Parramatta Eels 8
Canterbury Bulldogs 2
Canterbury Bulldogs 2
The Good: |
The footy is back and the Eels are on top of the table.
END POST.
Yes, it certainly wasn’t pretty; but you’d be silly to ever knock back an injury free victory, even if it was ugly. As BA said in the presser, there’s plenty of good to come out of any game where you win looking average. In addition, you’d have to pleased with our defensive effort, holding any team to zero tries is quite the effort in the modern game. As such, despite an underwhelming scorecard, the fact the Eels faced a gritty, point-to-prove team like Bulldogs in Round 1 is a nice acid test to start Season 2020.
With that said, I |
The Bad: |
Well, for starters, the behaviour of Jayden Okunbor and Corey Harawira-Naera.
Regarding the game, for a team touted to mix it with the best in the Rugby League world, the Eels’ first half decision making was about as bright as your average toilet paper hoarding anti-vaxxer.
Parra also had zero linebreaks, zero line break assists, and made 13 errors. Outside of Fergo’s almost try, I don’t really remember attacking the Dogs line in the first half, yet, still somehow, we won.
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The X-Factor: |
Whether a win or a loss, the first game of any season is an island; it means very little in the broader context of the season. We were pretty rusty tonight, but the Dogs also deserve some credit for dragging us down into exactly the sort of game they would have wanted. Fortunately for the home team, they were unable to capitalise.
As I screamed at almost anyone who would listen in recent days, you just knew the Dogs were going to be gritty. The Eels were by no means without flaw, but it’s not completely an accident we looked as bad as we did as they did everything in their power to disrupt our processes and make us uncomfortable. With that said, I’m just thankful it didn’t go beyond the 80 minutes.
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The MVP:
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I wasn’t wowed or in awe of any one performance tonight. I mean Fergo was solid, Reed played well, Laney, Jennings and Nathan Brown were pretty good too. In attack, Junior Paulo peeled defenders off him like that Bulldogs gear steward must have removed all those Rashay’s logos from front of those Dogs jerseys. Still, no one really stood out.
I’m happy to hand it over to the people to kick off 2020, give us your pick in the comments below. |
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1- Clinton Gutherson (c)Fullback, Parramatta Eels |
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| It was by no means a game for the pool room, but I think Gutho did a lot more good than he did bad. Sure that weird chip kick sucked, as did him giving up 20m by catching the missed goal kick on the full before running it dead (what happened there, mate?) and made 3 errors. Then again, he also was a one man defensive line on a number of occasions, did his best to spark a lifeless attack and destroyed DWZ with a perfectly timed post bomb tackle.
All in all, Guthersons of Anarchy ran 16 times for a team high 176 metres and also had a couple of tackle breaks. Hey, brain explosions aside, he actually went alright. |
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2- Maika SivoLeft Wing, Parramatta Eels |
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| After a breakout Season 2019, an eventful offseason and a pretty quiet trial form, it was difficult to know what to expect from Maika in Round 1. Like everyone in Blue & Gold tonight, it wasn’t stellar; but Sivo still managed to surpass 100m (107), broke 2 tackles, missed none and made zero errors; so you can’t be too harsh on the bloke.
I must admit, I thought Maika was playing for the crusher tackle just before half time, but it turns out he was just French kissing Christian Crichton’s shoulder. My bad, mate. |
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3- Michael JenningsLeft Centre, Parramatta Eels |
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| Despite doing the same sorta thing for about 100 years, the Grey Ghost is still quite good at Rugby League. Tonight, Jennings got through 7 runs for 75 metres, 3 tackle breaks and 8 tackles (1 miss). If you ever worry about Jennings’ ability to contribute in Season 2020, just remember not to. | ||
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4- Waqa BlakeRight Centre, Parramatta Eels |
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| Waqa Blake is like a clumsy baby giraffe in an extremely athletic man’s body. Tonight’s stats won’t jump out at you (9 runs for 73 m, 13 tackles with 1 miss and a tackle break), but he’s due another really good game again soon, right?
