Parramatta Eels 18
Bulldogs 22
That try Mitchell Moses and Bryce Cartwright set up for Will Penisini was an absolute belter. That’s all I’ve got.
It’s a depressing realisation that your team just doesn’t have that fire burning inside them anymore. The Bulldogs were faster, fitter and hungrier than the Eels, and that whole second half felt like a march toward the inevitable, only briefly delayed by a sin binning and a friendly penalty count. Yes there were ordinary decisions and a left-side “defence” thrown together with toothpicks and Clag, but ultimately this one was lost in the hearts and guts of the men in Blue and Gold. It was time to dig deep and the Bulldogs played for each other and found it inside them. The Eels found nothing.
That sin bin period was where the Eels could have put the game to bed, but like so many one-man advantages in the past, they pissed it away. Mitchell Moses showed the composure of a tired four-year old being told it is bedtime, overplaying his hand in good ball and unable to calm his team down and direct a coordinated attack. Dylan Brown just went missing. If the Bulldogs weren’t already confident, holding out for that ten minutes gave them all they needed to steam home.
That was probably Joe Ofahengaue’s best game in Blue and Gold, showing plenty as an impact bench forward while Wiremu Greig took the starting role. Good on ya Joe, you da MVP.
Clint Gutherson
1 – Fullback
It was tough conditions for the King in his 200th, with the notoriously poor Parramatta kick chase giving Matt Burton all the time he needed to launch bombs the fullback would have needed binoculars to spot at their apex. Gutho was lucky on the one he got nowhere near and solid otherwise, making some hard yards and taking plenty of Trbojevics, those hard fourth tackle charges at the end of a rough set that buy the halfback enough time to get a good kick away.
Blaize Talagi
4 – Right Wing
It wasn’t exactly peak acrobatics, but that was a solid finish from Blaize on the first try for a kid who hasn’t played much, if any, wing in his career. He made a fair fist of it, as you’d expect from a player of his natural talents, and that well worn path to first grade fullback via a few years on the wing is starting to look appealing for the youngster. Bonus points for the dive to secure a key intercept, too many players get stars in their eyes and go for the scoop and score instead of securing the ball, but Talagi made the smart choice and held the slips catch to steal possession.
Will Penisini
3 – Right Centre
The football police need to march down to Parramatta training this week and take Will Penisini’s kicking licence, because that was the ordinary kick that broke the supporters’ back. The rest of his game was good; solid in yardage, some decent moments in attack, Will wasn’t the problem today.
Sean Russell
5 – Left Wing
Somebody really should have introduced Daejarn Asi and Sean Russell before the game, or at least got them both to read the same gameplan. When Asi managed to cover his man, Russell came in. When Asi was beaten, Russell was in no man’s land. He doesn’t have the recovery speed to catch a man when he’s beaten, and while he worked hard in attack he’s looking more and more like a depth outside back at this stage of his career.
Daejarn Asi
18 – Left Centre
It’s harsh, but it is very fair. The Bulldogs’ entire attacking gameplan was to run at Asi. Not even to throw numbers at him, just to run at him and around him. Connor Tracey was made to look like vintage Billy Slater and Stephen Crichton has had tougher recovery sessions than the defensive challenge Asi posed to him. It was a tough ask to mark up against one of the best centres in football on a morning’s notice, but this effort had me longing for the days of Kelma Tuilagi defending out wide.
Dylan Brown
6 – Five Eighth
It always feels a bit funny to say a guy who ran for 160-odd metres had a quiet game, but Dylan Brown did little to spark the attack and fell back to his running when we needed creativity.
Mitchell Moses
7 – Halfback
It all started so well for Mitch, but as the game wore on he tried to do too much. This was especially true of the sin bin period, but all afternoon the Bulldogs rushed the Eels with line speed, and only on the Penisini try did we really use it against them. So many sets ended with handovers instead of attacking kicks, and in the long game Matt Burton won an easy points decision.
