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Messy, sloppy but still a bit sweet. Parramatta certainly delivered a melted chocolate victory on Easter Monday with their 28-22 win over the Wests Tigers. The Tip Sheet delivers an instant reaction post mortem on the ugly win in a game where the Eels struggled for physicality.
Sixties and Forty20 are torn on how to process the result, lamenting lost collisions and poor defensive breakdowns contrasted with a tremendous showing from Mitchell Moses. With the Eels struggling to get out of second gear but still claiming the win they discuss what is left to take out of the result.
The NSW Cup and Jersey also bagged wins across the long weekend and the show looks at both games – an ugly win in Cup and an excellent result in Flegg.
True about the tremendous showing from Moses.
We probably would have been pumped by the Tigers without him.
Can forgive Dunster for what was honestly diabolical defence – guys been out for so long, he gets a pass.
Penisini dropping that bomb = awful.
Gutherson going for a short-drop out when the Tigers were on the ascendancy and only 6 behind = so stupid. Thankfully his repeat rocket redeemed him when Staines fumbled it.
And Hodgson diving on a ball from a clearly offside position – so, so stupid. Usually try to be pretty positive about things, but it its becoming clearer to me that his signing is a throwback to old Eels recruitment policies of signing gun players in their twilight years when they are past it (Watmough anyone?).
Oh well, thankful at least for the win – could have been hear bitching and moaning even worse if they got over us.
Please, less errors, better defence and discipline, and just smarter football.
Watmough? Try Paul Whatuira! Watmough was great compared to poor old P.W.
Ah, good times…🤣
It’s a mark of the folly of following form. We’ve played better than that and lost. So I’ll take that win and move on.
Hodgson is worrying. He was great in rnd 1 but since has been very poor. Dropping off tackles and offering nothing in attack. I thought it was just rust but the more I see of him the more I worry he is getting worse and won’t improve. At this rate he won’t see the year in NRL. Will join Moimesea.
Dunster was poor. He seemed to lack the physicality also which was more worrying then his mistakes and bad defense. No punch to his runs.
Next 4 weeks are interesting. I think we need to win all 4. 3 at the worse case. But we will also know if Hodgsons time is up as an NRL level player.
Hodgson has been as poor as Cartright has been good. He seems off the pace and a bit of a liability out there. I’m a bit shocked. I’ve always rated him, but he is a fraction of the marvelous hooker he was say 5 years ago. A bit of a shame but age and injuries may have caught up with him
He actually wasn’t good in round 1 either – 80 minutes zero runs.
It is frustrating to me because Hodgson wasn’t good in 2021 or 2020 either. He is a long time removed from being of a standard we need.
He was a knee jerk signing after O’Neill botched the Reed Mahoney contract and O’Neill should be held accountable.
I know ifs and buts are just sugar and nuts but if the Eels have Mahoney they have at least 3, maybe 4 wins through 6 rounds.
You could say the same for Matterson.
I must admit to being disappointed with what Hodgo has delivered. He had an excellent preseason. One of the best I’ve seen. But as I always acknowledge, it has to be reproduced on the field. His first up contact in defence just isn’t there. And the work around the ruck that I saw and continue to see at training isn’t translating into games. It’s like he isn’t backing himself.
The option for 2024 is a mutual one according to the NRL. What does that mean? Both have to say yes or no? Player and Club?
I would have thought that it provides the opportunity for either party to trigger it. If they both had to say yes or no I don’t see any difference to being uncontracted.
What an ugly ugly performance.
Words escape me.
Yes, I know that Haze Dunster hasn’t been in the NRL for absolute ages but that 40 minutes for him was … ugly.
I saw the team song being performed and even that looked ugly.
But the ugliest , most disappointing thing I saw all day was the Cup performance … yikes 😱
The Cup was the same as NRL Spark. They didn’t win the middle but still got home on the back of the half back. Got the two points. Aim to be better and move on.
I thought Jake was pretty good in the first half of Cup but went missing in the second half.
That may not have been his fault as I don’t know the dynamics of who is calling plays and when.
