Parramatta Eels 12
Bulldogs 14
That was atrocious. The sport of rugby league was insulted by the Eels and especially the Bulldogs last night, in a match that should have had a screen put up around it at halftime. Fans should be entitled to a refund for failure to deliver the expected product, because that match was as close to first grade rugby league as I am to running a sub 10 second hundred metres, and I just had to take a break walking up the stairs with a coffee.
If I was capable of pity for Canterbury fans I would certainly be feeling it if this is what they’ve had to watch for the last three months. Their attack was every bit the spoon contender, so inept that it made the Parramatta defence look competent. Passes over the sideline, botched play after botched play, kicks when there should be passes, shifts when they should play straight. About the only joy provided by the game was seeing just how bad our old enemy is going. Sadly, they were still going well enough to get one over the Eels.
For Parramatta this game was one long slog to get out of their own half, then giving up easy metres to the Bulldogs forwards before the Bulldogs backs blew chance after chance after chance. Against a competent opponent this game would’ve been a thrashing. The lack of attacking creativity was painful, as were the mountain of handling errors. You’d think Jacob Kiraz was covered in stinging nettle given the struggles to simply tackle him, though any Bulldog back that decided to run an angle managed to break a half dozen tackles.
This is another match that fits firmly into the “one that got away” category; Mitchell Moses would absolutely have been the difference here, just like last week. The Blues better get a series win for us out of his absence. The Eels needed to be kicked out of trouble and while Ron Volkman had a couple of excellent kicks, his default offering just isn’t as powerful as Moses’ and that translated to 10-15 metres each and every set. Joash offers no help in this regard, putting in no kicks at all.
Parramatta were bad and weren’t really punished for it. Sure, some calls weren’t great and in any close game you can blame those mistakes, but the Eels didn’t deserve to be within 20 points of a first grade side based on this performance and it was only the incompetence of their opposition that kept this one close. This level of mistakes, the volume of missed tackles, the weakness in the metres game, they aren’t going to win you many contests.
I’d love to just grade this game a “D” for Dire and be done with it, but the last time I did that the grades post mysteriously disappeared. Instead it’s a “D” for “lets Dig in”.
Isaiah Iongi
1 – Fullback
Iongi’s errors under the high ball are becoming a concern, with a couple more bad misses in this game including one where he was attacking the ball. His metres are great, but a custodian’s main job is security and right now I’m starting to shake a little every time a high kick goes up.
Brian Kelly
2 – Right Wing
Brian Kelly led the team in metres, including an impressive 82 post contact, but frankly I don’t find myself swayed by outside back running metres anymore given every team has wingers putting up 150+ a game. Actual opportunities were thin on the ground for BK. A dash of spark to break this game open was what we needed, and Kelly is one of the few Eels who can offer that right now.
Jordan Samrani
3 – Right Centre
There was to be no revenge game for the former Bulldog Samrani, who made a costly, basic error and didn’t have enough impact on either side of the ball to atone for it. He’s earned enough goodwill that I’m not off him, but it was a reminder of his limitations at this stage of his career.
Sean Russell
4 – Left Centre
It was one of those “didn’t really notice him” games for Sean Russell, aside from one excellent bomb defusal. Like when an angry teacher is letting the class know what they really think of the class, this was a good time to not be noticed.
Josh Addo-Carr
5 – Left Wing
That kick from Addo-Carr that ended up being our last meaningful play is probably still rolling down Parramatta Road. I’d expect him to win that contest for the ball with Enari Tuala more often than not, and it was another crucial missed opportunity. In a side seriously lacking spark, our best attacking player just can’t be muffing the big moments like that.
Joash Papalii
6 – Five Eighth
Joash was a real target for the Bulldogs in the defensive line and he mostly held his own, even with six missed tackles. He found himself in the right spot to pounce on opportunities, one cruelly denied by the definition of possession changing from the one I’ve known for the last forty years, but some of the attacking clunkiness has to fall on the shoulders of our playmakers.