You know what? I don’t care what you say, I’m going all in on his Waqa’s weird ass game this year, and I will ignore the many reams of evidence to the contrary. He’s just so probably so good. |
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5- Blake FergusonRight Wing, Parramatta Eels |
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I thought Blake played pretty well tonight (15 for 141m, 14 tackles and some good link play with his fullback), but if I’m honest I think I’ve started the year with more questions than answers. It’s 2020, so why does Fergo still have a nose like a stuntman’s knee? Why does Fergo not have a new profile photo for this season? Do post try backward flips still count if you’ve just stepped out of bounds? Sure, Fergo was one of our better players tonight; but as far as wins go, it was a pretty low bar. |
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6- Dylan BrownFive Eighth, Parramatta Eels |
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| The feather footed fledgling was relatively invisible in attack tonight; hopefully not a sign of things to come as Dyl battles in the shadow of the dreaded second year syndrome. He did an admirable job of straightening the attack though, repeatedly shaping into the Dogs defence to create space, before shifting it to his outside men. Defensively, however, Nathan Brown’s brother was brilliant, racking up an incredible 22 tackles without a miss. | ||
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7- Mitchell MosesHalfback, Parramatta Eels |
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| As the obvious choice for MVP in the trial against the Panthers, it’s no surprise Mitchell Moses was in everything Parramatta did tonight; both the good and the bad.
Defensively, Mitch was pretty solid (despite 4 misses) and put his body in front of plenty of bigger blokes in blue & white jerseys. On the other side of the coin, the Prince of Egypt’s timing and control wasn’t firing on all cylinders across 80 minutes and I must say although it’s pretty rare these days that Moses puts in a really bad kick, a couple of his strikes tonight were well off. Our attack obviously didn’t click in attack tonight, but after such a stellar individual game in Bega, I’m not going to pay much attention to tonight’s performance. Just shake it off, champ, shake it off. |
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8- Reg Campbell GillardProp, Parramatta Eels |
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| I’m not sure this is how he imagined it, but RCG started his Eels career on his ass. Twice. Actually, make that thrice. In fact, for most of the first half Reg was getting straight up abused by the Dogs pack. Consider me grateful that he managed to upgrade this into a relatively solid performance by night’s end; getting through 10 runs (86m), 29 tackles (3 missed) and nabbing a couple of tackle breaks. It’ll take a bit of time, but overall it wasn’t a bad first date.
As an aside, “Regean Campbell-Gillard” must be a nightmare to write on forms and spell over the phone. As it doesn’t fit in the regular width box, I initially wrote his name above as “Reagan Camp Gillard”, before deciding it sounded like a political summer activity I did not want to attend. |
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9- Reed MahoneyHooker, Parramatta Eels |
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 I like Reed for Reed, not because he made 43 tackles, missed none or scored the first and only try in Season 2020. Great stuff from The Terrier. |
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10- Junior PauloProp, Parramatta Eels |
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| With exactly 100m from his 14 runs, Junior’s game was indicative of almost everyone in the Blue & Gold tonight; solid but short of spectacular.
He also had a couple of offloads, 3 tackle breaks and 23 tackles. Way to go, Idaho. |
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11- Shaun LaneSecond Row, Parramatta Eels |
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| I am still a little mad at him for the DWZ linebreak, but he did smash a bloke or two later on, ran for 130 metres from his 15 hit ups, and also found his way to 3 tackle breaks.
