STAT ATTACK REVIEW: ROUND 14

EELS – 20 (Tries: J. Hayne x 2, G. Jennings, M. Jennings. Goals: C. Gutherson 2 from 4)

Defeat

COWBOYS – 14 (Tries: K. Feldt, M. Scott, E. Tuala. Goals: J. Thurston 1 from 3)

TIO Stadium, Darwin

Crowd: 8,393

Finally, the Eels notch up a victory and it was a well deserved one at that. Even though it wasn’t a great game by any means, a win is a win and we will take it.

Some of the individual efforts disappeared and players played like a team. I thought Takairangi had a great game. Didn’t over play his hand and made some very good yards when it was needed. Played a strong back rowers game. Nathan Brown is back and it is showing. Another superb 80 min effort. Hayne injected himself when needed and his first try was smart and powerful.

I think Reed “Cash” Mahoney had an excellent debut. The “Thick Little Fella” (thank Mark Gasnier for that) made some high quality tackles, especially on Taumalolo, who ran at him all night and the newbie didn’t flinch at all. Great work Reed.

All these signs show that the Eels are on the improve.

Full Time Stats

Wow haven’t the Cowboys self-destructed this year? Completing just over half their sets. Very average indeed. You could ask when you look at each team’s rosters, who is actually playing poorer. This match would have originally been hyped up as a Top 4 battle, not a 15 v 16 game.

1^st Half Stats

2^nd Half Stats

As stated before it wasn’t a great game of footy. And the numbers do show it. A lot of dropped ball which produced a high number of scrums. It was a very stop start game of footy. Was it due to the warm, humid, greasy conditions? Or was it more to do with how both these teams are playing this year?

Player Stats

*MP: Minutes Played, T: Tries, C/A: Conversions, PG/A: Penalty Goals, PTS: Points, R(M): Runs (Metres)
LB/LBA: Line Breaks/ Assists, TA: Try Assists, K(M): Kicks (Metres), TB: Tackle Breaks, TAK: Tackles
MT/TI: Missed Tackles/Ineffective Tackles, E: Errors, PC: Penalties Conceded, OR: On Report

This was a solid performance all round really. Although errors were high, the Eels didn’t drop their heads and dug in for the next set. Attack was still a bit stagnant but the energy from Hayne and Brown did lift the team. As for defence, it was fairly even. The Cowboys only had an extra 2 sets instead of the average 10 plus the Eels usually give away. Brown, Alvaro and Mahoney produced a quality defensive game each with the other forwards also doing their bit.

Run Metres:

Eels – 1429m from 168 runs (8.5m per run) – 2 Line Breaks

Cowboys – 1465m from 152 runs (9.6m per run) – 4 Line Breaks

Tackles:

Eels – 357

Cowboys – 345

Missed Tackles/Ineffective Tackles:

Eels – 19 missed / 3 ineffective

Cowboys – 31 missed / 16 ineffective

Effective Contact:

Eels – 94.2%

Cowboys – 88.0%

Penalties Conceded:

Eels – 8

Cowboys – 6

Errors:

Eels – 15

Cowboys – 21

Heat Maps

Hit Ups

Still a lot of hard work getting out of our own end. Compare this to the Cowboys map.

Not sure if it is a game plan not to use our forwards in the opposition half hitting it up, but these Eels heat maps sure do show that either it is a game plan from BA or that the forwards just aren’t getting involved too much in opposition territory

Set Starts

Again a very similar map from previous weeks. Lots of deep kicking from the opposition planting the Eels in their territory. Not many set restarts in the opposition 20 to build much pressure. George Jennings has been doing a wonderful job bringing the ball back. On the other hand Josh Hoffman was just watching as the Cowboys kept kicking down their left side.

Final Word

No one can doubt that having a win felt really good and a weight has been lifted some what. But this week is a massive test against an in form Rabbitohs side that have been playing some really good footy as of late.

The Bunnies are playing their no nonsense hard running football circa 2014. Their outside edge runners are running hard and straight and the use of block plays have been pretty much scrapped. The Eels can counteract this with some solid defence.

Last Saturday saw a great defensive display from the Eels and this will need to be repeated Thursday night.

With our attack stuttering, we need our defence to win this game. The Burgess boys are on fire and need to be stopped.

As stated previously Brown, Alvaro and Mahoney all had great defensive games. We limited Taumalolo to roughly 9.5 metres per run, which is very good and contained him well. He needed to run close to 20 times to get his metres up against the Eels.

If we can contain the Rabbits hard men, this puts pressure on their attack and might see them drop balls and end up in errors out of frustration as was shown in the Titans game last week. (Yes I am well aware too that the Rabbits had their Origin players rested.)

So, all in all I am looking for a more spirited uplifting performance from the Eels after a win against the Cowboys.

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.

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