Ronald Volkman
7 – Halfback
On the bright side our edge defence wasn’t a problem today, though a lot of that can be chalked up to the opposition. On the downside, Ronald Volkman isn’t Mitchell Moses, and he couldn’t quite kick his way out of trouble like our captain can. There were a few really nice clearing kicks in there, but the couple of long dropouts we attempted made it very clear that the commentary teams’ insistence on a 2-point field goal as our only chance to win the game was about as misguided as my attempts at the hundred metre sprint.
Luca Moretti
8 – Front Row
There were a couple of nice runs from Luca Moretti, but given his limited minutes and middle role he can’t be missing so many tackles. Looking at what Teancum Brown delivered in his debut and Toni Mataele has provided the last couple of weeks, Moretti looks fairly meat and potatoes in comparison. Middles need to be impact players or reliable players, and while Moretti has usually been reliable, there are too many mistakes and now missed tackles in his game.
Tallyn Da Silva
9 – Hooker
The lack of composure in the closing stages ruined what was a solid game for Tallyn, who triggered a couple of nice short-side raids. There’s a bit too much speed-bump in his defence for my liking; he’s missed 28 tackles in his last five games, and while the intent to drill Matt Burton on his blindside was noble, maybe don’t make high risk defensive moves in the late stages of a tied game.
Jack Williams
10 – Front Row
Jack Williams is eating minutes in the middle of this Eels pack, making a lot of tackles and offering what passes for reliability in this broken Parramatta side. I’m not sure that near-80 minute prop is the best use of his talents in this side, but right now it is what Jason Ryles believes we need, and he was very solid here.
Kelma Tuilagi
11 – Second Row
Rinse and repeat last week for Kelma, who was decent enough in attack, missed too many tackles and sprinkled in some mistakes and ill discipline. His tackle efficiency was worst among the team, which just isn’t it for a back rower.
Kitione Kautoga
12 – Second Row
Kitione gets bumped up a grade for that try-saver, the kind of desperation effort we’ve seen all too rarely this year. It’s a shame he managed to find that one in a million angle that somehow threaded two teammates on an offload into space, but he still looks the most likely to create something in attack, even if this was a quieter performance than last week.
Jack de Belin
13 – Lock
Full disclosure, I watched the first half on a small screen and not once did I notice Jack de Belin with the ball. He’s tackling himself to a standstill and no doubt fulfilling a role, but a half hour of tackle-botting can’t be what we signed him for.
Dylan Walker
14 – Interchange
Look what happens when somebody runs at real pace off of Dylan Walker’s shoulder! Shame it took the debutant to show the rest of the pack what needs to be done. It was a real “pass first” day for Dylan, necessitated by the inexperience in the halves, and opposition sides are starting to key in on him and limit the effectiveness of his playing out the back. Bringing Moses back should free things up for him some more, but it might be time for a new wrinkle in how we use Walker.
Harrison Edwards
17 – Interchange
Hard to argue with Harrison Edwards here, as his service was again solid, his tackling efficient and his time in the middle too short to properly gauge his value beyond taking the sting out of the game for TDS. He makes his tackles, immediately vaulting him into my top three favourite Eels this year.
Sam Tuivaiti
15 – Interchange
It was tough slogging for big Sam, who didn’t have the same pep in his step as we’ve come to expect and his metres per run show it. He’s got the runs on the board to earn some benefit of the doubt on one slow week, but the man below outpointed him on debut today.
Teancum Brown
19 – Interchange
What a nice debut for Teancum Brown, who poses greater unspeakable nickname threats than Will Penisini so I might just call him T-Brown for now. He looked good when he found space and several of his runs had real venom, and being the only Eel aside from Josh Addo-Carr to not miss a tackle is another feather in his cap. More Teancum please!
