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The Tip Sheet was live from the Bistro at Parramatta Leagues Club in the wake of the Eels’ exciting 28-24 victory over the Sea Eagles in Round 3. John Muggleton joined Sixties and Forty20 to share stories and insights from his career as a player and coach across both rugby league and union.
Muggleton delivers his verdict on the victory, looking at who starred and what was the key for the Eels to get back into the contest. He gives a frank assessment on the defensive struggles of the left edge and how rookie centre Blaize Talagi fared on the balance of things.
Tks men. Muggleton’s thoughts on defending ( or not defending) wide shifts were interesting. Poor since Joel Reddy. Geez, it’s in our DNA.
Muggleton was a great defensive coach wish we still had him. I think our defence has never been as good as when he was coaching. Hopefully someone from the club is listening when he speaks. Would be even better if he was brought in as a consultant!
What rubbish he was a terrible coach but a great player , like you he had no idea .you need to go to training before making such statements .
Why don’t you check out John’s defence coaching record when he was defence coach for the Wallaby’s? It was the best defence they ever had and hasn’t been the same since he left. So ordinary defence becomes great defence when he is there and then goes back to being ordinary when he leaves……hmmmm……Great player (probably the most underrated during our golden period) and def great defence coach
more nonsense from portaloo – no surprises there. Muggleton was on the money – our defence on edges is putrid. This week we had lane being lazy and not working from inside to help protect Blaize and Harper. Things got a bit better a game went on but lane is often too slow, too unfit or insufficiently alert when working out from inside and it’s a big problem in that sense. Dylan Is a great one on one defender but doesn’t command that edge in defence. Needs to use his voice better to protect his centre and sort the spacing.
This games tells us what we know- we have a pack of forwards/halves that can get us territory and points. But we have very big issues in defence. Winning possession will Band-Aid our defensive frailties but as soon as we come up against good times that have even share of ball we will be in all sorts defensively. At that level it’s about detail not merely effort.
Ron, since Lane was put on that edge we’ve had trouble there. He just doesn’t slide to help his outside men. We need a harder worker there. Obviously the coach is blind to it.
I noticed that lane is also very slow onside after an opposition kicks. People say he needs time to get into form but let’s remember that he hasn’t played good football consistently ever. He had a good half of season when off contract in 22 and got. Abig contract extension off the back of it but he’s never been reliable defensively. Brad no doubt knows that but there’s no a better option at the moment so maybe Brad benches lane for a period of the game to ensure his laziness doesn’t continue to cost us points? Joe ofa is also one that loves to lay in ruck in defensive instead of working hard to get back to marker/defence and is especially lazy when other teams cut back against the grain. Not sure what Joe offers other than absorbing initial contact but he needs to lift or be moved on as was an unnecessary panic signing last year (that wasn’t cheap at all).
I tell you who does recognize that Lane is ponderous and lazy in defence and that’s opposition coaches. Don’t forget he was punted from three other clubs.
We constantly don’t number up, and that generally comes from the inside, decoy runners seem to pull us apart too easily, we look organised then suddenly we don’t, the outer flank wears the pain.
Lane lacks urgency and anticipation, he lopes, sprinting is his last resort, and I’ve watched him a bit. It would be massive for us if we could sort all of this.
Yea I agree re: spacing issues but that comes down to communication (Dylan and gutho) and urgency (or lack thereof). If you look at the try before half time, lane is quite literally walking off our line – it is shocking stuff. If we had some semblance of urgency from inside we could check release the lead runner earlier and help our edges (something the right side has got better at as Cartwright releases Moses earlier to help penisni and Russell). Instead what we tend to see is lane being lazy, dyl not trusting him on lead so dyl has to hedge on the lead for a second longer and then be late to the out the back player and then the whole edge is exposed. We saw dogs strip it game one relatively easily. We saw Penrith annihilate that side but injury was a mitigating factor that night and we saw manly attack there aswell. I glad we got better in second half but there’s no excuses. The defensive system needs to be better. We can’t say oh x player was out and y player has a good relationship in defence with x player and so that goes to explaining the weaknesses we see. The whole point of a system is that players can plug in and know their role. Sure continuity in players helps defence but what we are seeing is laziness by some – even if more mere moments- that is costing us big,
Portaloo…..a mobile toilet…..that’s not you is it Chiefy?
