Thursday 22nd July, 2021
Cbus Super Stadium
EELS 10 defeated by RAIDERS 12
Half time: Eels 0 – 0
Attendance: 2,566
Eels Scorers:
Tries: D. Brown, M. Sivo
Goals: Conversions: C. Gutherson 1 from 2
This was an absolute cracker of a game!
Obviously this was not the result we wanted, but the commitment shown from the Parra boys was top notch.
Usually, we look at a game as a tale of two halves, but this game was a tale of two disciplines. Power and finesse were those disciplines and they played out in different ways.
Firstly, the power game from both sides was excellent. Players from 1 to 17 stepped up and played a high-quality game of rugby league. The runs, the tackles – you could feel it coming through your tv set.
With crowd noise at low volumes, you could hear all the impacts and feel it. Congrats to both sides on this side of play.
Now let’s look at the Eels finesse. Unfortunately, our finesse couldn’t match the standard of our power game.
Overall, we just looked lost in the opposition 20. Some attacking options were just head scratching as we didn’t use both sides of the field or use players who were dominant against their opponents.
Was this following a game plan, or was it a case of inexperienced halves? I’ll leave that for you to ponder.
Some damning match stats came out of the game.
The Eels had 53% possession and just on 46 minutes in the Raiders half. Even more damning is that half that time in the Raiders half was actually spent in their 20 metre area – and we came up with not much to show for it.
A 72% (33 from 46 sets) completion rate didn’t help either.
Attack
In total the Eels gained 2518 metres against the Raiders 2212 metres, with 1609 metres of that being run metres.
Isaiah Papali’i was the Eels top run getter with 176 run metres, followed by Junior Paulo with 169 run metres and his front row partner Reagan Campbell-Gillard added 163 run metres.
For our backs, Blake Ferguson ran for 147 metres, and debutant Will Penisini ran for 135 metres.
Post Contact Metres came in at 532 metres with Blake Ferguson topping that count with 68.
The Eels could only muster 2 line breaks for the match.
Hit Up Heat Map
Not a great running heat map at all. Barely anything in the Raiders half. As pointed out before, with the amount of time we were in the Raiders half, you would have thought the red area would be more inside the Raiders half.
Set Starts
Plenty of set starts in the Raiders half but nothing to show for it. We only forced 3 line drop outs, thus no pressure.
Not a good result.
Defence
The Eels made 375 tackles with 39 missed tackles and 13 ineffective giving a tackle efficiency rating of 88%.
Reed Mahoney led the tackle count with 56 tackles, with help from Papali’i (36), Nathan Brown (42) and Ryan Matterson (39).
Discipline
Parramatta conceded 3 penalties but gave away 5 ruck restarts and 1 inside 10 restarts.
14 errors for the Eels killed off any momentum they could force on the Raiders.
No Eels players were placed on report.
Final Thoughts
From my thoughts, including that wonderful thing called hindsight, some decisions or executions from the Eels were just head scratching.
Some points:
- Will Penisini was all over Jarrod Croker, why didn’t we use this side more?
- Sivo needs to learn finesse when scoring a try. Learn to swap ball carrying sides and also get low. No need to power over the top all the time.
- There are two sides of the field, use both, especially when one side was giving their opposition a bath.
- We needed Reed back out there in those last minutes, especially with no Mitchell Moses.
In relation to Jacob Arthur – this young bloke has a great future in front of him, but I think the pressure is really starting to build on him.
It’s hard at the moment with no reserve grade to select players from, but I am concerned about the scrutiny that we all know gets placed on Eels halves. If Moses has an extended period of absence, Jake is likely to be targeted by both opposition teams and journos.
If we need a long term replacement, and with an eye to Jake’s future, I hope this is taken into consideration.
Just my two cents of thoughts there.
Stats that Matta Player of the Week
Junior Paulo takes out this week’s gong.
Junior is showing why he is in the top percentage of front rowers in the NRL. His runs and footwork are unbelievable for a man his size, and his defence is top rate.
Junior’s Tale of the Tape
- 19 runs
- 169 run metres
- 50 Post Contact Metres
- 3 offloads
- 5 tackle busts
- 26 tackles.
