The Cumberland Throw

Eels Pre-Season Training – February 11, 2019: Maika-ing It Interesting

What is it that all NRL clubs hope to have with their roster?

Obviously you want your players in form, but first and foremost you’d like to have everyone available. Today, the Eels took another step towards that goal with Maika Sivo commencing contact work, removing the orange singlet for the first time since arriving at the Eels.

There’s been no shortage of supporters asking me about the big Fijian, but it’s next to impossible to assess a player without them participating in full contact. From this point, the flying winger can push his case for NRL inclusion.

Will he be another Semi? Let’s remove that from the table. Let’s take away that pressure. There will only be one Semi. We want Maika to simply be Maika. He still has plenty to learn, so it’s essential to keep that in mind.

Sivo whilst still wearing the dreaded orange.

On the positive side of the ledger, he’s worked his way through bush football, Ron Massey Cup and ISP. He may not have a star junior rugby league background, but when he eventually plays first grade, he will be older than Semi when he debuted and boast more rugby league games on his resume.

The early signs today were good. There were enough glimpses of his pace, evasiveness and power to suggest that he will feature in first grade this year. Whether he will be ready to play in round 1, time will tell.

Nathan Brown has commenced non contact opposed.

Aside from Sivo, both Will Smith and Nathan Brown continued their rehab journey. They participated in the field session, though wearing the orange singlets – meaning no contact.

This will be a busy week for the football department. Half of the squad will be preparing for Friday’s trial against the Raiders with the other half travelling to the Northern Territory for four days of clinics, open training sessions and important community relations work.

With the players departing to the Top End, today became the big opposed session for the week. Brad Takairangi, Bevan French and Blake Ferguson were on All Stars duty, and won’t be involved this week. Of course this opens up opportunities for some of the younger players to mix it with the NRL team in Friday’s trial.

The execution this morning was very sharp, with errors at a minimum. Overall, this was possibly one of the best sessions of the pre-season.

The Highlights

* Mitch Moses was totally in the zone. His vision was arguably the best of this pre-season, making good call on good call and converting half chances into clean line breaks. His decisiveness was reminiscent of his 2017 form when he first joined the club. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.

Dylan Brown

* A fine individual try by Dylan Brown. Rather than describing it, I’ll leave it as a surprise should he produce something similar in a match.

* Ethan Parry and Haze Dunster both having the opportunity to play in Blake Ferguson’s vacant wing spot. Ethan was one of the best on field in last Thursday’s ISP trial.

* Jaeman Salmon returning to the centre role and making a long break which ultimately saw Gutho crossing for a try.

* Reed Mahoney performing strongly in both attack and defence, ably supported in both endeavours by the middle forwards.

* Junior looking to be the fittest he’s ever been and showing the benefits of it.

Final Word

Friday night at St Marys Stadium will provide Eels supporters with the opportunity to watch many of the NRL players in action. This isn’t an ISP trial. It will be treated as a genuine first grade trial.

I hope to see about seven thousand of you there.

Eels forever!

Sixties

http://www.starrpartners.com.au/office/starr-partners-narellan

 

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42 thoughts on “Eels Pre-Season Training – February 11, 2019: Maika-ing It Interesting

  1. !0 Year Member

    Thanks for the summary Sixties. DB looks pretty solid in that photo, well developed for an 18 year old.
    Looking forward to watching the trial on Live Stream.

  2. rowdy roddy

    Very interesting report Sixties. I am also excited about this weeks trial against Canberra, it will be a real eye opener from the perspective of who is playing at NRL level in this pre-season, and who is not.

    1. sixties Post author

      Thanks Anon. I won’t get carried away with a win or be distraught with a loss. I’ll be looking for certain individual performances, some effort areas, execution of what they’ve been working on in the pre-season etc.

  3. Anon

    Is Maika a genuine shot of unseating/claiming a FG spot if he isn’t fit in Round 1? I.e. Is he good enough to be put into FG even if others such as Gennings are fit and available? He’d surely be no lower than 3rd in the winger rankings behind Fergo & Gennings if not higher I believe

  4. Anonymous

    Great report as always. Can’t wait for the trial this Friday, and more importantly who stands up and puts all this great training into action.

