bloggers like this: