I am not sure they get too much more frustrating than Round 21’s hugely controversial clash against the Panthers after the Eels fell just 7-points shy of a monstrous boil over amidst some jaw dropping missed calls. Sixties and Forty20 review the heart breaking loss in a fired up Instant Reaction podcast.
Really frustrating again,
Panthers in the ruck everywhere. Maybe some old union tap dancing in the ruck is needed for players to get out of the way!
The slow ruck six again by Harrison in the lead up to the try – even Joey Johns said it was wrong as Parra had won the tackle.
He also said we played dumb when Papalii was in the bin.
Forward passes – didn’t think the NFL started for a few months yet.
Our mistakes, mistakes, mistakes.
Ryles was so close to giving the refs a serve post game. Don’t think it will be long until we see it now.
The NRL is becoming, or should i say, has become an absolute joke.
Disgusting refereeing.
I was proud of the boys tonight.
Played well, beaten by a blind referee and a freak try.
We missed 39 tackles; they missed 27. That’s all she wrote.
Jack Williams is one of our best ever forwards. He becomes a free agent for 28 in three and a half months. If we don’t sign him by November 1 we’ll lose him.
That is currently the only issue that matters.
Williams tuivati and brown need to be locked up for 2-3 years each
There is talk of the salary cap going out to twenty million bucks a year. There will be a new team in each of 27, 28 and 30 – salary inflation such as we’ve never previously considered possible
In that market what’s Jack Williams worth? Work it out, offer it, throw in a little extra and get it done. Let future sociologists work out whether paying young men that sort of money on an economy where the majority can’t afford to buy a house was a good idea.
For a long while now I have wondered what the game might be like if all the NRL referees were banished to the English Super League for two or three years, and in exchange all the English Super League referees were sent out here.
Thoughts on Penisini? 2 try’s were scored in his lane, Milky and McLean, why didn’t he get some cup time after his injury? Is Narva that bad?
Is Spencer coming?
How good is Williams, give that man a 4 year contract extension
Can’t believe we are bashing refs again… Seriously? Yep, there were some dud calls, but wee got some pretty favourable calls as well.
At the end of the day. IN the first half, Iongi has a simple dropped ball, hten volkaman a fumble at dummy half. 2nd half Papali’i goes to the bin for 10 minutes. Next set Katonga gives away a clear penalty 5m out, first tackle. Next set, Penisini give a clear penalty away, 10m out first tackle, 2 sets later, Kelly is going for an intercept on the last tackle when all he had to do is stand infornt of Jenkins and Jenkins would have had no where to go. Low IQ football all three moments. If you can’t do that right, who cares what the referee does?! Especially in a game that doesn’t matter to us.
Overall I actually thought the performance was decent. Attacking structure dropped in and out of the game, but at least there was some structure and there were times when they looked more threatening (still lacking in the attacking 20m area though). Defence was better with Williams on an edge and forwards were working together well for the most part. I thought to the degree that they controlled the Panthers to limit them to jus tthe one real structured attacking kick for Jenkins was pretty good.
Side note on the rules though: So Papali’i goes for a trainer called (phantom) HIA exactly 10 minutes before half time, replaced by Phillips. Because of half time, he doesn’t miss 10 minutes, but he starts the second half and Martin comes off. Eaxctly 10 minutes into the second half, Martin comes back on and Yeo gets a spell and Yeo comes back on exactly 10 minutes later. They are using a free interchange deliberatly to rotate their forwards. The rule has to change so that if you go off for a HIA (not from foul play), and can come back on, it needs ot be a straight swap and swap back.
.
I thought the same re: papalii. It was very fishy and seemed conveniently done to cycle the forwards without burning and interchange
100%. We are experts at finding excuses that’s for sure. Whether it’s injuries, referees or the weather, it’s always someone else’s fault.
A lack of professionalism.
I see that we have been linked with a tigers cup player. Apparently he’s a centre who is playing second row.
We seem absolutely obsessed with these Samrani / Pensini hybrid type players to fill in our backline.
Players that are big but lack mobility and high end speed.
I just don’t understand the thinking.
The game has changed and speed is king.
Slow moving, limited mobility players were great years ago , not now.
But I suppose Ryles knows more than I do but if we go into next year with Samrani and Penisini as our centres, we arent winning anything.
We had an extra man for 20 minutes of that game and our halves could not come up with anything to exploit that. Good game thinkers would have iced that man down advantage. And Williams is an out and out backrower, leave him there.
I’m a big Moses fan but his weakest area is his short kicking. Couple of poorly executed short kicks last night.
It’s another reason why I like the Luai signing he has a very good short kicking game. Will compliment Moses long kicking game very well
I don’t agree with blaming the refs
Whilst some calls are poor this happens each game
What about us coughing the ball up inside their 20 nearly every time we got up there?
We are a club that cope’s on excuses and blaming injuries every season pretty much instead of looking at the root cause
We have been an underachieving club for a very long time, do you guys realise you’ll likely never live to see the eels even win a premiership?
It’s time we all stop blaming refs and injuries. The club is not ran by individuals who are capable of signing a top quality roster, the past 5 or so years has very clearly showed that
Unless the tigers are absolutely in shambles again next year the eels will be near favourites for the wooden spoon is our recruitment stats this poor
That’s not just me saying it either, everyone with an understanding of the game agrees the eels have the worst recruitment in the NRL
Just ask any league expert who isn’t a eels fan, anyone not bias and living on hope like we are almost exclusively agrees we are the worst at this in the game as sad is that is to even think about
I wouldn’t care if the eels were paging me $2000 a week as a staff member, I would never shut up about this. Because us seeing the eels win the premiership in our lifetimes is far more important than hurting someone’s feelings at the club
We are the biggest under achievers in the entire game, refs aside, we bombed our chances away, and the panthers were absolutely awful