Parramatta Eels 12
Souths 30
Nobody drowned out there, so that’s something I suppose. The rest of the good relates to my watching this game on replay after going out for dinner, so I could watch the last 20 minutes in fast forward after the Rabbitohs made it 24-6. MVP should go to my mum who did not betray at all the trash fire I was walking into when I got home and excitedly threw on the replay. Thanks for babysitting, mum, next time I’ll do you a favour and hide the remote so the Eels don’t ruin your night.
There was an awful lot of bad out there. Parramatta seemed to miss the memo that this game was played in conditions that deserved a woman’s name, strange considering this pack feels built for the grind of wet weather football. The Eels were their own worst enemy, every time they clawed back into the contest they gave away cheap possession, or worse. It was the same old South Side Story for Parramatta fans, and I would have felt ripped off seeing this show even if I’d got in with my last dine and discover voucher.
As an aside, Dan Ginnane may be the most infuriating commentator to listen to when your team is being beat. As a supporter of only one team, I don’t know if fans of other teams feel the same or he just particularly delights in Parramatta losing, but I had to watch on mute after 15 minutes. I don’t mind Ginnane as a radio caller and in his talking head roles, but on television commentary he is unbearable.
The Eels were stupid tonight, and thus spent most of the game clawing out of their own territory in horrible conditions that allowed the defence to just pummel on them. That made the few chances they got all the more important, and those were blown too. The result? Numbers like these:
Possession: Rabbitohs 54% Eels 46%
Run metres: Rabbitohs 1,955 Eels 1,539
Average set: Rabbitohs 44.4 metres, Eels 38.5 metres
Kick return metres: Rabbitohs 302, Eels 93
Forced dropouts: Rabbitohs 5, Eels 1
I don’t know, I thought Clint Gutherson was okay, I guess. He’ll do. You da MVP, Clint.
Clint Gutherson
1 – Fullback
The captain tried hard and was solid at the back in horrible conditions. He’s had worse games.
Maika Sivo
2 – Left Wing
There were a few encouraging hard charges from Maika. In a swamp fight like this one he needs to get himself more involved.
Will Penisini
3 – Right Centre
Look, this wasn’t a game for the outside backs and I stopped watching after 60 minutes so I don’t have a lot to say here.
Waqa Blake
4 – Left Centre
Another guy I basically have to grade on his numbers, though I seemed to remember more runs from him than the stats sheet indicates. He needs to find ways to involve himself more now he’s back in the centres.
Bailey Simonsson
5 – Right Wing
Simonsson marking the Souths left edge went about as we expected, and he’s lucky Isaiah Tass is allergic to passing or there could have been a few more down that side.
Dylan Brown
6 – Five Eighth
A lot of our good work seemed to come off of Dylan, so I wish he’d got more involved throughout the game. It is on the halves to build the composure of the side, and tonight we had none so he gets dinged for that.
Mitch Moses
7 – Halfback
If Dylan gets hit for the lack of composure, Moses gets thrown to the wolves. His kicking game had some poor moments, he didn’t take control of the team and then the side started playing panic football when the ball was an oval bar of soap. After that stupid tap-on for the intercept try he should have kept walking down the tunnel and straight to the train station home. Crap like that is why you aren’t captain of the team, Mitch.
I might as well blame the scrum against the feed on him too, though I’m not going back and watching to see what actually happened. How have we lost two scrums against the feed this year? Hopeless.
RCG
8 – Front Row
Reg and Junior ate up the metres in very tough conditions, but you could hardly say they won the ruck. Maybe one of the props should have got MVP instead, but like a Dally M voter I only watched the spine.
Reed Mahoney
9 – Hooker
Just don’t kick anymore you muppet. Good tackle count though.
Junior Paulo
10 – Front Row
Junior got through a mountain of work, but when it doesn’t amount to your team getting on the front foot it just doesn’t seem as impressive. He wasn’t the problem.
Shaun Lane
11 – Second Row
The stat sheet suggests Lane had a good game, I mean, he didn’t even miss a tackle! Twitter and Facebook suggest he might not have been at his best, so I’ll average them out and give him a middling grade. These grades are a lot easier when you watch the full game, take notes and pay attention, but I’d sooner gargle Drano than watch that trash again.