RCG
8 – Front Row
Big minutes for Big Reg, who I am grading harshly because of the complete lack of steamrolling inflicted upon Reed Mahoney by his primary antagonist. It just doesn’t look like the 2024 version of RCG can handle the 50+ minutes being demanded of him first by Brad Arthur and now by Trent Barrett. He’s missing a lot of tackles and there is a noticeable fadeaway in his performance levels once he hits 20 minutes into his stint.
Brendan Hands
9 – Hooker
Solid day from Brendan Hands, he wasn’t the problem here.
Junior Paulo
10 – Interchange
The numbers were there, but Big Junez didn’t do much for the eye test in this one. He’s had some massive games against the Bulldogs’ undersized pack, but this week he just didn’t make that difference.
Bryce Cartwright
12 – Second Row
It sure was nice of Carty to throw those fans in row F a ball early on, but see what I say about Kelma for my tolerance of weak mistakes out of our own end. He missed a lot of tackles, didn’t make enough runs, and icing that try for Penisini is all that keeps his ranking from sinking like my heart did as he threw that pass.
Kelma Tuilagi
11 – Second Row
Gee this guy can make a mistake. Tries and attacking football are nice, but given the Eels defend their mistakes as inadequately as Graham Annesley defends video referee decisions, I’d rather he just stop dropping the damn ball.
J’maine Hopgood
13 – Lock
Hopgood played busted, the kind of thing a team player does when a football department sees putting together a full squad of players as an optional part of their job. Sixties and Forty nailed it in the reaction podcast, but it is an embarrassment, a disgrace and frankly an insult to fans and paying members that the club’s depth has been allowed to fall into its current state. There are enough unforced errors from our back rowers, the club making the same one year after year in failing to fill a top 30 (and making critical errors of judgement in some of the spots they do fill) needs to be held to account.
Joey Lussick
20 – Interchange
There’s a way to use a bench hooker, and throwing him out there for the last ten minutes of the game ain’t it. You get none of the benefits of resting your main guy, and it is too late to make much of a difference with the ball. A 50/30 split between Hands and Lussick feels like a coaching no brainer, but both Brad Arthur and now Trent Barrett have flubbed it.
Joe Ofahengaue
14 – Interchange
Joe O took some really tough runs on his way to leading the Eels in metres gained, providing some middle steel that the rest of the team sorely lacked at times. He’s reliable, tough and a certainly a nicer guy than I am. If I saw a Bulldogs player laid out on the ground I’d take his shoe off and throw it into row G.
Wiremu Greig
17 – Prop
A few times when Wiremu Greig took a run I couldn’t help but think he looked pretty good. Turns out, I thought that every time he ran, because in 18 minutes of footy he managed only three of them. Maybe he was injured, but an impact prop that is only going to play one stint needs to do more with the ball than that. Look at what Spencer Leniu did in Origin, then look at what we get from Greig. Night and day.
Shaun Lane
15 – Interchange
Lane looked the best he has been all year for those first 30-odd minutes of his stint, then the fatigue set in, he dropped an admittedly difficult ball, and that was it. The offload is back, he’s making effective runs for a guy who looks like he is more loping into the line than charging, but forgiveness is still a long way away.
You just needed to watch how the Bulldogs celebrated big plays to see how much more they wanted this one. There is a desire, a camaraderie and a toughness about them that the Eels haven’t shown since beating the Cowboys in the 2022 preliminary final. That was a team that cared. Even with the injuries to Bulldogs players, the sin bin, the penalty count and the several tries bombed or called back, with all of that going Parra’s way, they couldn’t get it done.
That’s it for season 2024, if we can’t win this one then there is no hope of that miracle run that would be required for a sniff of the finals. There should be enough wins in them to stay out of the spoon conversations (and the Tigers might have a lock on that right now) but this is another wasted year for Parramatta. The players are getting old and clearly don’t have that drive, and club management nabbed one marquee recruit and appear to have put the cue in the rack, happy to let roster spots gather dust rather than help a team suffering with six long term injuries.
