Round 2 Drink Of Choice – Grant’s Triple Wood

Ah, the good old midweek musings. When the real world conspires to keep you busy as all hell and you are just about done repressing everything about a tough loss to the murky cellar of the mind. So here we are with the distant, foggy memories of a game that may or may not have been played on the weekend and a nip of some relatively cheap whisky. With the usual preamble done, let’s see what I can remember from Parramatta’s 18-16 loss to the Sharks.

Slow start and soft contact set the tone

Even the hazy mists of a shoddy memory and a generous pour of scotch whisky can’t expel the recollection of Parramatta’s awful start in Round 2. The Cronulla Sharks completely outmuscled the Eels from front-to-back and left-to-right. Parramatta defenders were dropping or bouncing off of tackles with concerning regularity and the home team pounced on the momentum to score the opening two tries of the contest.

It was a step backwards from Round 1 where the Eels spluttered defensively but extracted a hefty toll from the Gold Coast Titans defence in return. Clearly I am unhappy with the lack of fire and intent when it came to the collisions. We all should be, the team obviously included. Even considering the fact that Parramatta fought back, it was worlds away from the standards that we and the team holds itself to. 71 missed tackles in two games is simply not good enough.

However, it was clear to all and sundry that the Sharks were riding an emotional high following a long awaited return to Shark Park or PointsBet Stadium as it is currently dubbed. They harnessed that energy magnificently on Saturday and played as physical a brand of footy as they are like to all year. We should not be quick to dismiss just how well and emotionally invested Cronulla was on the weekend. They played like a team that had been two years without a place to truly call home.

The other consideration after two rounds is that Brad Arthur did say that the Eels were going to pace themselves better in 2022. In recent seasons the Blue & Gold have exploded out of the blocks, completely dominating their opponents physically across the park. Those hot starts have petered out into midseason downturns and while the Eels re-ignited the flames last year, Arthur clearly wants to avoid any sort of prolonged slump. It can be difficult to make highly calibrated adjustments when you throttle back sometimes and perhaps the Eels overcompensated in these early rounds.

The two questions to track for the short and long term become thus. Firstly, can the Eels find the right gear to push through the opening exchanges of the season? Will the payoff be there come mid and late season when the stakes get real? We will have to wait and see how the philosophical adjustment pays off but it does provide an extra layer of subtext to the loss.

On the use of knees and general acts of dubious intent

Sixties has already written about it but once again the Eels find themselves the victims of a defender leading with their knees in the act of a try been scored. Mitchell Moses sustained a nasty cork care of a completely unnecessary action by Jesse Ramien in the shadow of half time. Once again the match officials and NRL deemed it within the boundaries of the rules and took no further action. Usually this is the point where you insert a cryptic comment about how the NRL will continue to let this go until someone gets seriously hurt.  I guess they just don’t care though seeing as how Sean Russell already had his chest caved in and lung punctured. If that didn’t inspire a serious response, I am honestly not sure what will finally motivate the NRL to protect players from sliding knees.

Moses would prove to be the target of systematic campaign of off-the-ball harassment throughout the game. It culminated with Teig Wilton getting put on report for dangerous contact when he attacked the legs of Moses following a kick. It was a reckless action that could have easily been sin-binned but Wilton stayed on the field. We all understand that rugby league is a tough game that features plenty of heavy contact but it feels like Moses has received little of the protections afforded to other playmakers. Such was the targeted nature of the attacks on Saturday that Mark O’Neill and the Eels were reported as taking the extraordinary step of lodging an official complaint with the NRL.

Will it make a difference? Who knows. Might as well roll the dice. Such actions have paid handsome dividends for coaches like Trent Robinson and Des Hasler but even if it simply makes officials more cognizant of the constant line-ball attack on Moses then it will been worth it.

Just quickly on Moses. He played a hell of a game all things considering and while the vast majority of neutrals have already formed an opinion on him from his earlier days his toughness and competitiveness are criminally underrated.

Brown & Brown Inc.

Nathan Brown quickly reminded fans of how good he can be on the weekend with a vintage 44min effort from the bench. I have no idea if the Cyborg is at 100% but he showed no signs of holding back in his return to first grade. In a game where the Eels struggled to deliver physicality and intent, he provided both in spades and his soft hands before the line certainly were a bonus. It comes as little surprise that he has been immediately parachuted into the starting team for Round 3 following the performance.

The other player to share the surname but without any kind of familial relation also showed up in a big way. Dylan Brown was coated in shark repellent on Saturday as the young five-eighth pounded the ground for 185m from 17 carries with 5 tackle breaks tacked on top – oh and don’t forget the linebreak assist and try assist.

It wasn’t anywhere near a case of stat-padding for Dylan with the playmaker tormenting the Cronulla defensive line with his leg speed and core strength. They simply could not drag him down and it brings me to a point I have brought up time and time again – he needs someone to back him up. There were times on the weekend where he had shed defenders from his torso and left them grasping at his ankle and was primed to send someone into the backfield or to even score a try and there was nary an Eel in sight. Leverage this unique ability please!

Cool heads and clear minds needed to prevail

In spite of the slow start. Regardless of the soft contact. Notwithstanding the attacks on our halfback. In the face of a massively fired up Cronulla team returning home, some way, somehow the Eels were in a prime position to win this game in the dying minutes. Clearly that is a testament to how resilient and talented the team is even when they are well below their best. However they left Shark Park without the two competition points due to a manic conclusion to the game brought about by a single lapse from Ray Stone. 

There is no need to harp on about the penalty. Stone is a blog and fan favourite for good reason and doesn’t deserve to be harrassed by any measure. It was a poor error of judgement and for as much as the officials got wrong elsewhere in this game (I won’t begin on forward passes and obstruction) this was a clear cut cannonball tackle.

The penalty took the Sharks from sending up a last chance Hail Mary bomb from near enough to 40m to getting a fresh set of tackles on Parramatta’s goal line and well, you know the rest.

These sort of late-game mental errors need to be stamped out of the team’s game as soon as possible. That is all.

The Final Word

The loss, as frustrating as it may have been, hardly spells the end for the Eels. A run of fortunate results sees them not only finish the round in 7th but also keeps the longest active weekly streak inside the Top 8 alive.

These games happen. Teams can and do ride emotional highs to victory – especially such significant one as finally returning home after several years away. For the Eels it is about making certain it was an outlier and that they are now hyper focused on defeating the Melbourne Storm.

Just about every team, even the Penrith Panthers, have shown some degree of vulnerability over the first two rounds in 2022. Clearly Parramatta are no exception but with a new focus on building into the season I expect them to turn a serious corner starting in Round 3.

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