Eels Attack Analysis

[Poupou Escobar]

Again, I'd have to look at the Pou book of statistical gatherings. We may have the most offloads this season but earlier we did a shit load of them. They seem to be down now. I notice that opponents tend to wrap Paulo now to try and cut them down. Same with Matto. As long as I can remember, the offloading has been very much an Eels style. The 2009 march to the GF was built on them.

We might be saving them for the finals. If you throw a lot of offloads, teams prepare for it by getting defenders behind the ball. If you put them away they conserve their energy and get back into the line earlier. The ambush is coming.

 

[yy_cheng]

Those early kicks are a standard tactic to slow down edge defences getting up too quickly. It's nothing new, and doesn't need to lead to a try or a repeat set for it to be of benefit, as long as it gives the defence something to think about.

2nd tackle,in the 30, kicks for himself. No impact.

Its only good if you can execute and the rest of the team is on the same page.

Its no good ja kicking it, taking 2 minutes to accelerate to 1 km per hour, and the rest of the team isn't aware you were going to do that.

 

[yy_cheng]

We might be saving them for the finals. If you throw a lot of offloads, teams prepare for it by getting defenders behind the ball. If you put them away they conserve their energy and get back into the line earlier. The ambush is coming.

This is what I hope the plan is

Jnr put away his offloading for a period of time, then after soo, he's offloading again

I hope that was a plan

 

[Chipmunk]

Everyone here would like us to score more points. The question is whether coaching will make that happen. Personally I think it will only be improved by experience and/or recruitment.

I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel on our attack. All I'm asking for is small tweaks to one or two aspects of our play.

We can start by coming up with better shape/structure/set up in our attack that enables 5 of the 23 and 19 runs that Papali'i had, and 2-3 of the 17 and 16 runs that Matterson had, against the Raiders and Panthers respectively, end up being decoy runs and the ball goes to someone else. This is a small adjustment to only 7-8 of the 241 and 201 runs we had against the Raiders and Panthers respectively, that will create team worked opportunities, something that we did not do very well against either the Raiders or the Panthers.

We also need to work out how best to use Cartwright, where we can get a combination of his natural game being able to play with our risk averse style. This aspect is probably more difficult to achieve quickly. He is offering nothing that can be done by someone else, with what we're currently asking him to do, but he was at least offering some value up to a month ago without trying too hard.

 

[Chipmunk]

We might be saving them for the finals. If you throw a lot of offloads, teams prepare for it by getting defenders behind the ball. If you put them away they conserve their energy and get back into the line earlier. The ambush is coming.

Well we've got ourselves into a position where we have to start playing like this now. Playing the other Top 6 sides over the last 6 weeks has put us in a precarious position if we want to be Top 4.

Finals start next week for us.

 

[crocodile]

It would be nice to see a few chips over the top to put the rush defence in two minds.

 

[Avenger]

Everyone here would like us to score more points. The question is whether coaching will make that happen. Personally I think it will only be improved by experience and/or recruitment.

We won’t be buying anyone of note.

 

[Delboy]

We won’t be buying anyone of note.

The mantra from good recruiters/coaches is that you need at least 3 new faces into your roster each year to ensure internal competition and a freshen up. Can’t imagine we will have the budget for a big name, but we do need an experienced back up half and someone with better than average speed in the backs.

Lets see who we come up with, but they seem our needs.

 

[Chipmunk]

The mantra from good recruiters/coaches is that you need at least 3 new faces into your roster each year to ensure internal competition and a freshen up. Can’t imagine we will have the budget for a big name, but we do need an experienced back up half and someone with better than average speed in the backs.

Lets see who we come up with, but they seem our needs.

We came up with Opacic, Papali'i and Cartwright all quite cheap in the off season. I suspect we will replace Oldfield, Rankin and Fergo with players of similar potential as those above. Lussick and Will Smith will both probably be kept. Ray Stone will likely hang around for minimum wage.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

We won’t be buying anyone of note.

I wouldn't expect so. We have too many big retentions coming up, and next year's team will already be better than this year's just based on improvement of young players. The only 30+ year old in our top 17 is Ferguson, and he won't be here next year.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

We came up with Opacic, Papali'i and Cartwright all quite cheap in the off season. I suspect we will replace Oldfield, Rankin and Fergo with players of similar potential as those above. Lussick and Will Smith will both probably be kept. Ray Stone will likely hang around for minimum wage.

Don't discount bringing youngsters into the 30. I expect Penisini will be top 17. Plus we have quite a few juniors in the 18-30 slots who will be a year older, stronger and better next year.

 

[hineyrulz]

We won’t be buying anyone of note.

Premiership window??? What premiership window??

 

[King-Gutho94]

We came up with Opacic, Papali'i and Cartwright all quite cheap in the off season. I suspect we will replace Oldfield, Rankin and Fergo with players of similar potential as those above. Lussick and Will Smith will both probably be kept. Ray Stone will likely hang around for minimum wage.

Ray stone has had his chance if we are trying to improve the squad we should be looking around for something different instead of using up a spot on someone who has probably reached their ceiling

 

[Gazzamatta]

Don't discount bringing youngsters into the 30. I expect Penisini will be top 17. Plus we have quite a few juniors in the 18-30 slots who will be a year older, stronger and better next year.

BA on the phone to The Rhinos as we speak.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Premiership window??? What premiership window??

We're in it. We were also in the start of one in 2016. 2018 we had to reset, but as you can see, there no need to panic if the window shuts. Strong clubs reopen the window pretty quickly.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Ray stone has had his chance if we are trying to improve the squad we should be looking around for something different instead of using up a spot on someone who has probably reached their ceiling

It's also good to have cheap, reliable backups who aren't 20 years old.

 

[King-Gutho94]

It's also good to have cheap, reliable backups who aren't 20 years old.

There are plenty of players 22-23 year olds out there. Look at papali'i last year he is still 22. Have a look around and find someone that looks stale at another club and give him an opportunity.

 

[Joshuatheeel]

He saw what happened to Mick Potter.

Potter was not an “assistant” and there could be a reason Potter struggles to hold onto his coaching gigs for more then a year or 2………..

 

[Poupou Escobar]

There are plenty of players 22-23 year olds out there. Look at papali'i last year he is still 22. Have a look around and find someone that looks stale at another club and give him an opportunity.

Papali'i was 22 with over 60 NRL games under his belt ffs. There aren't many of those around. Don't pretend he was some nobody. He always had top 17 potential, which is why we signed him. By contrast, Stone is 24 and has played only 23 games. That's a genuine minimum salary backup. The Storm have a bunch of these types:

Player	Age in 2021	NRL Games
Booth	26	6
Eisenhuth	29	31
Grant	27	1
Jacks	29	48
Jennings	28	50
Johns	22	5
King	24	50
Lewis	29	19
Lumelume	23	3
Pene	26	7
Smoothy	22	4

Up and coming youngsters with high potential, like Isaiah Papali'i and Reimis Smith, cost a lot more than career backups like Ray Stone and Tom Eisenhuth. That's why the strong teams have these players in their squad, even though they have 'reached their ceiling'. Can you merkins get your head out of your arse and actually watch the game so we can have informed conversations about our club ffs

 

[strider]

We're in it. We were also in the start of one in 2016. 2018 we had to reset, but as you can see, there no need to panic if the window shuts. Strong clubs reopen the window pretty quickly.

melbourne have a panoramic window