The Cumberland Throw

From The Stands – July 19, 2022: Igniting The Charge To Finals Footy


It was great to be back in the stands watching our team get the two points against the Warriors. Consecutive wins is something that we’ve been waiting for, and we need the winning roll to continue.

A brisk night against a team from another country obviously impacted the size of the crowd. I understand the difficulties around draws and these schedules can be out of the control of clubs, but having only one match on game days should be avoided wherever possible.

People pay good money to attend live events and they should have the option of being able to watch curtain raiser, lower grade games. This is especially true for those of us who travel great distances to get to the ground. Furthermore, staging just one game does nothing to raise the profile or importance of pathway systems.

I was most pleased with our first 15-20 minutes as our Eels showed patience. They did not get frustrated with the willing Warriors defence and kept going until the Warriors cracked.

Like many, I was not happy with the last couple of tries, but I trust that will be a focus for improvement. The Eels must play for 80 minutes in each of the next seven rounds as that will be the standard required in finals football.

Sivo (photo credit NRL)

I was pleased to see our players do their job and stick to the game plan. It was far from perfect, but as we started to offload a little more in the second half the opportunities opened up for us. We also started to be a little less predictable in attack and took more educated chances, as seen by Gutho’s pass and Dylan’s effort to get into a position to set up Sivo’s scorching run and try.

We know in the next seven weeks we will have to be better as our opposition will be noticeably more dangerous. We have the great advantage of playing at home and therein lies my message for this post.

There will be excuses for fans not to go; from the weather conditions all the way through to when a game is on. But big games await down the track. Picture our team running out at another home final. I can hear the excitement from a home crowd at our stadium. Not only do our team need to build for that, as supporters we can also create the atmosphere to ignite that charge.

While most would say the Panthers are likely to be there come grand final night, I see no reason why we can’t join them. Every team from 2nd down has some strengths and weaknesses and while I cannot impact team selection or the game plan I can play my role in helping to motivate our players.

Unconditionally supporting our team and every player selected is something that I will continue to do. I only wish them success. How could any supporter want anything different? If I wanted to boo any of them I should probably be wearing the jersey of another team – that’s how much good it would achieve.

That winning feeling

I look forward to cheering Dylan’s cover tackles, applauding Mitch’s kicking game, being amazed by the power and strength as our forwards dominate and of course join in gleefully with the Sivan chant at the ground, no matter how cold or challenging it is to get to the ground.

This run home to the finals series is so fascinating and I cannot wait to be in the stands watching it all.

Shelley

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9 thoughts on “From The Stands – July 19, 2022: Igniting The Charge To Finals Footy

  1. Poppa

    I am on the fence at the moment as living in Brisvegas, having a new team next year to follow up here and the tripe our team dish up on a regular basis, I suddenly keep looking up information on Dolphins on Wikipedia.

    1. Anonymous

      Have fun following your new team that will not play finals for 10 years.
      Hope you are getting some great dolphin stuff on Wikipedia sounds so cool.
      Hey why not just follow the broncos now seeing you don’t like the tripe eels.

  2. Sec50

    I love the positive vibes about the immediate future Shelley. An uplifting read full of optimism. It is a brilliant opportunity that The team faces and should not be wasted. The power of 10000 butterfly sneezes …Go Parra

  3. Graz

    Thanks Shelley. A packed CommBank could be that 1% needed to get us over the line against the really good teams we will be playing in the next weeks. That in the end could be the difference in making the GF or not.

  4. Offside

    I’m at a point where it just simply doesn’t matter anymore I travel 90 mins each way to watch the eels but on Friday night I just didn’t want to make that effort and after 15 years of being a ticketed member I decided this will be last year eels will always be my team but I’m not investing any more time and money when I don’t see this club being any closer to a premiership

  5. ST123

    The next 7 games will either make or break the eels. I don’t have high expectations given what we’re currently producing.

  6. Cybapete

    my mum still talks about the 2009 prelim final against the dogs and the look of amazement she saw on the faces of the eels players when they saw the sea of blue and gold in the crowd

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