The only positive coming from that game is that it is over. It’s a shame to drop another winnable game but this season is going nowhere fast, any decent recruitment won’t arrive until 2028 (if it arrives at all) and the guys who are meant to be banging down the door in NSW Cup (the pack included four players with first grade experience this year) just got beaten by 60. There isn’t a lot to be Parra Proud about right now.
Next week we continue our “busted arse” tour by hosting the similarly flailing Raiders, who make their first visit to Parramatta in four years. Fun fact: this is the first non-covid regular season game for the Raiders against Parramatta at CommBank. Of course, we’ve played down in Canberra five times over that period. Maybe they’ll get lost on the way to the ground. At the very least, I’ll be there to boo Ricky Stuart.
Until then, stay slippery, Eels fans.
Gol
Stats and images provided by NRL / Eels media
A bit harsh on JAC with that kick, even if it was a perfect kick, he was out when he kicked it. Also TDS, he was unlucky, a bullshit high tackle, and a bullshit running off the ball. Like someone said, Toupanua can crash through 3 110kg players, yet goes flying when he instigates a fairy touch by TDS.
Man. I can call out some tough calls against us – the Joash no-try on half time & the second jump off side from the scrum in the second half that should have been sin bins.
But, unfortunately, TDS got Burton high. And, quite clearly, he looked over his shoulder at Tupinua and took him out.
Plenty to think about Gol, thanks again for putting in the time. I’d have rated Jack Williams higher – it can’t be easy coming up with that excellent performance week after week when so many around him are so vulnerable. At present, in his own way, he is as valuable as Mitch.
As to Mitch, with great respect, I don’t think there’s much point in comparing Volkman’s kicking to Mitch’s; Mitch’s is arguably the best we’ve ever had, at least in the top three in the NRL at present.
Back in my days of coaching school boys I’d normally pick the best 13 defenders then work out what positions they might fill. We’re not far off needing the same approach at The Eels.
Just a note on the grades Gol, I’m sure you have standards you are measuring against, but if C were the middle, that suggests a minimum standard for an NRL team. What was dished up yesterday was clearly not NRL standard, so should the average be more like a D? I get that there are a lot of rookies in the team and we can’t be too harsh on them, but many players simply need to be better.
It’s not looking great for Parra in the near to mid future. I really don’t know where to from here…
Onya Gol.
On Moretti. You are right, that key word is “impact”. He just doesn’t have any. I can’t imagine oppositions spend a single minute creating a tip sheet on Moretti, other than to run at him after 10 minutes because he will be gassed.
JDB. Agree. Locks can’t just be tackling machines any more. For the record, stats wise, it was 28 minutes, 3 runs for 18 metres (4 of which were post contact). I feel like i would be a punchers chance of racking up 18m on 3 runs.
As his harshed critic, i could have given Joash a slightly higher grade, maybe a ‘C’. and a few of those forwards were probably treated a little generously, but very few quibbles. When the debutant who played 22 minutes rightly gets the highest grade, it tells you all you need to know about the performance.
The most embarrassing inept performance I can recall , Penrith would of put 80 on us , I find it hard to believe in a professional era this team supposedly trains 5 days a week , there is something missing at this club and I suspect it starts at the top and filters it’s way down the chain
You all will just have to accept that the hierarchy planning and producing our footy product are not up to it, they are in fact inept. The Knights with the employment of the right footy savvy people have transformed from last to a top four challenger in less than 12 months.The malaise of defeat is permeating through the club. And until we get the right decision makers it will be hard to arrest.
I haven’t watched the game – yet but Gol’s comments have me wondering whether I should. I have looked at the game stats and 60 missed tackles tell me we need a new defense coach. The Tigers got bombed 68 points but did not miss 60 tackles. The Doggies had the ball in play for 30 minutes which points to two missed tackles a minute. Gol is correct any other team would have scored 50.
What really concerns me, is Ryles getting the bench turnover right. That new signing Harrison 28 tackles and not one missed. Why wouldn’t you put him back out there in the second half. I don’t get it! BA was guilty for poor use of the bench – is Ryles falling for the same trap.