Yours in Blue and Gold
Colmac
A sad but revealing write up Colmac, watching from home, and after only 10 minutes of play, I mumbled out, and saying just as my wife came in, “the eels are not going to win”. At that point of time the game seemed evenly matched, but I was concerned pretty much with two players. Sivo and JA.
Sivo: I have been wondering where the Sivo of 2019 had gone, in his first season he was running hard and fast, knocking opposition players out of the way,including some hard palm off’s season 2020 revealed a new weighted Sivo, that was slow and tackle wise wayward. This season has been somewhere between his first two seasons, not the bulk up and not the line breaks either, too much line running and leaps over the opposition, but at least some tries, but with short runs main part of his game.
JA. The loss of MM, opened up pandora’s box, and while JA, has a future, that is what he needs to be looking towards, his first game in the top was excellent but that’s usually the case for new starters, from there he has been shown up in his inexpeirence, and therein is the reason that if MM is still not available against the chooks, then Will Smith has to play in the 7 role.
RE Fergs, he probably had his best game for the eels this year and seemed to keep to his wing and sideline much better, his huge run up following the 2nd opposition try was huge, knocking two defenders out of the way and have them go down, leaving one defender in the willderness watching Fergs back was delicisious to watch, his ball kick for DB to score topped it off.
Concerning though was to see Fergs limping somewhat and favouring his left knee, his problem area. While he showed his abilities in the game, he also revealed his limitations through that knee/leg problem.
Spot on re Sivo – he gets low and scores both those tries comfortably. Although I’m still bemused that tackle was deemed legal, and I’ll be shocked if it doesn’t end up getting used to defend a judiciary charge against someone else.
I think Fergs has looked injured in every game I’ve seen him play in the past two seasons. I don’t know what he does at half-time, but there’s been a few occasions he’s come out and had a couple of massive voms on the field. You can’t possibly be at your best after that, let alone any biomechanical issues. Our attack in the latter part of the game was always heading to the other side of the field, as it was clear he wasn’t fit to be out there, which I think helped Canberra defend – they knew where the ball wasn’t going.
Agree with your comment about Sivo. If he aimed to plant the ball ON the try line not a metre beyond, he would have got there.
That’s a good summary colmac & agree where’s the finesse. Plan A of domination thru the forwards didn’t work (a worry going into these tougher games) – no sign of thoughts of going through sides. As you say, penisini was looked a threat, fergo created havoc – missed opportunity.
Interesting tactic by the Raiders – attacked us through our strong forwards and just stuck with it – Reed was targeted which negated his influence. Roosters will probably follow the same plan.
Tks Colmac. The Raiders completed at 87% and made 9 errors to compliment their line speed and nullifying us in the ruck. Good basis for winning, but we battled for 80 (without finesse). We top the NRL in errors and 3rd in handling errors ie, a tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot.
Careful BDon, that doesn’t fit the narrative that it’s all BA’s fault, and can be resolved by a new coach :0
I think the injury to Niukore was significant for us – we missed his punch through the middle when Junior and RCG were off. I also think we might’ve got a different result with a home crowd, who would have been screaming for offside/ruck speed the whole game. But ultimately, it was a few crucial individual moments that we didn’t nail – Lane’s terrible pass in their red zone, NBrown failing to hang on to a difficult pass for a certain try, Sivo trying to go through rather than under the defenders on the last play. We could so easily be talking about having won the game without playing well, and how that’s the hallmark of a good side.
Unfortunately I think you’re right on JA – he’s promising, but is leaving him in first grade for another game or two going to do more damage than dropping him? Some of the vitriol and accusations of nepotism being thrown his way are ridiculous though. For a young man who’d just hit reserve grade, it was always going to be a big step up to produce solid performances on a weekly basis in firsts. For all the kudos being thrown the way of players like Reece Walsh and Sam Walker, they’ve also not be able to perform every week. It’s completely unreasonable to expect him to perform to the standard of an experienced halfback. Hell, 2-3 years ago how many of us would have said Moses could do it every week, when he was already a lot more experienced than Jake?