EELS – 20 (Tries: C. Gutherson, J. Hayne, M. Jennings. Goals: M. Moses 4 from 4)
Defeated by
RABBITOHS – 26 (Tries: D. Gagai (2), C. Graham (2), R. Jennings. Goals: A. Reynolds 3 from 5)
@ ANZ Stadium, Sydney
Crowd: 15,542
Well what a life we have as Parra fans hey??? I will try to take emotion out of this and try to analyse it by the numbers.
Coming up with ideas for what to write in this post, I was thinking, “What happened in the second half? Was it poor completions? Was it errors? Was it poor game management? What really happened?”
So having a look at the numbers, the biggest influence on the game, for both teams, not just Parra, was the penalty counts. Souths were hammered in the first half which gave Parra the upper hand, then the penalty count swung to Souths who got the upper hand for the second half the game.
For both sides, there were some of the fastest penalties ever given this year. It just seemed that the tackle wasn’t even completed and the ref would blow a penalty. But the old square ups happened and unfortunately we just couldn’t hold on.
But in saying that, we were very poor in attack yet again, especially in the first half when we did get a boat load of penalties. We got in the Souths red zone and just looked like a team who really had no idea what to do. Sideways running, seen far too often this year, was the prominent feature of our attack.
Here are the numbers for the game. Make of them what you will.
FULL TIME STATS
| RABBITOHS | Team Stats | EELS |
|---|---|---|
| 51 | Possession (%) | 49 |
| 29/36 (81) | Complete/Total Sets (%) | 31/36 (86) |
| 40:53 | Time – Opposition Half | 39:25 |
| 18:23 | Time – Opposition 20 | 17:57 |
| 1814 | Metres Gained | 1869 |
| 4 | Scrum Win | 3 |
| 4 | Goal Line Dropout | 0 |
| 10 | Penalty Conceded | 12 |
| 0 | Forty Twenty | 0 |
1ST HALF STATS
| RABBITOHS | Team Stats | EELS |
|---|---|---|
| 36 | Possession (%) | 64 |
| 9/12 (75) | Complete/Total Sets (%) | 22/24 (92) |
| 20:15 | Time – Opposition Half | 20:00 |
| 3:43 | Time – Opposition 20 | 13:40 |
| 701 | Metres Gained | 1259 |
| 0 | Scrum Win | 2 |
| 4 | Goal Line Dropout | 0 |
| 8 | Penalty Conceded | 3 |
| 0 | Forty Twenty | 0 |
2ND HALF STATS
| RABBITOHS | Team Stats | EELS |
|---|---|---|
| 68 | Possession (%) | 32 |
| 20/24 (83) | Complete/Total Sets (%) | 9/12 (75) |
| 20:38 | Time – Opposition Half | 19:25 |
| 14:40 | Time – Opposition 20 | 4:17 |
| 1113 | Metres Gained | 609 |
| 4 | Scrum Win | 1 |
| 0 | Goal Line Dropout | 0 |
| 2 | Penalty Conceded | 9 |
| 0 | Forty Twenty | 0 |
What a massive swing in halves for both sides. The halves just mirror each other and I’ve never seen anything like it really. So before you blame the refs etc, take a look at both halves. We had massive possession in the first half then Rabbits had it in the second. Its just Souths were able to utilise their time with the ball better than what we did in the first half.
Yes some of the penalties were mind boggling, but we still should have held them out to come up with the win.
PLAYER STATS
Looks a lot better this week than well most of the year. We were able to match the Bunnies for most of the game but unfortunately it just got away from us. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to consistently match the leading teams this year.
Set Starts
Again another graphic which is a lot better than previous weeks. Good starts in the opposition territory which were unfortunately nullified by our lack of attack.
Final Thoughts
More heartbreak for us Eels fans. After a terrific start we just faded out. Still, there must be kudos given to the boys. There was a lot of energy and enthusiasm in this game from everyone which was brilliant to see.
Unfortunately this is 2018 and definitely not the year of the Eel. With the Cowboys and Bulldogs picking up wins, our grasp on the dreaded wooden spoon just got tighter.
Our run home reads like a horror movie. Titans, Dragons, Storm, Cowboys (Thurston’s last game at 1330Smiles) and finishing with the Roosters.