Whoever our new coach ends up, they’ve got one hell of a job ahead of them.
Until next time, stay slippery, Eels fans.
Gol
Stats and images provided by NRL / Eels media
Fair grades across the board. I wouldn’t change much.
Joe O did miss Mann really badly and I might have knocked him down a peg. And Cartwright had two errors that led to tries.. far from ideal.
Asi: Every time they beat him it was on the outside. Never inside. He was defending tight on Brown like he would a second rower if he (Asi) was playing 6. I don’t understand how they couldn’t get him to adjust just a fraction!
Speaking of Dylan Brown. I’m still waiting for this “I’m going to make it up to everyone for my 7 week suspension last year” plan to take effect. He has had a B- season when he promised an A season.. and so still I wait.
I’m dying for dyl to finally make the jump. The guy has 100 first grade games and plays for his country. I just can’t understand what’s going on the last two years.
Bryce has fallen way back to the field. He absolutely cannot defend properly for 80 minutes and I rarely feel like he’s done hard work after a game.
We are in a deep deep hole and once this coach is signed we need to start turning over the roster. Next year could be another wasted year and may cost us some talent along the way.
Its a bleak state of affairs but hopefully, by next year, we move towards a team consisting of:
Gutho, Simmo, Penisini, Blaize, Lomax, Dyl, Moses, RCG, Hands, Joe O, Guymer, Cartwright, Hopgood. Bench: Matt Arthur, Junior, Kelma and Matto.
Move on: Lane, Sivo, Maka, Ogden, Cini, Harper, Dunster, lussick.
Sign: Outside backs, experienced back up half, a solid utility option, promote tuivati, brock parker, Ethyn martin, will latu from juniors into dev. Also would be worth getting alamadine ready for devs down the track.
I’d take the boot off, do a dump in it then throw it into the bulldogs crowd.
Love your work Gol. Nice to see the TCT guys still have passion for their work.
There was a lack of patience in that performance.
46 missed tackles and we had the extra player?
Kick meters were 416m to over 600m
3.6 sec play the ball too slow! Always getting rolled onto our backs.
Defence, kick chase and play the ball speed all gets back to fitness.
I can’t imagine that any eels supporter was anything less than horrified at the matching of Asi against Crichton and his game grade reflects that. The grades are fair overall, although I didn’t think Hands was anywhere near his best and a B might be a bit generous. Too many of his passes were high and one of those to my eyes played its part in the Lane dropped ball as MM caught it shoulder height and tried to get a quick pass away which was ill directed and put down. Irrespective of everything else the most disappointing aspect to me though was the inability of our halves to capitalise on the dogs being a player down. There’s a lot of cap spend tied up in those two because they are meant to take advantage of opportunities like 13 on 12 and yet they were so so poor in that period of the game. I couldn’t agree more Gol that there is no fire in this team. No desire, no hardness about them, no winning mentality at all. The new coach will need to be pretty special to turn this playing squad around. I always enjoy your contributions Gol.
I feel sorry for Asi. It was just a strange decision putting him up again Chichton who is probably the best centre in the world right now. Even young Talagi would have been a better choice as at least he has played centre before.
Greig was a nightmare as was Lussick. Just poor coaching.
You nailed it about the kick chase – we put absolutely no pressure on the Bulldogs and although they continue to deny it , I still believe the team is more than a few steps behind others in terms of overall fitness. We just look gassed and our dropped balls and miss tackles confirm that. A new coach will have to look at the fitness/ strength side of things when he arrives. If it’s Ryles he will see absolute night and day between the Storm and Eels.
” given the Eels defend their mistakes as inadequately as Graham Annesley defends video referee decisions” …that was gold and so bloody true. That bunker is a nightmare.
Well done Gol, always an excellent read.
Spot on mate. And Gol is spot on in almost all of these grades.
The club needs to be rebuilt, coach, HOF, assistant coaches, fitness specialists and most of all roster.
