After a game like last weekend, the last thing you want to think about is the current season. Still, my football obsessed mind can only let the greatest game of all travel so far and usually it rests on pointless but interesting tasks like ranking Parramatta’s greatest NRL rivals 1-16. Where Newcastle sits in that list is a matter of great internal debate.

Losing a grand final to a team, especially in the circumstances of 2001, usually catapults them well up the list of rivals. Heck, I still hold a bit of animosity to the Dragons, and the last time they cruelled the Eels in a grand final was years before I was born (I still can’t believe the club signed Rod Reddy to staff after what he did in ‘77). While there isn’t a lot of recent history with Newcastle, those of us who lived through the late 90s and early 2000s will never let go of the ill-will that comes from a crushing defeat in a grand final or late knee drops from Robbie O’Davis.

So after the traditional rivals Canterbury and Manly, the new rivals Melbourne and Brisbane and local rivals Penrith, next up in my list is Newcastle. The Eels are on a five match winning streak against the Knights, including eliminating them from the 2021 finals. We don’t talk about the decade or so before that. It’s Friday, it’s early and it’s time for Parramatta to (this time for real, we promise) kick off their 2023 premiership campaign. Let’s get into the preview!

Game Info

Date: Friday, April 28, 2023
Venue: CommBank Stadium, Parramatta
Kick-off: 6:00PM AEST
Referee: Chris Sutton
Bunker: Chris Butler
Weather: Warm, dry
Broadcast: Fox League, Kayo

Sixties Speculates (Odds quoted are NSW TAB)

Teams

Parramatta Eels

1. Clint Gutherson 2. Maika Sivo 3. Will Penisini 4. Sean Russell 5. Haze Dunster 6. Dylan Brown 7. Mitchell Moses 8. Wiremu Greig 9. Josh Hodgson 10. Junior Paulo 11. Shaun Lane 12. Ryan Matterson 13. J’maine Hopgood.14. Bryce Cartwright 15. Brendan Hands 16. Matt Doorey 17. Makahesi Makatoa.

18. Jake Arthur 20. Ofahiki Ogden.

The big man is starting to look at home in first grade

Two changes for the Eels, with Reagan Campbell-Gillard hip dropped out of the game for 2-3 months. His place is taken by Wiremu Greig, who certainly won’t be asked to fill a like-for-like role but he has looked good in recent weeks. Makahesi Makatoa rejoins the bench and is likely to fill that 20-30 minute grinder role once more. Bailey Simonsson is out under concussion protocols, so Haze Dunster returns to the wing and Sean Russell shifts to centre.

There is also a positional shift with Ryan Matterson returning to the back row, taking the spot of 150th gamer Bryce Cartwright who moves to the bench and J’maine Hopgood is promoted to lock. Matt Doorey retains his spot as well, and it will be very interesting to see how he and Cartwright are used. A lot of eyes will be on Brendan Hands and when he takes the place of Josh Hodgson, and for how long. The Eels certainly looked better with Hands on the field last week, but he did make way too many errors for such a crucial position.

Newcastle Knights

1. Lachlan Miller 2. Dominic Young 3. Dane Gagai 4. Bradman Best 5. Greg Marzhew 6. Kalyn Ponga 7. Jackson Hastings 8. Daniel Saifiti 9. Phoenix Crossland 10. Leo Thompson 11. Tyson Frizell 12. Lachlan Fitzgibbon 13. Kurt Mann. 14 Tyson Gamble 15. Jacob Saifiti 16. Mat Croker 17. Jack Hetherington. 18. Simi Sasagi 20. Jack Johns.

The big out for the Knights is Jayden Brailey, who suffered a season ending injury a few weeks back. Phoenix Crossland, Tyson Gamble and Kurt Mann have variously filled the hooking role to mixed levels of success in his absence.

Jackson Hastings and Kalyn Ponga get to continue their combination, with Hastings taking on slightly less of the load than he was used to at Wests, reduced from 90-odd touches a game down to 70-80. Still a massive number (Mitchell Moses averages around 40-50) but not a “carrying the team on his back” level. All eyes will be on Ponga defending in the front line, he is one head knock away from a lot of conjecture about his future in the game.

Us

I said a week or two ago the Rugby League Eye Test website could do my job for me if he just wrote about the Eels, and lo and behold, this is an easy week for me. Go have a read, don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Rugby League Eye Test – Parramatta’s Possession Ponzi Scheme is Becoming Unsustainable

Lucky for you, I am contractually obliged to put out a full preview, and the conclusions of that article are as good a starting point to talk about the Eels as any. While I have grown tired of the “woe is us, misery is just around the corner” pessimism that is all too often present in Parramatta fans, once you get past that it’s a great articulation and expansion of the issues we’ve identified throughout the season.

The Englishman hasn’t worked out as hoped in the 2023 Eels squad

Josh Hodgson is a serious problem. He falls apart defensively when asked to stack efforts, especially late in a half, and teams are deliberately working the Parramatta middle to force that issue. Some of that is bad luck for Hodgson, now playing for a team that opponents are aiming to target through the middle. It turns out opposing coaches take a good look at your keys to success when you make a grand final and find ways to counter it. In Parramatta’s case it is fatiguing the big minute forwards.