Isaiah Papali’i
12 – Second Row
That shot is not a penalty.
Marata Niukore
15 – Lock
Simba got through a mountain of defensive work and I never really noticed him with the ball. I’m over these grades so like Parramatta let’s phone in the last quarter.
Maka Makatoa
14 – Interchange
Without that silly hair there are no distinguishing features to Makahesi Makatoa or how he plays football.
Tom Opacic
19 – Interchange
Seven minutes, no made tackles and two misses. Another Brad Arthur bench special.
Oregon Kaufusi
16 – Interchange
The Gun worked hard in tough conditions.
Ky Rodwell
17 – Interchange
I stopped watching just after he came on, but he didn’t make an error so he was better than last game.
That was hot trash, the same kind we’ve dished up against Souths over and over, this time with a dash of swamp footy and absolute stupidity to make it feel different to all the other beatings.
If the Eels need to play a bad game to then follow up with a good one, I’ve got some very unfortunate news for them about the structure of the finals series and how it requires at least three good efforts in a row. Hopefully it means bad news for the Tigers next week, but if I hadn’t already paid forty bucks to stand on the Leichhardt Oval hill next weekend I’d be finding something better to do with my Saturday night.
Enjoy calling for BA to be sacked in the comments. I’ll see you next week.
Until next time, stay slippery Eels fans.
Gol
Stats and images provided by NRL
Thanks Gol for your comments.
It seems that it’s totally off limits for anyone associated with TCT to even mention the coaching. I’m not in the ‘let’s sack BA brigade after every loss’ but as they say mate – “ fair dinkum” we have turnover of players over the years and we have improvements in club facilities but the one constant – the ONE CONSTANT is that BA cannot get the eels to play to an acceptable consistent level and we get stripped on the edges. (Ok two constants) – sometime we just have to put some heat on BA as the head coach and ask why. Let’s stop talking about the wonderful job BA did years ago to
Stabilise the club, how much credit does he have ???
As I said in a previous post we are absolutely treading water.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”..Theodore Roosevelt
What position did Theo play?
Five eight I think..He was a BOMBER in WW1..
Well I can’t argue with that ! Should be placed on the wall of the dressing room, they certainly need more excuses !
Personally I just don’t get why our wingers jam in and it frustrates the hell out of me. I understand the principle/concept as it creates pressure etc. but they should stay on their man and force the middles/centres to slide. Time and time again we are being beaten on the outside and South’s have exploited this in more recent times, I just don’t get it or am I missing something? Mentally the whole team is weak, our defence is inconsistent and again as a team or should I say individuals, promise so much and deliver so little. This team is definitely not great for my health…..
A press conference taking about accountability where no one is ever held accountable???
Yes it’s laughable.
Another absolute disaster game. Watching the one out hit ups by our forwards is so bad I can’t believe an NRL team can play with such an inept and basic game plan. It allows opposition teams to just tee off on one of our main strengths. I’m over calling for Brad to change his game plans and bench rotations so I guess we just wait for another end of season failure to see if the club will act on it instead.
Inept. If there was a game plan last night… It was lost on me
BA was happy with the first half effort. LOL
I’ve been vocal in the need to move BA on not that he can’t coach just that he can’t get this team to go to the next level.
5th time in a row south’s have put 30 points on us.
No energy and flogged after a week off 2nd time this year.
These are issues that haven’t been fixed thats a coaching issue.
The facts are this team is good with the potential to be very good that potential is not being tapped and whilst we continue to be a bi polar team nothing will change.
I just want the season to hurry up and end once again we’re making up the numbers
Offside, fair points here and i feel the frustration, the issue for me is we had a week off and while half or so played for their country the others did not; we should have performed better than this. Its a frustrating game and to me we seem to have made the same errors at times in our defence and the way we play.
Our defence apart from one try was not good enough and the errors too.
I disagree with the grades. Most of them didn’t turn up and you gave them B-minuses. No offloads at key times and you put it all on Moses despite Dylan Brown and Mahoney not trying anything in the game. Gutherson kicked the ball dead twice.
