Eels Attack Analysis

[hineyrulz]

Wanker Blake for mine, he’s shitness personified.

 

[TheRam]

To be fair, both made equally valid and educated appraisals. Unlike some of the other shite that has been posted here. It was neck and neck.

You wound me Sir.

Pistols at dawn?

 

[IFR33K]

Wanker Blake for mine, he’s shitness personified.

Or him

 

[strider]

We can score points against shit defence, no one is suggesting otherwise. Us “poojabbers” see major deficiencies in attack that seem
to restrict our point scoring against the better teams, which is holding us back from being genuine contenders.

But thanks for your insightful comments, they have contributed immensely to the discussion.

FFS the Storm have only managed to put big scores on teams below them on the ladder you know

boom-tish!!

 

[strider]

who do you drop ?

exactly .... fergo did good - surely he stays on the wing .... I assume Opa has done enough to stay in the team .... Sivo stays

Waqa ..... I agree he is f**kin annoying and not living up to his potential - but I doubt he will be dropped

 

[TheRam]

We definitely attacked differently in '19, '20 and again this year. In 2019 Gutherson attacked on the right with Moses in the middle (Drown on the left). Last year (when our attack was shit) Drown was in the middle with Moses right and Gutherson on the left. It meant Moses did f**k all other than kick, though I think the intent was to get Moses some space to use his running game wide on the right. This year Drown and Moses have swapped. It means Moses is more involved and Drown is mostly doing set up play early in the set. I'd provide some YouTube links but since backing up our opinions with facts makes some idiots feel inadequate, I won't bother.

Can you listen to yourself? Deck chairs on the Titanic mate.

You just don't get it do you?

 

[Chipmunk]

What a load of horseshit. We've still scored 484 points. We've knocked over the storm and came within a whisker of knocking over Penrith. There's always room for improvement no matter how good you are but to say our attack is poor defies the number of points scored. We seem better at loosing to teams below us than above.

You naturally get to rack up a lot of points when in the first 15 rounds you get to play almost half of your games against the bottom 5 teams (7 games). We haven't scored too many points in the last 3 weeks in comparison.

We averaged more than 32 points a game for the first 15 rounds, and only 16 points a game in the last 3 weeks. 3 of the 9 tries we've scored in the last 3 weeks was when one opponent had 12 players on the field. That is 1/3rd of all the points scored in the last 3 weeks, in just 4% of the game time. In the other 96% of time against 13 players we're averaging 2 tries per game. Of the six tries, three of them we're from plucky lucky bounce kicks.

We're 2 from 5 against the other Top 6 teams and 3 from 7 against the current Top 8. Lets see how good our point scoring is over the next six weeks.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

I’d agree with you in the middle third of the field, but attacking the opposition’s line I’d argue that very rarely happens. Opposition defences know what our go to play is attacking their red zone (that ineffective unders settler 2 or 3 times a set), so can put plenty of numbers in the tackle to make it a slow play the ball.

Well done forget mate, we have scored plenty of tries this year. Every team tries to slow the opposition ruck near their line. Conceding six again is vastly preferable to conceding a quick play-the-ball. Rapana's try was a massive failure from our team, more so than most other tries we've conceded this year. Again, we brought piss to a shit fight. Just like in the Dragons game.

 

[Happy MEel]

What a load of horseshit. We've still scored 484 points. We've knocked over the storm and came within a whisker of knocking over Penrith. There's always room for improvement no matter how good you are but to say our attack is poor defies the number of points scored. We seem better at loosing to teams below us than above.

Another quality contribution. We’ve lost to 2 of the 3 teams above us giving us a loss ratio of 66.6%. We’ve lost 3 from 15 against teams below us giving us a loss ratio of 20%. You do realise how stupid this makes you sound right?

 

[Happy MEel]

Well done forget mate, we have scored plenty of tries this year. Every team tries to slow the opposition ruck near their line. Conceding six again is vastly preferable to conceding a quick play-the-ball. Rapana's try was a massive failure from our team, more so than most other tries we've conceded this year. Again, we brought piss to a shit fight. Just like in the Dragons game.

Agreed mate, which is why we do ok and score plenty of points against shit teams that can’t slow the ruck. What we’re discussing here is how we structure an effective attack against the shit hot sides that are strong in the ruck. Our current attack doesn’t cut the mustard.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

We can score points against shit defence, no one is suggesting otherwise. Us “poojabbers” see major deficiencies in attack that seem
to restrict our point scoring against the better teams, which is holding us back from being genuine contenders.

But thanks for your insightful comments, they have contributed immensely to the discussion.

Every team struggles against the best defences. That's why they're the best. Incidentally, how many points did the Storm or Panthers score against us?

 

[crocodile]

Another quality contribution. We’ve lost to 2 of the 3 teams above us giving us a loss ratio of 66.6%. We’ve lost 3 from 15 against teams below us giving us a loss ratio of 20%. You do realise how stupid this makes you sound right?

Do you realise how stupid you sound. When we lost to Souths, they were below us on the table.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

That's actually good point - we seem to show up, ready to play, against the elite sides, but struggle to show up against the sides we ate expected to beat.

That's a pretty big and inaccurate generalisation. We have won by 20+ seven times this year. But I agree we're not up every week. That might be a coaching issue but I believe it's more a problem of the leadership group. Then again, how many teams are up every week?