Even with his fancy new haircut, Shaun Lane still looks like the sorta guy who keeps Chiko Rolls in business. |
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12- Ryan MattersonSecond Row, Parramatta Eels |
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| Ryan Parramatterson had an inauspicious opening 20 minutes as the Eels continued to shift the ball left while Matto formally introduced himself to Waqa and Fergo. Not unlike fellow debutant RCG, the Tigers’ favourite son ended up going ok; ending up with 12 runs (102m), 2 offloads, a tackle break and a non-hooker team high 39 tackles (2 missed). | ||
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13- Nathan BrownLock, Parramatta Eels |
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| Not unlike a certain Michael Jennings, Nathan Brown is another player who seemed to pick up right where he left off in 2019, running like a missile and eating opposition players for brunch. His 12 runs (80m) won’t jump off the screen at you, but some of his 35 tackles were so ferocious Celeste Barber has started a fundraiser. | ||
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14- Brad TakairangiInterchange, Parramatta Eels |
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| Exactly zero minutes tonight, huh? Well tip up your cup and throw your hands up. | ||
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15- Marata NiukoreInterchange, Parramatta Eels |
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| Crash had 15 runs for a reserved 73 metres, made 18 tackles (2 missed) and made 1 error. His game was very mild and inoffensive. | ||
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16- Kane EvansInterchange, Parramatta Eels |
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| Tracking Kane Evans’ career trajectory is like trying to follow a flat earther argument; and I’m still not convinced he’ll ever be consistently good at Rugby League. If he wants to prove me wrong, Season 2020 is the year to do it. Tonight, Kandy Kane ran 5 times for 45m, made 17 tackles (without a miss) and inexplicably threw a perfect offload after running back the kick off. Who amongst us could tame him? | ||
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17- Peni TerepoInterchange, Parramatta Eels |
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| In honour of his tearing up of Bankwest Stadium, I’m renaming my Elton John tribute band “Peni and the Jets”. I’m then immediately splitting the band up because I can’t handle watching Peni Terepo anymore. Despite not making a single error, in my mind’s eye I can see him making like 5 and I realise how crazy he makes me feel. Tonight the Tongan rep forward got through 6 runs (51m), 21 tackles (3 missed) and had 1 tackle break. Again, he actually had zero errors, so credit where it’s due. | ||
All the hot tips, predictions, plaudits and pre-season hype is now irrelevant. The Parramatta Eels are now only as good as their form on the park; and as it goes we’re 1 from 1.
As the Eels sit atop the NRL Ladder in the midst of a possible shutdown season, I think it’s time to introduce my idea for NRL Survivor. Forget the handshake ban, it’s just NRL players wrestling, breathing and sweating all over the place, and the team with last player diagnosed with COV-19 wins. Hopefully someone finds that hidden immunity idol soon and we can go back to collective cheering whenever opposition players start bleeding.
Thanks for reading. Looking ahead, next week it’s off to the Gold Coast to rescue Tom Hanks from the Coronavirus face the Titans.
See you then, sports fans.
Go you Eels,
Mitch
Photos courtesy of the Parramatta Eels. Stats courtesy of the legends over at Champion Data.
Thanks for giving us fans a platform to express our own assessment of the game and players Mitch. I loved the game and the win.,
To come away with 2 points after getting dragged into the trenches by the Dogs, who actually dug the trench and mapped the mine field was an enormous effort which will put our blokes in a new state of mind that has been foreign to us in previous seasons.
I reckon BA knew what was coming and deliberately set us the task to out stay and match the doggies at their game. The way we attacked them with our defense right from the kickoff showed me that we were under instruction to allow the Dogies to dictate the style of footy we would be playing and to put the fancy stuff away including the risky offloads to concentrate on proving ourselves capable of getting down to get dirty and come away winners. Great effort Parra. The smiles in the shed after the game says it all!
Forgot to give my grades. B+ for everyone except Taka, who gets an A- for sitting patiently on the bench for the full eighty minutes without pestering BA with.. “Can play now Brad, come on, let me play. Just for a little bit Brad, c’mon please”?
He was well contained by the Dogs’ defence.
Thanks for reading Rowdy, thought the effort to get the win in trying conditions says a lot about a team who 12-18 months would have dropped their bundle. It wasn’t perfect, but neither are plenty of good teams in Round 1 clashes; they just usually find a way to win as we did.
Totally agree Mitch, a B and C sort of game. We competed hard but didn’t build pressure. Paulo’s first real hit out looked promising, and the only time we looked done in the middle Nathan Brown’s effort on effort play to shut down a surging raid was enough to claim MVP rights. A score then would have been perfect for the Dogs’ game plan,smother them, be patient, a lapse will come. Whatever, a first game win is good for the soul.
