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It was a win choc-full of flaws but vitally it was a win for the Eels in Round 20 as they fought back from two players in the sin-bin to win 25-24 at CommBank Stadium. Sixties and Forty20 are back for an instant reaction podcast as they look into the details of a critical 1-point win.
A fast start gave way to a manic period that saw Maika Sivo and Reagan Campbell-Gillard both sent to the sin-bin for foul play. The boys agree that the Bunker got both calls right but have plenty of grievances in between – at both the officials and the Eels themselves.
Core players stood up in the second half when they needed to be counted and the show looks at who made the difference in a game of centimetres.
The spacing in defence is consistently horrible. We have been shoddy defensively for years and whilst we have more resilience it shouldn’t take this long to fix. It means there are personnel issues. People who can’t consistently do the job in defence. We constantly look short in middle and edges. Great effort to get the win but I’m not sure how long we can persist with sivo and Russell and wingers. Both are terrible metre eaters statistically and relatively slow in speed. Also, hands won’t last the year playing full games. We have no wing depth, no hooker depth, no halves depth – I hope I’m wrong but I fear what will come
Totally agree,we have the worst wingers in the comp and if hands goes down we don’t have a hooker, we constantly are monitoring other players but do nothing about it , Jake Simpkins would be a good get and iro as a back up winger,time’s running out and we need a few players to cover glaring deficiencies
So your concern is with Recruitment?
Glass half empty Ron? I do share some concerns. Depth in spine positions being the major one. Our defence over the past two weeks has regressed but the issue for mine was some players missing their assignment. The absence of Dylan has started to show around that left edge. The Titans have the capacity to draw us into our loosest footy. I feared that before the game. It transpired that way. So under the circumstances of what happened it was a win to be very glad about.
Yeah I’m probably being a bit too pessimistic about our style of footy atm (even acknowledging the outs). It was a great win in context but our defence even before last week worried me. We always seem about to be stripped and our ruck defence is putrid. Some of the stats about metres conceded especially in middle is very very worrying. Attitude can help fix it but these problems have persisted for a while (last year we were one of worst in metres conceded aswell) and against big teams we will struggle (especially with wingers that can’t make a dent in their carries out of yardage.
Once we lost two players to the bin at the same time I feared for the worst especially after we fell behind.
It was obvious that the players were drained by the defensive load prior to the halftime break. I think only judicious cycling of the big men in the second was what saved us. Plus the players resilience.
Under the circumstances this was an extremely good win. DJ Asi is beginning to show his lack of experience right now and a further back up is required. Unfortunately the vocal minority of fans got what they wanted when Jake left but boy how could we do with him right now.
A mate texted ‘good sign, we tried our best to lose and still won’. Not only the sin bins but in that same period we worked play into Titan’s half 3 times (might have been 4) and made an error. We just dug a huge hole for ourselves in a 10/15 minute masterclass of charity for the Titans. Did well to balance and win by a nose.
Random question, Moses penalised for tackling Fonueaika (I think) without the ball. Fon was actually in front of Tino who went to run behind him but baulked. Moses I reckon was just haring directly towards the ball, Tino could not have passed to Fon. A much fairer call would have been that while ever in an offside position and shielding the ball Fon was obstructing the defence and Moses entitled not to deviate. Maybe the rules say otherwise but common sense should click in.
Mate, that ref Butler is the worst ref, in the level of Casey Badger. The calls made on us were not applied to the Titans who were offside most of the time
Spot on about them being offside. They went early all night. How bad were the touchies too. Missed forward passes all night and that missed knock on!
That was a ridiculous penalty against Moses. Even at the ground it looked like Tino stopped due to the potential shepard. Butler had a shocker (sin bins aside).
He got the penalty because he took a dive and Moses didn’t. If Moses goes flying backwards he probably earns it.
It was a terrible call in my opinion, and given the two points it gifted them, could have cost us the match. It would have had Moses not converted from the sideline.
In the cold, hard light of a drizzly morning after, that was a good win. A game that early in the season Parra would have lost. To win after being down to 11 players is a worthy one.
Maybe, just maybe, if I was at home I’d be more objective about Butler. However, I was at the ground and part of the angry crowd. It was beautiful. As was Reg going over first meaning more $$$. Not so beautiful was his sin bin.
Maika is really off his game. No tries (I think Daejarn is part of this) for a while and I suspect he is frustrated. I suspect when Dylan returns that side of the field will become more potent in attack.
The fact is that players who aren’t experienced NRL players (ie not yet cemented a spot) can struggle with long term consistency. They can do a great job short term, but then fall back mentally. The last two weeks haven’t been great for DJ.
i thought russel had his best game, he showed a turn of foot a couple of times that I didn’t know he had, he safe under highball and runs ball back with some vigor. his workrate needs to be higher and he not going going to be an x factor player
Loved the booing of Tino the mercanary.