How was the scrum Moses fault? His kicks were conservative because we had hardly any field position. Our defence was woeful. The loss was a team effort and not because one player let the team down.
Give them all Fs rather than picking out one player and talk as if it is personal. Who in the team based on that performance proved that they are a captain? They were all terrible.
Also, I forgot to mention Moses doing the dumb tap on and lack of innovation. Our forward pack wanted to just run up and our wingers didn’t want to get involved.
I think you are being very kind to Gutho. His three stupid kicks, one on the third, that led to nothing showed no composure. As captain, his inability to get the side to correct itself and get back on the game plan kills us.
They all did dopey things. Moses with the dumb tap on and lack of innovation in his kicks, Mahoney with the poor kick and no go forward, Dylan Brown was non existent, Gutherson kicking the ball dead more than once. Our forwards didn’t want to offload and our wingers didn’t want to run the ball up. That combined with our horrid defence led to an F grade for all of them to me.
I think Reed is well down on form and offering very little. Cook bought so many metres for his middles with his smarts. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when I’m eagerly anticipating the arrival of a 33 year old hooker off a reco for positivity. Think Waqa on the wing and Tom O in the centres is better for the team, but not the reason we lost last night. BA please get them consistent use the interchange better or gracefully step aside….
God I hope he stays healthy as he brings so many things we need.Mongrel,footy smarts do anything to win mentality a real good pickup if stays healthy.
The thing is none of us had to watch the game. We could of seen any parra/souths replay over the last 3 or 4years and seen the same thing. That’s how much we’ve progressed.
You throw Mitch to the wolves for the intercept pass and lack of involvement, yet Guth putting on stupid 4th tackle kicks and taking the ball away from the halves wasn’t bad, especially considering those kicks gave Souths a 7 tackle set out of trouble each time.
Effort doesn’t mean Guth gets excused for the bad plays, his attempt on Johnston for that first try was bad too.
It doesn’t matter mate Mitch Gutho Reed Dylan these guys are our spine all on big coin and offered up that crap seriously I want my money back.😂😂😂
Totally agree with your comment re Dan Ginnane. It is bad enough getting beaten..let alone listen to his woeful commentary…
I am disappointed with your “Sack BA” comment…Long way to go in this competition. The Eels are not wet trackers – see loss to Cronulla and again to Souths..I prefer to give credit to the way Souths played – they were, after all, runners up to Penrith last season.
Dan Ginnanes commentary is the last thing I care about. Not wet trackers ? Unfortunately, we play outside and sometimes it rains. The rabbits are miles away from the team that played the GF last year. Any more excuses I missed ?
and the Eels are even further away from the team of 1986. No excuses. So predictable to crucify the coach after every loss. Hate backslappers. Souths were too good on the night..
1986 ???? Crucify the coach ?? Backslappers ??
It’s called constructive criticism. My call is that it should at least be part of the conversation yet there are those that refuse to even talk about it. BA is paid a massive amount of money for results. Unfortunately one may suspect that there are just too many who settle for what is presented at the club and that may be the problem.
I guess your happy with what was dished up.Give me a break and opacic on the bench.As Alf says Stone the flamen crows.
I’m as disappointed as the next fan, but I don’t get the calls for sacking people. Show me a club that has improved quickly by just giving the coach the flick? Let alone one that has won a premiership. By just making the finals isn’t improving on what BA already offers. Unless of course you want change for the sake of change, which is fine but it’s more likely than not that our results will deteriorate before improving.
While we’ve underachieved this season, there are teams out there in worse spots. Plus I can’t see teams like the Broncos or Sharks actually troubling Penrith or Melbourne when it matters. Cowboys maybe, but no more likely than us.
In all reality this season is likely a goner. So im just going to try and change my mindset to enjoying the wins, and not expecting much more*.
* I reserve the right to still throw my toys out of the pram when we lose.
Mick appreciate your point of view but there are some metrics to consider.
1. We are in a premiership window. We have the team, the talent right now to win this premiership. We can’t afford to let this this year slip !