Agreed. I tweeted at one point I thought the Dogs were about to break our line (Sixties hinted at it too) and Adam Elliott went VERY close; it would have been a huge challenge to respond to that score in such a game.
As fate would have it, we were the ones to get such a try and the Dogs weren’t good enough to respond. Huge game; despite the lack of highlight material.
I would think you give the team a C+. If they played just about any other team with semblance of an attack, they probably would have gone down. So it was an average performance (C) with the bonus + for getting the 2 competition points.
Individually I thought;
RCG got hammered early, but came back ok
Blake was dreadful early. Bombed two early chances and even the simplest task like passing from a tap restart would go high and wide of the mark
Paulo was contained well but worked well as did N.Brown. – I thought Jackson and Brown were going to go at it early..
Jennings was solid, Mahoney strong in defence but didn’t challenge them at all in attack. and Gutho was far and away the best on ground.
I wasn’t sure how D. Brown got a higher grade than Moses. Moses was in there and trying with mixed results. I didn’t get the same feeling from Brown.
The only thing worse than Evans ball control is the fitness of Pene Terepo. BA has a bit of work to do coming up with the best possible bench.
I think you’re forgetting how well we scrambled out wide with 2 or 3 players coming across in cover or when DWZ broke through the middle and how strong and resolute our defense was on our goal line and gritty in the middle of the ruck with our forwards B Andrews.
I just read Gus Gould saying how scrappy or attack was “BUT” how strong and resolved our defense was. He also said on twitter “I doubt any other Parra team in the past decade would have found a way to win that game”.
I think that last line says it all Rowdy.
Spot on. Dour game, huge result as far as Round 1s go.
Gus also wrote us off as a premiership threat. The main reason stated was that ‘we don’t value excellence’. I’m thinking about that.
So whos your bench ???
FWIW, I had Alvaro and Stone ahead of Terepo and Taka; but it was Evans who worried me most on Thursday night.
I see them a little more positively than you, but all good. Re bench I had Alvaro and Stone ahead of Terepo and Taka; but it was Evans who worried me most.
I didn’t think Fergo was all that bad, and the no try backflip was incredible to even be in that position.
I’m very happy for a first up win and the relief that the final siren brought from 80 minutes of a feeling of absolute dread. The dogs dished up what they do and again seemed to control or be allowed to control the ruck better than our boys. Whether they were square at the marker on many occasions is another matter entirely.
I thought Paulo and Jennings were best on the night and the rest had a bit of a mixed bag. I was disappointed that Moses didn’t look for a field goal when well positioned with under 7 minutes to go, but that might have been me wanting some earlier dread relief.
Apart from that I’m sure the coaching staff must have been pleased to get some nerves and cobwebs out of the way and to win a close contest while keeping the opposition scoreless.
Trapped, I thought that both teams were exceptionally quick off the mark in defence. This effectively shut down the attack of both teams. It was a testimony to the fitness of all players but basically meant that defence ruled the match.
Well, best I can say, we are on top of the ladder and that sums up a match that was a nuffer of one. Only 24 more NRL season games until the finals, question is which gate will open for the team.
Early days and the bench needs a rework, why have a replacement on the bench and not use him? at least he made no mistakes.
Colin, I don’t know if I can call it a “nuffer”. Why? Because so much of the talk from fans is about the Eels defence not being good enough to be considered challengers. Keeping a defence to no tries is surely the best start, no matter the opposition. We know this team can attack.
Gotta concur Sixties. The more I read and hear about that game, the more confident I am with the win. As you so rightly noted “The speed with which both teams defense attacked off the line negated any possibility of structured attack, and ad-lib footy would have created more loose ball and given opportunities to the Dogs which they were expecting and we were avoiding.
A truly disciplined game plan was executed meticulously albeit with a great deal of ill-discipline? Now there’s an oxymoron for’ya cobber!
In hindsight, Taka was injury cover it seems. Forwards held their own and back came away injury free (although I thought Sivo was in trouble a couple of times). I thought this game told us plenty about where we’re at. Attack will come.