It’s time to make some tough decisions across the board. We are not winning anything for at least another 3-5 years after a full rebuild. Anyone who thinks differently is looking through their blue and gold glasses
1. Joe is proving a great pick up 2. Speed was never Clint’s great asset but what there was clearly is diminished. A great contributor over time but he’s purely a defensive unit these days. When we win our next premiership he won’t be there. 3. Defences seem to have sorted out how best to handle Dylan Brown.
4. In the days of Ray Stone Manu Mau, Ken Edwards, Brown, a young Junior we were notable for the mongrel in our pack. These days our forwards impress as nice, polite young men. A major rebuild is needed.
We have kept a lot of players who have been on a decline over last few years.
You know the Good clubs usually don’t really hang on to declining players for too long if they are in key positions.
Some Examples are lane, paulo, matto, makatoa, sivo, Hayze Dunster, matto.
And you could even argue Gutho could have been moved into centres and eels attempt to sign a premier fullback who’s fast & on the way up not the decline.
The issue with our roster as 60’s has always noted is depth.
But we also seem very loyal to players from their past.
Juniors time as an elite prop in todays game are sadly coming to an end.
RCG looks to have declined this year too.
We have too many of the same names in positions whose hey-day was 2-3 years ago.
Things change fast in the NRL and you can’t have old slow players on the decline in too many key positions.
You look at Brisbane when they are Healthy – Reno is old.
But he is surrounded by youth, young super fast agile backs who can make a good half even more effective.
I get the Feeling parra & BA had too much loyalty to our senior players.
We obviously need depth and younger faster & hungrier players, anyone can see that.
But what nobody is talking about is our co-captain (Jnr) no longer even looks suited to be a starting prop.
His best performances now come off the bench.
Gutho is solid in defence but he is very slow now and ageing.
The only fast players in our whole team who start are Brown, Moses, Bailey.
You can’t expect to honestly have a NRL squad of old slow players and only 3 players with pace out of 17 players.
And expect that to be a force to be reckoned with so to speak.
I’m not saying it’s easy to fix, or good fast players are abundant…
But good team would be looking to replace gutho & jnr for example with faster better players.
I highly doubt loyal BA would have been suggesting to clean out all those players who are clearly getting old & slow.
It’s gonna take a complete new coach and full support from the administration to do a legit clean out.
You can see the steep decline in performances in most of our senior players.
They’ve been given a comfort zone and good pay – most of them know they have to really fuck it up to even think they’ll be getting sacked.
Look how many bad games sivo, lane, or lussick has had.
In many good teams those players would literally be getting shopped around or let go of already.
I know we all agree the dept in roster is a major issue and outside backs + lack of speed is a major problem we have.
But the other elephant in the room is out roster hasn’t been updated in key positions.
You could argue no team in the comp can be truly elite without:
– At least 1 world class current in form prop.
– A fast fullback who’s dangerous, fast and threatening (I’m a gutho fan but just being real)
– Quick outside backs who are athletic and can defend strongly
– Backrowers who are agile & very good defenders (not overly heavy or slow)
Apart from the limited players on the roster issue.
We also need to address that in todays game you need a in form, in prime prop (or two), and a fast fullback who can attack from anywhere.
Now I’m not saying gutho isn’t amazing.
But imagine if we had a Conor Tracy or a Reece Walsh at the back.
And Gutho being the strong defender that he is plugging up the left centre position & organising it where teams constantly score against us?
What a difference that would make?
Now obviously it takes years to truly build an elite roster top to bottom in many cases.
But just see what bulldogs by investing heavily into Critta?
It sometimes only takes 1-3 REALLY good recruits to completely switch around the teams results.
Lomax will help but he is playing elite at winger – he has never shown to be close to the level as Crichton (at centre), consistently.
It’s not 2021-2022 anymore.
The club needs to in my opinion (and I do like baz) and met him before.
But get all new coaching staff, with no emotional attachment to the current playing group.
Do a full rebuild and stop being a club who lets go if younger good players and keeps the old ones on the decline.