He isn’t the only new recruit to struggle under these efforts; J’maine Hopgood has missed plenty of tackles in the middle of the field as well. Old heads are vulnerable too, Ryan Matterson can look exhausted out there at times and when he is, he loves an arm grab. It isn’t helped by the Eels rarely pushing the boundaries of the ruck, preferring to give away some momentum in a quick play the ball than giving away a repeat set or penalty. Given how Parramatta’s edge defence has been in recent years, it’s not a bad strategy to give some ground in the middle of the park to reduce the chances their opponents get to throw shape at the goal line.

The solution to the Eels’ woes is obvious, it has won the premiership the last two years, but Parramatta aren’t a side well equipped to play Panther-ball. You can’t rest a big man in defence but you can certainly let him get his breath in attack, as long as your outside backs can carry the load. Parramatta has to be the worst side in the NRL for yardage made by outside backs, with only Will Penisini possessing the combination of build and desire capable of making hard yards on early tackles. Maika Sivo looks the part but has years of form in not being an effective metre-eater in yardage, while Blake, Simonsson, Dunster and Russell are all varying levels of below average effectiveness as runners.

The other solution would be a balanced rotation of fresh legs in the middle, another strategy that plays against the traditional strengths of the roster. It is something that works for South Sydney, who pay modestly for a collection of solid middles and balance their loads, but Parramatta are top heavy in the front row and Brad Arthur loves to get his value out of Junior Paulo and RCG. His bench usage is well trod territory that I won’t continue on here, but it will be forced to change now he is without Campbell-Gillard for two to three months. We are a team with two elite props and a lot of players we are eagerly awaiting to break out.

I will say that the doom and gloom immediately following the Brisbane loss soon took a more reasonable perspective. Considering possession, conditions and fatigue caused by both an inability to hold the ball and playing in oppressive conditions on a five-day turnaround, the Parramatta effort to be in the contest in the second half had a few more things gone right wasn’t terrible.

Call me a dreamer, but I think we’ll be okay once we can hold the damn ball. I haven’t got a good answer for why we are so poor in metres per run, it certainly doesn’t seem like we are ineffective ball carriers, but cleaning up the mistakes will both relieve the defensive pressure and offer more attacking opportunities. Our losses have come to the teams sitting, at time of writing, first, second, third, sixth and ninth, and are second, third and equal fourth in premiership favouritism. That is hardly a disaster.

Them

The Newcastle Knights continue to be a team I’d best describe as plucky, perpetually written off but always doing better than you think they are. They’ve beaten the Warriors, Raiders and Tigers, drawn with Manly and given a decent scare to the Panthers and Cowboys. They’ve done most of this without their star player Kalyn Ponga, who made his return last weekend and looked pretty solid.

Plucky is also the kind of word you use when you don’t really know what a side does well. The only categories the Knights excel at involve tackling, being among the best in the NRL at tackling efficiency (missing the second fewest tackles in the competition) and in tackle breaking. That is what you’d expect from a backline containing a winger sculpted from concrete (who defends like it, too) in Greg Marzhew, and a couple of other damaging runners in Dane Gagai and Dom Young. The most elusive of them all is perhaps one you wouldn’t expect: livewire fullback Lachlan Miller, who is having a good season as a last minute replacement for Ponga at the back.

Good tackling hasn’t led to good defensive results; the Knights have conceded only a couple of points less than the Eels this year. Their edge defence is a major concern, Bradman Best is among the worst in the NRL for tries conceded with 8 and most of the starting backline are right behind him with Young (7), Gagai and Miller (5) and Marzhew (4 from 5 games). I don’t think Brad Arthur needed stats to run shape at Knights backline (he did coach Marzhew for several years, after all) but it is clearly a path to victory should the Eels manage to earn a fair shake of good ball.

The Knights have also lacked impact in the middle battle, sitting near the bottom of the table for metres gained and offloads. Their outside backs make up for some of that yardage, but even without Campbell-Gillard I would expect the Eels to be able to hold the middle of the field better than they did last week. By the eye test Leo Thompson has looked good, but his numbers are rather pedestrian so I may just be noticing the good the few times I’ve closely watched Newcastle football.

The Game

Happy 150 first grade games, Bryce Cartwright

There is a bit of broken record about calling games “must win”, so I’m going to phrase it slightly differently and say this is a game Parramatta can’t afford to lose. In a tight competition like this one, with a start like the Eels have had, you can’t drop games you are expected to win.

It should be a tough contest, and the Knights certainly won’t make it easy, but they are beatable. They gave Penrith a great fright a couple weeks back by playing simple footy and matching it with the Panthers forwards, something the Eels have done to great success against the Panthers as well. I’d expect them to implement a similar gameplan here, which makes it crucial for the Eels to get the basics right. Don’t give away cheap possession. Ice your opportunities. Defend tough in the middle.

For as rough as it has been to watch at times, there have been excuses for the Eels until now. They haven’t lost to chumps, and everything wrong seems fixable. The narrative is gone if they lose tonight. It’s not much of an equation: win and we still think you might be bad, lose and you remove all doubt. Despite the close nature of the competition the “rest” are starting to be shaken out from the “best”. Below the Eels are the Dragons, Cowboys, Bulldogs and Tigers. Today they are the dividing line between those two groups. A loss here and they slide under that line for 2023. I don’t see it happening.

Go you Eels!

Prediction: Parramatta 26 d Newcastle 16

Man of the Match: Mitchell Moses

Gol

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