I think a pretty good summation except for Gutho. I would give him a “C” for some mistakes that were game changing. Catching that missed penalty goal attempt and then running dead not only forced a line drop out instead of a 20 metre dropout but then immediately led to repeat set to the Bulldogs. It was a first half game changer. He also dropped a ball cold when taking it up. Of course, not hanging offences but worth of a “C” methinks. Also in regards to NRL survivor, I want to see 2 x “no holds barred” MMA matches as pre game Grand Final entertainment. Graham Olling Versus Bruce Starkey followed by Ray Price Versus Rod Reddy. Both clashes long overdue………
Gees, Gutho has divided a few people. As I said, other than the brain explosions you mentioned I thought he was really good. With that said, the brain explosions occured so I couldnt give him any higher than I did. Thankfully they didnt cost us a try in this game.
Everything else he did I loved.
He’s got a brilliant footy IQ and I love him (in a masculine sort of way) but I cannot understand why full-time footballers don’t know the rules as well as the referees. I would hope that as part of training they have all studied for and achieved their referees certificates. You can’t play and win any game (whether it be footy or Monopoly) unless you know every rule. Put it down to a brain explosion and we’ll do it all again next week
I knew he’d made a mistake straight away, and I suspect he did too. I think his brain just saw a kick coming into the in goal so he caught it on the full. That’s the only reason I call it a brain explosion; surely he knew that a goal kick caught on the full wouldn’t be a 7 tackle set. Surely.
Not a game for the ages but I was generally pleased with our defensive effort, despite 2 line breaks to the Dogs. They moved up to meet the attack and our line was not compressed too much to allow any breaks down the touch lines. That Dogs attack was predictable tho and when we come up against better opposition we’ll really see if we have the defensive resolve to hold them out. On to next week when I’ll be at the game and expecting an improved performance from Parra on both sides of the ball.
Yeah I think we were fortunate the Dogs didnt have the firepower to make us pay in the first half. We were terrible with the ball in the first 40, but got better as the half and then game went on.
Bring on a crowdless Round 2.
It took all my effort not to have a nap last night during the first half, I was sure I was watching a team that will aspire to the lofty heights of the bottom 4 and that was not the dogs. However the second half seemed to bring out a little more class in the EELS, our defence was decent albeit against a team who has the horespower of a Victa lawn mower.Enough of my negative comments, at least we did grab the 2 points and if nothing else we may have learnt to win ugly and that is a huge positive. I expect our EELS to display better discipline, crisper attack and a lot more cohesion next week aginst the Titans.
If we improve on each effort each week, we’ll be well positioned. All starts again in Round 2.
From what I saw of the game it was a typical eels / bulldogs game, always hard won games. Not stressing after one tough game
And how good to come out on the right side of the ledger!
I always love beating the Dogs, not just because of the rivalry, but because they’re usually tough as nails.
Welcome back Mitch. Agree with your mainly Bs with a few Cs grades.
Remember 2018 after all the hype about the Eels then disaster hit. Last night was a good hit-out, IMO a perfect start to 2020. We did the hard gritty stuff rather than take the soft options. That buries the ghosts of 2018 for me.
MVP for mine was Fergo. Good metres, led the charge on the tough hit-ups, a couple of half breaks an interesting kick, some smart plays and the cool head at the end of the game when the Dogs were desparate.
Good to see you back too, DDay. Yeah as I wrote in reply to a comment above, I thought he was pretty stellar. For mine, Reed, Paulo, Fergo and Gutho all good without being great.
Watching the games played already, I think we are in reasonable shape. Attack from all teams were generally clunky. Defence is king in rounds 1-4. We defended well. I sometimes think we need to scoot more and just concentrate on the percentages. One thing that is sticking out is that teams are playing tight and attack will need to be constructed and play makers cant waste sets against the real good teams.
Yeah, if this were Round 14 or 15 I’d be a lot more worried; but then again we got the 2 points.
More to worry about at this stage than our Round 1 performance; I’m just hoping we have an NRL to compete in!