Now let’s be honest – Moses either wants to play Rep football or steer Parra into the finals. He can’t have it both ways. Just about every Rep period he is involved he seems to come away injured. We pay him a million dollars to play for the Eels and quite frankly over the past few seasons we have been short changed because of Rep injuries. It’s time Moses changed his focus.
The halves are not working – put TDS in at seven and Walker at 6 while Moses is out. Joash tries very hard but needs more time in the reggies to better hone his skills. Bring back Ryley Smith and leave Harrison on the bench or start him as an edge. His defense seems to good to leave out. That earlier comment about 13 tacklers is true especially for a team that missed 60 tackles not counting ineffective which really is an euphemism for missed. Build the defense and the attack will come. Sounds like like a line from a movie. Where do we go – drop Kelma and Morretti start Williams and Big Sam and Harrison. Bring back Ryley and give more minutes to Mataele, put Walker at six and TDS at seven. Why do the same thing week after week and get hammered – that’s classic insanity.
Does anyone have a line to the coach? We need to change not tomorrow but now!
Some of the suggestions are well worth pursuing. Edwards at hooker, da Silva maybe in the halves. I’d certainly switch Russell and Kelly. All of these things are worth a look; simply repeating past selections and hoping for improvement certainly isn’t getting us anywhere – well, it is, actually, we’ve gone from fifteenth to sixteenth on the ladder.
I do hope that Ryles is still trying to win games; there must be a temptation to avoid making enemies, see out the contract and maybe look for a better gig elsewhere. Back in the day Ricky Stuart didn’t even see out the contract.
Zero58 I agree with all of that, I’ve been saying for a few seasons now MM needs to give the rep footy a miss, it’s too disruptive to our continuity in the halves to have him out when the whole team is built around someone with a long kicking game, the only reason we got Pezet was so Mitch could go and get injured in Origin and miss half the season, we are bending over backwards to accommodate his dreams and wishes (he’s 31 years old for Pete’s sake)
Is this a Tigers thing, is glass Moses channeling his inner Tiger because I don’t get it. It should be team first, Critter played injured yesterday btw
The club needs to start conducting itself in a professional manner, we look so disorganized and the fans are at boiling point(the comments on X are brutal)
Who’s the defensive coach, sack him.
Who’s the goal kicking coach, sack him.
Who’s the recruitment team, sack them.
Add MM to the list, he’s part of our culture issue
I want to see people sacked
While I’m not in so savage a mood as Big Bob, a point he raises needs to be forefront of our thinking – Mitch is 31; he turns 32 in two months, so that he’ll be 33 part way through next season; if press reports are accurate he’s a very wealthy man; he has a wife he clearly adores and they are about to have their third child together; he ain’t gunna be around for too much longer. Without him (and his long kicking game), who are we?
I think of the players we have developed in the halves who now are playing in various clubs around the world; Ron Volkman fell into our hands but is still unsigned beyond this year; I’m sure leadership has a plan for our future playing strength and style in this very competitive world of player acquisition; perhaps they could share it with us, the punters.
Zero, I had the insanity thing in a post but stopped typing and deleted. I just got sick of repeating the same thoughts and decided I was insane. Let’s just get tacklers on the park and if Ryles thinks a non- tackling ball runner is needed in the pack, don’t trot out 2 because that doubles the misses without blinking. I’d play DeBelin with a hot word in his ear about sustained involvement and energy rather than play one N-TBR ( new acronym for non-tackling ball runner). This is desperation stuff but 60 missed against a bumbling opponent calls for it. And just when you think Moses would be really useful to conduct this experiment, please don’t bother trying to find him, he’s not there.
In deference to Seth and Zero 58…..
