And you don't think the eels side was under strength as well ? Our side would be a lot different if we had every avaialble player in the squad to pick from. We jsut don't have tthe depth. That is the difference between the eels and the broncos, they have a very good squad with a lot of depth, which a lot comes back to our poor form in the 20's over the last few years / lack of ability to get juniors into the NRL side. Look at the Broncos last night a lot of their side have graduated from their under 20's sides from the last few years, however the eels would be lucky to have 5 or so players to move up from the under 20's to the NRL side from the last 3-4 years (Allgood, Morgan, Loco, Mannah, POH, Mortimer is all I can think of and only Mannah is a regular and the rest apart from Mortimer made their debut this year - pretty crap). It shows how not focusing on junior develop can really affect a squad.
Now this is something that Obsourne in the media and a few posters in the know have been stating that Kearney and co have been fixing behind the scene. But the problem with this is us fans don't see what is happening, thuis we get frustrated as we think the club is not doing anything to fix the problem. This is doemstrated for example by the first time in a while the eels have actually poached two very good juniors from other clubs - the SG halback from Manly and backrower from the Bulldogs, when was the last time this happened ?
- it will take time, but the wait will hopefully bring results on the field.