    Is there any development in young George as a centre? Perhaps I’m being too speculative and dewy-eyed, but to fit both George and Sivo together seems like a good long term pairing

  5. Anonymous

    Thanks sixties for your report every week.. Let me share a few things about Maika,he played rugby union in Fiji until he was 22yrs old even represent Fiji in the U20world cup in rugby union.In his first year in rugby league he played for the Gundagai tigers and they won the group 9 comp after more than 10 yrs.He played for Mounties and they reach the final in the shields and won the Ron massey cup then he played 9 games for st Mary before Penrith called him up and played in the 2017isp and state final and last year he got injured in the first round against wenty and misses couple of rounds until he came back and help Penrith secure the minor premier.the only reason he did not made his debut because he was on a training contract with Penrith.thanks

    1. sixties Post author

      Thanks for sharing that with our readers anon. As I said in the post, he’s done more league than Semi by the time he plays first grade and he’s done so at an older age.

  6. Big Fish

    Hey mate – any insight on how Shaun Lane has been training and what position he’ll be securing in the 17? Cheers

  7. Milo

    Great read again Sixties, and I think Sivo will be a v good buy for us as long as he stays fit.
    Can we expect to see a list named before this wks trial?
    I also would imagine that by having the Taka and co absent this also makes it a difficult week in terms of having a trial and then half the squad away in the NT.

    1. sixties Post author

      I’d think they’d name a team Milo. So with All Stars and injuries, 5 are immediately ruled out. It makes the preparations from here unopposed I’d say. Well you’ve got caps run always being unopposed so just one day of different conditions.

  8. rowdy roddy

    As sixties alluded to earlier, trials are just that. Coaches and training staff are looking at individual performances to see if their preseason efforts are being translated into improved performance in a game time atmosphere.
    Are they putting in that extra effort to stop a try. Is there evidence of consistent support play up the middle by halves, fullback or hooker, are the outside backs fit enough and quick enough to back up a break from a team-mate inside or outside?
    IMO These things and other effort on effort plays by individuals will all define ‘how” we might be able to play our intended style of footy in 2019. Perhaps more than whether we win or lose a trial match.

  9. Colin Hussey

    After a big lightening strike over our house on Friday night, with it aking out the NBN box in the garage, microwave in kitchen, modem port on main computer motherboard, meaning I now have to rely on a wifi laptop which I cannot stand, but at least I can now read emails and send them. I escaped ligntly and barely over the insurance excess compared to neighbours who have hole in wall, blown large ducted air con unit, blown TV and cabling over $29k damage, I’m not complaing.

    Having spent 4 hours now on inter internet catch ups, its good to read reports, even the narrow wins for the juniors is tonic.

    I would love to be at the trial game but not possible, although I recall reading that the Eels club will be having the match on live stream, which I will be watching, no miss for me then.

    Thanks for the reports now caught up on.

    1. sixties Post author

      Jeez Colin that’s a rough time for you and the neighbours. It was crazy around Parra. Never seen so many trees down since around 2000 storm.
      Best wishes to you and the neighbours.
      I’m looking forward to Friday, big time

      1. Colin Hussey

        As bad as it was mate, especially with the sound and light show, got me out of bed and everything in darkness, not as bad as one I experienced in early 70’s as a train driver near Ashfield. Was taking a load of wire from Newcastle to the sidings there, and the line next to me, got hit by a large bolt of lightening and it ran the top of the rail for around a hundred odd metres, frightened the living daylights out of, especially the sound of it.

        Me too with Friday if its streamed.

        1. John Eel

          Colin I was going to tell you about my experience at The Entrance but I can’t top those stories of yours.

          By the way it is a long time since anyone shunted Ashfield and dropped the wire off.

          1. Colin Hussey

            very true re Ashfield, but its the same with dozens of other locations that were actually busier.

            PS, still to ring you, just slack I guess.

            I had one other experience, in the 60’s at DH, there was a power blackout around the markets, but there was no darkness, as the sky was lit up by an almost continual lightning display.

          2. Colin Hussey

            Milo, the incidents I had were part of nature events and not avoidable, OTOH, patting a cat, is shocking at the best of times.

          3. Milo

            agreed Col, the cat incident was a minor one….it was more said in jest compared to the major issues had by yourself; hope you are on the mend.

  10. The rev aka Snedden

    Sixties. I need you to tell me the difference between Gallen boxing n junior Paulo playing third grade rugby yrs ago. Why do the NRL not say anything to the Sharks n yet hammer eels over JP playing 3rd grade rugby

    1. parrathruandthru

      It was more the Eels hammering Jr. Imagine if he did his ACL. The rugby club got in trouble for using an unregistered player. Gallen has it written into his contract I believe

  11. Michael Formosa

    I can’t wait for Friday!
    I hope Sivo gets the other wing spot. It’ll be great to have two wingers that are great under the high ball! It’ll take away one of our weakness and turns it into one of strengths.

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