2. There has to be progression. This is a business. There has to be KPIs yet the Eels have totally denied that BA has any KPIs and are happy with stability. Hey we all love stability but if we continue to do the same things, every single year surely the penny has to drop that we have to do something different ? 9 years is a long long time to coach a team who produces these types of defeats.
3. There is a huge gulf between our best and our worst and BA basically shakes his head and says “ I dunno” . It’s a rinse and repeat. Said the same thing after the Tigers game and then the Bulldogs game and now the Souths game. We can’t just say “ come on guys “ there has to be a forensic analysis as to why there is such a gulf. Why do Souths strip us for numbers on the flanks every time we play them ? Ok you know ? – well why hasn’t it been fixed ??
4. Other teams ? Tigers, knights etc would kill to have our list.
Yep I hear you. Edge defence and bench rotations make no sense to me and I’ve been saying it for a while now. But at the same time I’m not sure BA can do much about some of the poor in game decisions our spine are making.
If I had to guess at a root cause, I think with half our spine having an ordinary season (Gutho and Reed) and Dylan not being a game organiser, too much is sitting with Mitch to compose the team.
I’m interested to see what Josh Hodgson can bring provided he stays healthy. If he spends most of next season on the sidelines like he appears to have done for the last x many seasons at the Milks, it’s hard to see us turning a corner.
Mick, some fair points here and yes that is fine. I am not calling for Brad to be sacked but i will ask as a member the club to look at the coaching at the end of the year if we continue as is; to me we have not really improved defence wise from the last two years, and we seem more inconsistent tbh. How many times are we short on the edge / centre / wing? and i think we have allowed teams to score first in 11 games this year…..
I thought after the first 10 games that our defence was not great and losses to C’bury and this one make it worse.
Our defence has to be tough and strong, and our on field leadership should be the key to following our game plan, and yes the coach is accountable particularly after 9 years, and yes we had a few years of mayhem when he walked in but as a club we should be aiming high each year. We have a v good spine in my view that should be performing better each week with their reported salary.
Yep. My problem is that we have come to a point where we are treading water. We are not progressing. Yes we have beaten the Panthers etc etc but as a whole we have come to a standstill in regards to progression. The Eels must always be striving for the premiership, that’s the goal. There must be a measurable sign that we are moving towards that goal otherwise , what’s the point ? I’m all for BA to stay but fix the bloody same problems man !!!!! Or otherwise we get someone else
who can.
Some observations – and a few that have already said
1. Our bench rotation / selection process continues to be hard to explain. With the Conditions yesterday surely we would have been better with an extra forward / eg N Brown / Cartwright – who can play minutes in a forward rotation rather than a token 7 minutes for Opacic
2. Our edge defence guarantees tries every week to the opposition – why we continue for years to cramp our defence line and just let teams get around us with long passes and have found no solution to an obvious problem
3. Who is our leader who can settle the team down and get control and get us back into our rhythm. It seemed that Gutho and Moses were doing their own thing at times ( grubber kick, tap on pass) – each of which hurt us. I think Junior and RCG need to take that vocal and physical leadership role when things get off track and chaotic – take control and force the team to get back to what works
4. Our numbers 2-5 ( penisini excluded ) need to do more coming out of the backfield for our team. Will made 15 runs / Blake and Sivo 16 runs combined.
Another big test next week
Well said Greg, I agree about the bench, I almost choked on my big breakfast when I saw Opacic on the bench; that is a mystery and Brad should have explained this; it was wet…..4 forwards on the bench should have been the go but he must have had issues with defence out wide……
I have said for a while that our on field leaders are not leading at times and i personally would have had Mitchell Moses as leader tbh; he is street smart for me and has the nous and this is nothing against Junior but he seems too quiet and is more of a follow me type leader.
Starting to think the players are no where as good as thought , can play no doubt but lack footy smarts ,and mentally to soft for week to week footy ,.and coach to soft on players to change ,this issue
Great read Gol.
‘Everyone knows’ how to play in the wet.
Short passes through the middle and kick to the corners and defend like your life depended on it. South’s just played basic wet weather footy. We tried our dry weather expansive game. Reg and junior receiving the ball deep behind the advantage line and getting smashed at the advantage line. They did well considering it was completely the wrong strategy in the wet. Either it’s a coaches lack of knowledge or failure to communicate it or the players just didn’t listen. I’m not sure which. However, South’s had enough brains to have numbers at a flat advantage line which gave them easy Meters. We were too stupid to adapt.