Will the refs ever penalise/report him for those. It’s like he is a protected species.
I was talking about raising his forearm when running the ball.
Thanks lads, another enjoyable podcast.
The big penalty I couldn’t believe everyone missed was Moses kicking and being tackled mid-air.
The holes behind the ruck seem to suffer a multiplier effect from:
1. Our “clean” playing style allowing for a quick opposition play the ball and putting a lot of pressure on our middles to get back quickly.
2. Our relatively large pack lacks some of the lateral mobility to cover the middle with a fast ruck speed.
3. BAs desire to have Reg and Junior (and now Hopgood) play big minutes means they are gassed and more susceptible to this issue.
4. As you highlight, there seems to be little value in being much cleaner than other teams if the ref will eventually put the whistle in the pocket by not calling all the opposition infringements.
On players, we clearly don’t win without Gutho and Moses. But in terms of players that “did their job” for 80 mins, hard to go past Matto and Carty I think. Carty in particular put some of the biggest hits (attack and defence) I’ve seen from him. He’s in great touch.
Yep, was watching on Kayo, they saw it, replayed it, and called it. Moses executed his post-kick jump and was hit before his feet landed.
It was a bad miss by officials.
Can’t win a comp playing “clean”. Also playing “clean” doesn’t really work with a big forward pack needing to get up and back quickly. Need more wrestle and dark arts that the top teams have perfected. The Competitive advantage from not giving away penalties is minimal if we have good defence. But because BA doesn’t trust our defence to contain multiple sets (rightly so with our shoddy defence), he fears giving the other team more possession and territory which will gas our players and open the flood gates on occasion. So he’s stuck in a hard position, either improve defence and then cop dark arts penalties with knowledge some games it’ll swing massively in your favour or play clean to eschew risk of unwarranted pressure on defence
Ron, the biggest issue with our clean style is that the referees still adjudge the opposition as playing cleaner than us. We are the fifth best team for penalties conceded but the worst, I repeat the worst, for penalties awarded.
Sheesh. I was not aware of that stat. All the more reason to wrestle more and get up off line quicker. Especially in late part of season where refs put the whistle away.
Absolutely spot on about the hit on Moses. Points one and four are related. And relatively speaking I don’t think we benefit from the cleaner ruck style, because when we deviate slightly the refs call us out for a penalty or restart.
Carty is now a key player for us. Hopefully we have news on his extension soon.
Made up for his average game last week with a stunner last night.
One word: gutsy. Two words: error prone. Three words: found a way. Four words: go you mighty Eels.
Brilliant McFersie!
Well said
well said also i never thought carty could be as good as he played last nite
I continue to be impressed with Moretti he is full of energy when he comes on and great in defence. He put a hit on one of the Titans players and just cut him in half in a crucial part of the game.
After seemingly flattening a bit last season I think he has found his mojo and now we need to find a spot on the bench for him or something. He is a good hard player.
Moretti didn’t get off the bench last night
Wow. Never saw those suspensions coming for Mika and RCG.
I expected a week or two at the most.
Look how Tino and Payne Haas are treated. Haas put RCG out of the game for 8 weeks and was given a week.
Tino’s shoulder charges look far less dangerous than his forearm/elbow. Go figure. And the Jadyn Campbell kneeing technique for caving in ribs/lungs is the way to go Reg, not that pussy, mistimed, soft stuff.
Vossy called it as bad immediately. However the same Vossy turned himself inside out when attempting to justify Cambell’s knees on Sean Russell.
The biggest thing killing the NRL at the moment is the inconsistency in all parts of the game.
I am talking refereeing, MRC, Salary Cap issues and the biggest of all for us, the season Draw.
What a weird game that was. Some moments of sheer brilliance intertwined with some sheer stupidity. How Gutho got that ball down was unbelievable let alone the lead up to it getting the green light from the bunker (Atkins wasn’t it?) I don’t recall an eels play like Gutho for Bailey since Tim Smith kicking for Luke Burt in the 2005 GF qualifier and for the record yesterdays effort was a better outcome. Matto and Carty were immense and Lane with his charge down deserves a mention. As for RCG I couldn’t believe what he did. So unnecessary, so obvious, so stupid and costly and he’ll have a long time to reflect. So happy for the 2 points and bring on the cows.
I missed Annesley’s press conference today. I assume he apologised to Parra for the ref allowing the Titans a shot at penalty goal and two points on a differential scrum penalty. Surely he would have made mention of it
I thought the same but someone near me said the rule had been changed?