Start blooding our young stars, get some fast backs
(not big typical slow parra type players)
Stop worrying about size and power game anymore
BA is gone and that was his style and his roster for that playing strategy
The new coaches will likely come from Melbourne systems or QLD maroons in Hannay (and he’s learning from slater)
None of these guys philosophy is win the collision and power game & slow play
The eels need to just wipe their hands of the past and start fresh
Get rid of all the old slow players – and call it a mini rebuild
Let go of lussick that is BA’s style player slow big and only passes to halves (offers no threat)
Get young Matt Arthur & Guymer in
Give Doorey more changes in first grade
Let Hopgood be our new co-captain or moses
We can’t have our captain barely even good enough to be a starting prop anymore and on the bench
Make hopgood a future leader of the club and stop paying our old dead weight players as much – pump up hopgood on a big deal
Tell him to lead them and after gutho is gone it’s hopgood + moses captains
Obviously this is all good ideas
But if there’s one thing with NRL teams
They rarely completely change their playing & recruiting philosophies WITHOUT mass sackings or changed of leadership from within.
The dream we have of our administration to give HOF the go ahead to go out trying to sign the start players and paying too dollar to win a premiership..
Are simply pipe dreams at the current time.
To Footy players
– and I know because after having conversations with them outside of professional environments
The eels are known to be low ballers and don’t want to pay, they are apparently notoriously hard to get deals done with
Especially if you want actual market value
They only go after cheap & unwanted players who are on the outta from other clubs
Like those povo people who only shop at garage sales
Even when they are already wealthy
That’s the eels in a Nut shell 🥜
We don’t care if players are basket cases and no clubs want them
If they are cheap and absolutely atrocious
Then we sign them 😨
Hopefully times change
and the administration (because this is a TOP DOWN issue)
Possibly even changed hands
Because you can bet mass changes will not likely come unless there’s changed in the front office too
And don’t let MON or BA be the full blown Scape goats
The recruiting & employment philosophy of buying cheap players and saving money
This is not a idea from BA etc
This is corporate leadership and belief systems that start at the top and influence the entire organisation from head to toe
If you do not believe this
You will see that even with MON, BA gone, unless they dramatically change their approach to paying for quality players
There will be very minimal changes – we might win more games
But never a true premiership threat
Until they stop that bargain hunting / chase unwanted bad players as a strategy philosophy
Nothing wrong with our props or Sivo. The coaching system over the past few seasons has not instilled a winning formula to our players. Our defense is rubbish , the attack in pressure moments is shambolic. Just look at Penrith and see how they are all so committed for 80 minutes ,then look at us. It will take a hard nosed coach with nous to turn the talent in our team into big match winners.
Good reflection Gol. I’m not quite sold yet on the lack of spirit, wiilingness factor. The team just has some glaring weaknesses despite, on paper, looking a reasonable roster.
Who knows? but Simmonsen on the park may have made a big difference. I’ve said it for zonks now, not only do we want, but need, low error/high completion efforts to hide our weaknesses. The funny thing is that the Dogs made 14 errors to our 12, but the unfortunate thing is that 12 is plenty to expose us. The Dogs actually defend their errors well.The sin bin period was a perfect example of each team’s strengths and weaknesses. We got down their end, tick, but diabolically stuffed it up at least 3 times. I’ve always said we”ll drag Hopgood back to our level, but at least the guy gets to run around with an elite group for a few weeks.
We certainly need that roster overhaul, but if the board are looking at a rookie coach, I doubt the new coach would have the experience and confidence to demand certain players be targeted. If that’s the case, we are in for a bleak next few years and 2025 could be worse than this year. Without injection of new blood, I feel the players will still not have confidence in each other and hence won’t be playing as a team. There are so many things wrong in the club and I hope the change of coach is only the start.
The frustrating thing is that we know what this team can produce, but they just never seem to put it all together for 80min.
The biggest take away is that the team are close to giving up. They will say words like putting in digging in etc.. but they won’t show it and will go through the motions this is why care taker coaches have poor records.
Strap yourself in its only going to get worse.