Moses was too deep as was Brown.
Mahoney is sluggish and has Zero running game. His kicking is deplorable. He does one good kick per month. He is a liability. He needs to get the runners in better position but he clearly doesn’t give a crap and should be released early.
Gutho tries but he is providing more low lights than highlights.
Overall I give;
the spine 2/10 (Generous)
Centre Wings 2/10
Forwards 7/10
The two captain’s is not working because Junior is great he’s the doer and leads by example. But He needs to voice more.
Gutho is a tryer but his game needs to be faultless and it’s far from it.
If this isn’t fixed we are going to crash out early.
A poster a few weeks back mentioned how other teams view us. Well there it was again, restrict our time to think and act and we struggle. In reality that formula should work against any team, but we just seem to be the bunnies for it, opponents know it will usually work. And just to assist, our starts are sub-standard, like we blink first and early.
This is a text message from a Rabbitohs fan friend of mine, an hour before kick off, cut n pasted –
”
AJ will score two tries. How do I know this? He always does against you lot. We will spread the ball, and spread early. We always do.You won’t stop us. You never do. Ground Hog day for you mate, sorry to say. Rabbitohs by 20 or I’ll buy you dinner next week. And what the hell is a reserve grade level centre doing on your bench tonight??? I just don’t get it!! We got Latrell back and we will trample you lot!
”
He owes me dinner at least. Oh Lord this is depressing
That hurts mate; maybe remind your friend at least you have all of your teeth…well i hope you do. Seriously, it was my thoughts too and lucky Reynolds was not playing!! My mate who follows souffs does not message me like that, he stays quiet and normally says ‘bad luck’, which is more than enough.
Yes, I had a friend who basically said the same thing. Alex Johnson for a double and Latrell will dominate…
Also had a friend who said the Bulldogs were going to beat us because we are too arrogant and don’t like getting our fingernails dirty.
These loses hurt because everyone knows what is going to happen but it happens anyway.
Thanks for the write-up. The Coach and the whole team are always accountable on how they played. BA should not only make his players accountable, but also have to include himself. If he needs to drop players, so be it. In saying that, his interchange roster is crazy. Is there nobody than Opacic who can be there? Also why did Moses always kicked to Alex Johnston and not to the other winger? Is there something more serious within the team, especially NBrown on the outer?
Thanks Gol, another great read and a tough one to pen down.
I think every time we have played poorly IMO its been the spine that has been inconsistent and or almost poor as a collective group. I have no idea what occurs during the week nor am I privy what happens at Kellyville during the week, but from my view which is across the other side of the world in the UK, it appears at times our on field leaders are not leading as a group and at times it appears as though we are not playing for each other / and the coach and ultimately us fans. I could be wrong, but that is just my take.
If the message is not getting across through the leaders then something is wrong, and you cannot tell me that by now we don’t the ability nor the attitude to change tact and alter our plays.
I may be way off the mark but there seems to be some collective issue with our playing / consistency and only the players and coaches would know this, as it shows on the field that we are A grade movie stars at times but playing B and C grade actors during the other times.
As a fan this is very frustrating, and yes Gol people will call the coach / staff into question as it has been 9 years and while I am not one of them, i am beginning to feel as though we are in need of some change at the top if this year drifts out again.
BA talked about individual accountability, and a lot of commentators agree with that assessment. We need to find ways to lift each week, as we know we can do against the top teams. This is not easy, but if we aspire to be premiers, there is no other way. If the players think they can lift only for certain games, then there is no chance of a grand final any time soon.
In the end, this is on each player to find out what works for him to produce a top performance each week. The coach and club can support that, but the player needs to be able to do this himself. I feel that some of the players expect everyone around him to provide that lift. Yes it is a long season which makes it difficult to be always on, but each player needs to find a way to have a mini peak each weekend. This is a mental strength issue, but I’m not sure the players know how to rectify this.
Coach is a clown
Pathways system full of clowns
Assistant clown