 

[IFR33K]

exactly .... fergo did good - surely he stays on the wing .... I assume Opa has done enough to stay in the team .... Sivo stays

Waqa ..... I agree he is f**kin annoying and not living up to his potential - but I doubt he will be dropped

If we can get it right, there’s more upside to waqa than opa. He can be a weapon but needs opportunities from the men inside him. Can’t see opa breaking a game wide open in a million years. A sound player but won’t terrorize the opposition defense. We need strike and opa isn’t it

 

[yy_cheng]

Again, It is primarily execution and what to do depending on the situation. All teams play a similar game plan now a days compared to decades ago. Brian Smith was the last coach that played differently to others to suit his playing roster and opposition.

Although it probably wasn't DA's plan, the 2009 team where they were the offload kings played to our strengths

 

[Poupou Escobar]

You naturally get to rack up a lot of points when in the first 15 rounds you get to play almost half of your games against the bottom 5 teams (7 games). We haven't scored too many points in the last 3 weeks in comparison.

We averaged more than 32 points a game for the first 15 rounds, and only 16 points a game in the last 3 weeks. 3 of the 9 tries we've scored in the last 3 weeks was when one opponent had 12 players on the field. That is 1/3rd of all the points scored in the last 3 weeks, in just 4% of the game time. In the other 96% of time against 13 players we're averaging 2 tries per game. Of the six tries, three of them we're from plucky lucky bounce kicks.

We're 2 from 5 against the other Top 6 teams and 3 from 7 against the current Top 8. Lets see how good our point scoring is over the next six weeks.

We've been without our halfback for two of those games and in the other we scored our two tries against the league's best defence. This is why comparing small samples against big samples is f**ken dumb.

 

[yy_cheng]

I think it's a bit of both.
I actually think we have the players to execute a plan. Moses, Brown, Gutherson and Mahoney (our spine) aren't dumb players. They are all clever and talented.
What concerns me (and dare I say this) is that our attack is actually devoid of ideas. It is robotic and predictable, which is why the better teams defend against us easily. Even Canberra, who is not a better team, defended our attack easily last night. Sure, we only lost by a missed conversion, but that conversion shouldn't have even come into play considering the amount of attacking opportunities we had, particularly in their attacking zone (20 metre area).
To me, this comes down to coaching and game plans.
I believe that BA is not flexible in this regard. It was easy to see last night that Canberra were getting in our faces (clearly offside most of the time). Eele said it before in his 2nd best post.
We needed to spread the ball once this was the case. That doesn't mean throwing it from sideline to sideline, but maybe just having a 2nd runner following the hitup. 1 extra pass off the ruck.
Canberra were throwing 3-4 defenders at every hitup, and getting up quickly on us. One extra pass (or cutout pass with a dummy runner) takes those defenders out of play, and opens up a better settler with a few extra meters or an extra attacking opportunity.
We could have changed to this formation easily, if we had trained for it.
Do we or don't we? I don't know.
But, I'm slowly getting fed up with seeing the same old tactics after 8 years as well. The same tactics that fail us time after time.

With our draw coming up leading into the semi's, last night was an important game. 2 points was a must.
Out of the 8 tips I did this weekend for my mum in the nursing home, this was the game that I was most worried about. I seriously considered tipping the Raiders and I told my mum that but she changed my mind.

we don't have plan B's.. The plan B is individual brilliance, Moses chip and chase, etc

BA wants us to chase to collision until we win it..... Even if the opposition is out colliding us even if they are offside. We must and have to beat them at that. Most of our losses is because we lost the collision and we have no other plan.

Totally agree with the gang tackling but nup, must chase the collision even if it is 4 on 1... that 1 must out collide.... That's why our players are stuffed and let in easy tries.... We use Pappas like a bull against 3 defenders.. of Course it will take it out of him and he will drop off a tackle... but does BA replace him and give him a breather at the right time? No, he keeps his bench under utilized.

BA's tactics to me is to play finals football. Get us used to that... And it works really well against the non Top 8s.

But against the top 6, they're the ones who can match us in collision. And we have no other plans.

If the ref's are not policing the offsides, Gutho has to get in their ear if they are not... otherwise we need other strategies

 

[yy_cheng]

The Storm and Panthers have the most decoys of any other team. This can't just be coincidence why they're streets ahead of the rest of the comp.

And the bunnies... When I watch those teams, it's like waves and waves of supporting players coming at speed.

We have maybe 1 or 2 and they are not coming really hard as the others are.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Another quality contribution. We’ve lost to 2 of the 3 teams above us giving us a loss ratio of 66.6%. We’ve lost 3 from 15 against teams below us giving us a loss ratio of 20%. You do realise how stupid this makes you sound right?

No more stupid than any of the other logical fallacies and inaccuracies thrown up after a loss. You are correct that we go better against worse sides (because duh) but it might seem that it's the other way around (without the stats to guide us) because we make our memories emotionally, and expectation is a big part of that.

 

[yy_cheng]

Apart from sivo and gutho, our outside backs have been average. Any wide sweeping plays look slow and clunky. Our centres aren’t breaking the line or imposing a threat. Honestly across all teams, it’s like we the least likely to create anything from our centres. It’s clear if gutho is quiet the eels are quiet. He’s also often the one passing to sivo to score in the corner. Maybe he needs to play more on the right so we aren’t as predictable moving forward.

Our attacking game is very limited. Bash and barge and kick on last hoping for the best. It’s obviously clear we can score tries against the weaker teams but against the contenders we’re limited and well covered. The disappointing thing is our forwards have had us in every game this year, only to be let down by our backs.

I guess that's where our money is spent. Players who chase the collision. So we don't have enough money in our backs. Waqa also wastes alot of the dough.

We don't have a Hayne or Semi anymore who can make half chances and get the opposition on the back foot. Gutho is not quite at that level. But when gutho is having a off game, we don't have anymore.

We need 2 real strike backs.