First order of business – be sure to have a listen to the relaunch of The Tip Sheet if you have any sort of inclination towards podcasts. Sixties and myself finally got our respective houses in order after COVID-19 restrictions put the kibosh on our podcasting efforts earlier this year. The phone hook-up was fired up, allowing us to run our eyes over all the action from Round 8.
I will save readers a little bit of time here. The answer in a word is no. The powerhouse winger might be in one of the most frustratingly barren scoring runs of his career, after all he is still nursing a duck egg after eights rounds of the 2020 NRL premiership, but he is mostly a victim of circumstance.
If you spent the last decade living under a rock you might be forgiven for not knowing that Blake Ferguson is an attacking dynamo. ‘Fergo’ has never scored less than 7 tries in a season, a bar he set way back in his second year in the NRL in 2010 and he is currently on an 8 (EIGHT!) season streak of double digit tries scored.
The font of four-pointers has dried up in 2020 though as the right-edge winger simply finds himself on the wrong side of field. Even though he occupies the same edge as Parramatta’s dominant playmaker in Mitchell Moses, opportunities have been sparse and Ferguson has not been able to capitalise on the few try-scoring chances afforded to him this year. The sideline, forward pass calls and dropped balls have all conspired to keep him off the scorer’s sheet in some way as well but at the most fundamental level, the Parramatta Eels are unstoppable down their left-edge.
| Tries | Left | Middle | Right | |
| Blake, Waqa | 3 | 3 | ||
| Brown, Dylan | 3 | 3 | ||
| Evans, Kane | 2 | 2 | ||
| Field, Jai | 1 | 1 | ||
| Gutherson, Clinton | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
| Jennings, Michael | 5 | 5 | ||
| Lane, Shaun | 1 | 1 | ||
| Mahoney, Reed | 2 | 2 | ||
| Matterson, Ryan | 2 | 2 | ||
| Moses, Mitchell | 1 | 1 | ||
| Niukore, Marata | 1 | 1 | ||
| Sivo, Maika | 8 | 8 | ||
| Stone, Raymond | 1 | 1 | ||
| Terepo, Peni | 1 | 1 | ||
| TOTAL | 33 | 18 | 7 | 8 |
Of the 33 tries the Eels have scored as of the end of Round 8, a staggering 18 of them have come via their left-edge. Generally, Parramatta love to lock the opposition’s right-edge winger into the Thunderdome with Maika Sivo (8 tries) but Michael Jennings (5 tries), Dylan Brown (3 tries) and Shaun Lane (1 try) have all got a piece of the action while Clinton Gutherson scored 1 of his tries down the left-edge against the Brisbane Broncos in Round 3.
By contrast Waqa Blake (3 tries) and Ryan Matterson (2 tries) have laid claim to the lion’s share of the 8 tries scored down the right-edge with Mitchell Moses, Jai Field and Gutherson each banking one four-pointer a piece to round things out. The 8 total tries scored down the right are dwarfed by the 18 of the left and barely eke out ahead of the middle’s 7 tries.
The dominance of Parramatta’s left-edge and the predilection to playing down that side should not come as a surprise. The attacking structures of Brad Arthur and Steve Murphy have led to wild success down that edge throughout their long tenures at the club. Now in 2020, not only have they assembled their most lethal left-edge for the Eels in the NRL-era they also have the luxury of deploying Gutherson and Junior Paulo down that side to create even more mismatches.
So in the try scoring stakes Ferguson is both hostage to the lethality of Parramatta’s left-edge in 2020 and victim of the absurd overall balance of the roster. Blake and Matterson would be spotlight attacking weapons at any other NRL club but at the Eels they too are battling to maximise their opportunities.
When his number is eventually called, Ferguson will surely make it count and who knows? The breakthrough try could result in a veritable avalanche, nay, a mountain of meat pies. For now though Ferguson has 12 games in hand to extend that brilliant streak of double-digit tries scored to a 9th straight season.
In the meantime, ‘Fergo’ has rolled up his sleeves and has taken to the filth of the ruck like a pig to mud.
| RD | RUNS | METRES | MPR | TB | LB |
| 8 | 22 | 236 | 10.73 | 1 | 0 |
| 7 | 20 | 147 | 7.35 | 6 | 0 |
| 6 | 18 | 126 | 7.00 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | 18 | 152 | 8.44 | 1 | 0 |
| 4 | 22 | 212 | 9.64 | 3 | 1 |
| 3 | 17 | 147 | 8.65 | 1 | 0 |
| 2 | 19 | 178 | 9.37 | 5 | 0 |
| 1 | 15 | 141 | 9.40 | 1 | 0 |
| AVG | 18.88 | 167.38 | 8.87 | 2.25 | 0.125 |
All statistics are provided by Champion Data
Admittedly, there are some rough and tumble games in that table. Round 7 against the Raiders and Round 6 against the Roosters stand out as absolute meat-grinders for Ferguson but while he may not feature in the weekly highlight reels, he has never shirked the thankless task of starting sets against a stacked defensive line to help put the Eels on the front foot. I mentioned this in my Musings on the weekend but don’t sleep on the value of that role to the team.
Encouragingly, he rebounded in a big way against the Cowboys. On the back of a performance that produced his season best production and efficiency running numbers, perhaps he can now harness that energy and conjure up the drought breaker against the Newcastle Knights!
No doing Fergo is an asset. An attacking centre inside him, with a wobbly relationship that is obvious when you look at defence, has got to be a contributing factor.
The Blake’s need to go for long walks in the beach, dinner together, and work that stuff out so the trust can bloom. Then the magic will come I’m sure.
So it’s a matter of finding that special something that has seen the universe put them together? You old romantic Trouser!
We’re going left, they’re going to our right. For Fergo that’s 2 negatives. Love his carries, and he’s protecting the ball (and his ribs) far better. I always remember Neil Hunt on ball returns, every now and then he’d step straight thru the line, clean as a whistle. It’s coming Fergo.
Fergo has become one of this team’s warriors in his carries. His stats back that up.
It could also be that when we do swing right, the opposition defence is sweating on Fergo, creating holes and opportunities on the inside. Waqa, Matto and Mitch do seem to be exploiting holes that may not normally be there. This makes Fergo’s contribution just as critical as scoring the tries himself. And his carries are as strong as ever, which if I recall, was the primary reason BA wanted him in the team, to start our sets.