It just doesn’t look good at all. Maybe a win against the Titans will be our last for this year. Lets hope not. Lets cheer the boys home and finish the year with our heads held high.
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.
It always amazes me how a team can be so ill disciplined in a first half then after a 15 minute break they completely change the way they’re playing and the opposition team all of a sudden become as ill disciplined.
It defies logic. I am sure that it has nothing to do with the Ref evening out the penalty count he says with tongue in cheek.
We had a lot of time in there red zone in the first half but could not convert enough of the chances. Games like this need to be won by the break
The stats do not always tell the story and for this reason I am disappointed in this review. As a matter of fact I would respectively say the writer has given up as well as many supporters because of the rationale to justify a reason for our lack of success.
There is unquestionably a phsycology involved with the referees, they are too prone to make decisions when they do not need to. The game is and was heavily influenced by referee mismanagement….sin bins for Norman and subsequent penalties against Parramatta at crucial times….everyone makes errors but the referees decisions to find issues that “never” happened made the game a farce.
I rarely criticise referees for determining results, this game was amongst the most blatant determination I have seen this year.
I am not suggesting anything sinister as much as how badly they are managed. The morale of the referees is probably on par with Parra’s team morale.
I have had a fair bit too do with cricket and if an umpire is facing a lot of criticism and having a rough trot, a situation I became aware of was that an ex test umpire came to him when he asked for advice and said, “stop making decisions when you don’t have to” the concept being you only make mistakes by doing so, leaving the decision is just subjective.
Good management by the referees controller (and the NRL) could do a lot worse than bring all the refs together and indoctrinate this thinking.
Back to the game, the writer made points of our attack…..again he sees it as uninspiring and unimaginative ……well that is because he see’s the cross field running ect. Why because our honest hard working pack has no middle punch effect. i.e. we cannot draw in enough defence to handle our “moderate” attacking middle forwards and the defence subsequently handles the “spread” easily.
This is chicken and egg and hopefilly is addressed differently next season by the purchase of Junior and maybe Lane and hopefully another significant middle forward. Ferguson will make a huge difference as well in doing close to what only Semi could do.
I am loyal and optimistic and am not being critical but I sense the writer has given up.
Don’t and stay positive. Stats are an after event statistic and following them is misleading. They are a tool, not the answer.
As someone else said Poppa, how can we be so bad after a first half like that? I thought our attack at times in the first half did not ask too many questions, and maybe if we led by 24-6, the game would have been different.
Souths were coming off a loss and looked totally revved up with their goal line defence, so revved up that offside rules didn’t matter and they blatantly ignored the warning given. We struggled against the fast moving line but minimised errors(hero plays and ridiculous passes), tried the grubber, got repeat sets and patience was rewarded with the sin binning, then some points.
I just didn’t see us systematically and blatantly infringing in the square up. Sure, Souths were stretching us, forcing desperation and earned a few penalties but 9-2 was a carve up deluxe.
Poppa I reckon the middle punch issue is a season issue, no probs with that. On the night, really weird officiating was right up there.
We probably should have been leading by more points with that amount of possession. We just can’t seem to score tries this year. Again ill-discipline cost us the game at the end. You can say what you like about the refs, but the truth is that they can’t ping you if you don’t give a reason to.
Rubbish ,watch closer mate
So you are saying that the reason Parra seem to give away so many penalties is because the refs don’t like us? If you are driving in a 110kph zone at 108kph, you can’t be booked for speeding can you?
Longfin, you’re right, our errors/penalties ceded have cost us a heap this year, but completions/errors weren’t so bad in that game overall.
8 errors seems around par across all teams. We’ve been hitting double digit far more than we should. Penalties were the standout, not only penalties but poor calls generally.
They say timing is everything, we managed to make just a couple of key errors at the time we needed them least, trying to reverse momentum of Souths on a massive roll.
Again watch closer mate particularly how many we dont get .
Confirmation bias – if you look for missed potential penalties you’ll find them. Thing is you’d find them for both teams.
IMO our ill discipline has come from impatience and pressure. The more we lose, the more we try to invent a win, the more errors we make, so the more we lose. It’s a snowball effect unfortunately.
The refs are not the reason we’re running last.