Rankin is an absolute shadow of himself and the second half was screaming out for someone to stand up and start directing the plays.
They were just a collection of one out plays and a kick with no variation and bugger all imagination.
It was absolutely dreadful.
If Jake wants to stay in that position he has to be more dominant in getting them moving and perhaps that’s part of his journey.
Geez mate we just see some things differently. I’m not sure how you saw him as going missing. Besides being the dominant half, he helped to set up the second try when he held up the pass to put Asi through the hole and then he made the try saving defensive play when the Tigers player was about to ground the ball. Much like the NRL, the forwards didn’t bend the line or win the middle. Anyway, if we all saw things the same there’d be nothing for people to debate!
Yep you are right – we do see things differently but that’s ok.
I thought the team was screaming out for a dominant half as they seemed to be running around without purpose.
Jake is pretty quiet on the field and the team needed a proverbial kick in the nuts!
A win is a win as they say, felt like between them, Hodgson, Penisini and Dunster missed something like 40 tackles, that was an eye test not the official one. Actually that was possibly the worse game I’ve seen Penisini play and have watched him play junior league club football for a few years.
For an experienced hooker Hodgson hasn’t controlled the ruck as we would have expected and his delivery for some reason isn’t as sharp as his reputation that preceded him. Does he need more time after his spell of injuries, or in reality has it all caught up with him.
As Lane and a number of the team reset with so many games missed, we should see a decent improvement as they couldn’t be satisfied with the game, so work hard and come back with a less passive effort next week.
The Cup game was instantly forgettable! With only Moretti, Doorey and Jake impressing. To some extent Kolomafe and ASI went well, Cini fell off a few tackles and Waqa needs time to reassess his future.
Asi did go well but can’t understand him being shuffled to fullback.
Perhaps Asi to his preferred centre position and Russell to the wing may be the correct solution for the Bulldog game ?
I thought that Asi was very composed in that role. I liked what I saw.
Yeah but again, I don’t like players playing out of position in the Reggie’s .
If Gutho gets hurt, Russell is his understudy.
Asi is a centre /5/8 and should be concentrating on playing in these positions.
At half time I was trying to understand what just happened. Hardly built any pressure and 18-6? I thought our defence looked better, maybe it was, but then I recalled Gol’s comments on the Tigers lack of know how in opponents 20. I gave up on it, the Tiges are running last. The second half was diabolical, the last placed team won it 16-10. Next week we have our strongest squad available to play, let’s hope that means something.
It was t great but I reckon we have to enjoy getting two points and move on. The players know they weren’t good enough. Big game against the Dogs and time to reset.
For me a wins a win, and it’s wasn’t good tbh, but wests always give us a tough Easter game. Let’s move and on and we obviously need to be better in some areas.
We have the chance to string a few games together and for me we need to be around 5 or 6 from 10 games to get that roll on. No reason why we can’t win a few more on the trot.
I don’t get the short dropouts….it’s stupid.
6 wins from the first 10 games would have us back in the top eight.
It would be a decent bounce back
Yes John and for me it’s one wk at a time. We play a tough pack this week and then some wks against some QLD teams in some humid areas. The next month will tell us again how strong we are mentally too.
Milo, I’m with you – no reason why we can’t do that.
At the 10-minute mark, the Eels had already conceded 3 errors and as a result, gifted the Tigers 75% of possession.
We turned that around and by the end of the game were at nearly 50%. We just can’t keep starting like that.
Good team’s will wipe the floor with us. To me, the most telling stat was that the Tigers ran with the ball for an outstanding 500 extra metres but did not win.
I think that stat says that our defence was far too passive John. We let them run to us all game. And the more they did that, the more confident they became. Yet look how quickly they dropped their heads when Staines made that error. If we had taken the game to them more, they would have folded. But we now move on.
Good points mate; it’s called being ruthless and I firmly believe we need another mongrel type forward and also for our DH to be dominant.
We must have a DH who defends well and also leads the ruck area with the ball. I am prepared to give JH a few more wks to get his groove back but if he doesn’t then the coach needs to address and make some calls.