PS Muggleton was an elite defensive coach and a fine player. I remember when he was a schoolboy playing for Parramatta Marist Bros.
totally agree
Haven’t listened yet but jeez what a win. Comeback, against a team who plays their football against our strengths, and it was a win against manly. Can’t get much better than that.
To all those who carry on about edge defence not being worked on. BA in his presser said, he got the message out to Blaize and Harper to get the spacing they practiced in play and that tidied up their edge defence and the left edge became steady.
Gutho and the players in general are very focussed on training etc, that’s not because the coach is as hopeless as so many want to spread views about, not aware of any players saying they regret signing and playing under BA. The big issue remains the lack of recruitment in the backs which needs to be addressed. Also not losing any sleep on Nathan Brown being released, hardly noticed him yesterday and Kelma Tulagi was far more effective.
A few years ago it was the right side defence that was being lambasted whilst the left side was strong. Now it’s swapped. Almost as if we haven’t had a steady core of edge defenders on that side all year, even last year it was a revolving door of the 4 edge defenders on the left hand side. Let them settle in, play together for half a season and we may see a change in how they’re defending. There will always be poor positioning, being outnumbered. I don’t think constantly chopping and changing will fix that. Need to let the players get used to how those around them defend and they can work out how their strengths can pick up the weaknesses of those around them.
Even the best defensive teams still have points scored against them.
I was thinking the same thing – the players just need to get used to defending together. Penisini and Russell have been playing together for years.
Mind you, Brown needs to control his left side defence and keep players accountable.
True but players, Sean Lane in particular need to held accoutable. He cannot get across or even at times in several games looks like he is even trying. He is a great P.O.D in attack but poor in defence
Regarding defence, Penisini and Russell were pretty good as a pair and Penisini individually outstanding. The left side got better as the game went on.
Manly started like an Everlast battery on steroids but once Parra got some ball they started to wear down the Eagles.
One long ball to Harper’s edge should have been a try but he was out of position. He got the second one right.
Blaize had a pretty good first game. Didn’t shirk the tough stuff.
Moses was great. Three try assists, scored one himself, terrific tackling and kicking and threatened the line.
Fantastic effort from everyone, including the coaching staff.
Thanks fellas. This was the first podcast I have ever listened to – any podcast! Enjoyed it heaps while ironing.
Really interesting on Muggo’s take on our defence and that he didn’t sugar coat his thinking on individuals. It seemed like his ideas to fix the defence were simple, but of course it is always easier to say than to execute.
With Sivo and Simonsson due back it will be interesting tomorrow to see what BA decides to do.
Thanks for the first time listen. The live instant reaction podcast is often unpredictable. We have an audience who can vary in their interactions. We have legend players and they can have very strong opinions – and of course their takes are not the same.
The other thing is that there are no re-takes. If we stumble over our words or don’t like something we’ve just said, we can’t stop and start again. Adds a little bit of pressure. 😁😁😁
Not withstanding the oft mentioned obvious areas of improvement, I like the fight in the 2024 Eels so far.
Shaun, what I find interesting is the number of negative takes in the replies after such a good win.
Was it perfect? Far from it.
Does the left side defence need to improve? Obviously.
Did we defeat a decent team? Yes, I believe so.
So surely we can enjoy the win and focus on what the team is doing well especially after such a gripping contest.
It doesn’t mean ignoring areas that need improvement, but how about some acknowledgement of a team giving their all under challenging circumstances.
Well said 60s , surely people are noticing as i am its the same negative know all nellies whingeing all the time no matter how good we win .