We had 10 players out injured in that game, more than any other club in the comp. Zero 58, you had too much to say for someone that didn’t watch the game
Missed tackles are always subjective given whose counting, 60 missed tackles, can be halved, lots of tackles maybe classed as missed but when you have halves like Joash and Volkman you should note that slowing someone down or participating in a joint effort doesn’t always qualify as a fully missed tackle. i.e Joash tackles someone around the legs and drops him and he is re tackled by the next defender before he gets up. Joash did the job and doesn’t deserve the “miss” Lot’s of these drop offs, that led to another tackle, not necessarily a break!.
Reinforce that and the scores are 14/12, hardly a game of missed tackles on that value, lets just assume the counter had nothing better to when discernment was required.
With regard to the game itself, I was entertained and thought we were robbed by some horrible interpretations from the ref and the bunker……the tackle that TDS got put on report was ok, especially how they traditionally are loath to give marginal penalties with 5 minutes to go and all locked up. The “dive” from the dogs player was enough to ignore the incident by itself……the try just on half time being disallowed was mind boggling and in the eyes of one commentator “the biggest peice of bullshit he has ever seen” This bloke is a ex dog and it was being very unbiased.
Lots of forwarded passes by both side from Dummy Half, the only problems being the two that the dogs got through undetected led to tries. They only scored 2 remember!
I think we as Parramata supporters should be relatively proud of that overall performance and I was much more concerned with the fact that our Reserve Grade side showed no committment or love of the “badge” …..yes they were equally undermanned but there performance was against a similar rated team and they stopped trying,,,unforgiveable when no effort is made.
It was worse than you suggest Poppa – The Dogs put 40 on us in Flegg. That’s 112 pints against in our three most senior men’s grades. Your determination to defend the current administration is admirable (and consistent); the reality is that our performance continues to deteriorate over a four season period now while players we have had at the club, and in several cases developed make telling contributions elsewhere. It is simply closing your eyes to the obvious toi minimise the significance of 60 missed tackles (or, in fact, 54 is the figure I’ve got). That figure represents a continuing deterioration. I was impressed that we picked up a player who did not always make The Cowboys who then, to my eye didn’t miss a tackle.
I believe that we are a club in crisis, largely because of failures in retention.
Poppa, gracious of you to defer to me. You maintain your stance. Opinion is about belief.
Just wondering Popa- how many missed tackles would you regard as unacceptable? If 54- 60 is fair enough in your view, what would it take for you to feel concern? 80? Given the time that the ball is in.play and that we’ve got it for at least nearly half the match, that would require us to miss more than we would make. Maybe, at present, we could set that as a bench mark.
Not great news for the next Paul Taylor.
Interesting perceptions can be made by stats Noel, I always believe what I see and then defer to stats as a further understanding.
Many things are ruled by perceptions and what becomes an unacceptable judgement is not taking all things into account and that would include stats.
One of the most important stats in any game is the final score and at 14/12 the stats do not tell me much about the outcome as against the perceptions and judgements you can have and make.
To finalise your question the only number of missed tackles that are acceptable are the ratio to points scored against you. I am sure if we missed 20 tackles and were beaten by 30 points, that the statistic you want to emphasise would rank much more importantly.
I have used examples of statistics in the sense that you should never be overpowered by them but rationalise how they fit a performance.
Another interesting stat that I learnt when managing an operation where I had to advise a young fellow that he was not suitable for a particular job based on his performance’s over the previous 6 months. This young fellow had 3 different degree’s and said to me “do you think I should do another degree” I further advised that he missed the point, the number of degrees he had was not the problem in his job, which was money market dealing, more about instinct and gut feel after using his formal training to getting to that stage.Chicken and Egg type response of what comes first.
Plenty of money market dealers I knew would only use statistics as a precurser to events that would evolve.
i.e what I am trying to say in this situation of 60 missed tackles was that statistics once analysed, did not seem to be the issue in the game scoreline as either team could have won it and the missed tackles were not the reason when the defeated side, only gave up 2 tries.
Now that’s not defending the admin or saying that in the modern day game Paul Taylor would have done any better.