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Round 1 v Manly game thread

Forty20

First Grade
Messages
7,677
What a f**king great night! Got my mate who doesn't watch too much footy out to his second Parra game (the first been the good game we played against the Roosters last year) and he had a blast and decided to properly follow our mob. I told him no take backs. :p

We have been something of a Round 1 special in recent times so hoping Brad Arthur can keep the fire stoked over the first month of footy but it looks like our pack might be up to slugging it out with the Dogs and Bunnies.

For any of you merkins who aren't sated by that victory the District Reps host Illawarra at Patrician Brothers Blacktown starting at 10:00AM tomorrow morning while Wenty take on North Sydney at Ringrose at 3:00PM on Sunday.
 

eels_fan

First Grade
Messages
7,577
Anyone watch the post match media conf with Arthur?

We certainly made some silly errors, and conceded dumb penalties, but I've never seen a coach so annoyed/pissed/angry after a 30 point win in my life. Understand he wants to keep them grounded, it's only round 1, but he didn't seem satisfied in the slightest!
 

caylo

Bench
Messages
4,870
To be honest, I thought De Gois shouldn't be in our top 17. Now I think he's a better dummy half than Peats. And almost as good in defence.

Tbh i thought he was in our top 17 players and thus should be in the 17 just didnt expect him to play so much and i enjoyed peats playing as a lock as well. The problem with this is i think either Paulo or Gower will have to make way for a bigger middle forward like Pauli or ideally Edwards before his injury. Watmough showed that if he goes down and with only 3 props we might be a meter eater short in the middle
 
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pinchy

Guest
Messages
52
What a great start to the season, Anthony Watmough looks great and cant wait to see him get more comfortable in his new team and get into opposing players heads. So many areas of our team looks promising. Looking forward to the finals
 

PARRA_FAN

Coach
Messages
17,677
A great performance, just to prove we're not gonna struggle without Hayne. We played well as a team in defence and attack.

So much aggression too, I dont think we've smashed the forwards like that in a while. Especially Lussick.

Some great tries too tonight, everyone backed each other. Sandow looks so fit and determined to run the ball everytime and not afraid to try the chip and chase. He did a lot of that last year so I hope he sticks with it.

Norman has certainly improved his attack. He looked so great during the nines and has turned that into the 13-as side game. Hope he keeps it up.

And well done to Choc, had a good first game for the Eels.
 

PARRA_FAN

Coach
Messages
17,677
Anyone watch the post match media conf with Arthur?

We certainly made some silly errors, and conceded dumb penalties, but I've never seen a coach so annoyed/pissed/angry after a 30 point win in my life. Understand he wants to keep them grounded, it's only round 1, but he didn't seem satisfied in the slightest!

If he says there's a lot to improve then I cant wait to see our performance against the Dogs.

Glad he's playing it down, he's right its only Round 1. We've been in this position before.
 

hindy111

Post Whore
Messages
62,867
Junior did look a little unfit but off 6 carries i think he made over 100mtrs+

I liked lussicks aggression
Mannah did a few offloads which was nice.
Seph ran hard and made 100mtrs + from the bench.
Degois out played peats thou peats was still good
Norman threw some nice passes
Taka looks dangerous

I thought Champion was average but first game in a while -Robinson was dangerous but does lack go forward.His goal kicking thou was sublime!
 

jono

Juniors
Messages
2,194
It seemed to me that the least performed player in our side was probably Hoppa.....and that's saying something for the rest of 'em cause he had a solid and mistake free game!!!!!
Fantastic allround team effort, not one dud amongst our 17 tonight.
Sandow and Norman did a great job of controlling the tempo to suit Parra's game tonight.
Bring on the Dogs!
 

yy_cheng

Coach
Messages
18,734
I liked how in attack the ball went from Norman to a running Sandow rather a flat footed sandow.

Norman was playing 7 and Sandow a running 6 like Kenny.

NIce one BA
 

TheRam

Coach
Messages
13,885
Boy have we got some major issues in defense out wide. Robinson, Tak and Champion are all very ordinary in just reading simple numbers. Radradra is still learning and Sandow, well we all know his short comings due to size.

It was a great win, but when the game was still in the balance, we made the same unforced errors and penalty give a ways as we have always done in the past. Nothing has changed there.

In the positive column, our line speed and physicality appears to have improved out of sight compared to previous years. But considering the lackluster opposition, I can't get to excited with that at this stage either.

If anyone is wondering why the coach ain't to happy after such a good win, these are the reasons. When you can't hold onto the ball, give away silly consecutive penalties, and get turned inside out, out wide defensively, while totally dominating a piss poor opposition pack, then there is plenty of reason for concern and the coach knows it, even when you eventually go on to blow them off the park, not because of your great footballing abilities, but mainly due to your larger more physical presence.

Like I said, we have many issues in our backline and against the bigger and more skillful teams, I fear those deficiencies will become obvious even to the most enthusiastic eels supporters.
 

jono

Juniors
Messages
2,194
Ram I agree that we always seemed to be short one defender on the edges. But the scramble was certainly good, and the boys certainly aimed up with a bit of oomph when defending on the goal line.
The rub of the green certainly didn't fall our way...sure they had a try called back but that was more than balanced by a missed forward pass leading up to the first try , and the line drop out call when the ball was clearly not played at by our defender ( think it was Semi) Some 50/50's seemed to favour the eagles more as well
Parra certainly tried to gift Manly the game in the middle part of the first half with as BA says , lack of ball control
 

ParraSteve

Juniors
Messages
718
I thought the new players were very good tonight.

Wasn't a fan of De Gois on the bench to start but he was super impressive

Love the aggression we showed for the full 80 our attack died in the last little bit but some of those hits we put on, ouch

What i love about the post match media conference, BA demands them to be better, he was right too many silly mistakes at times in that game
 

TheRam

Coach
Messages
13,885
On Hopa. We have the slowest fullback in the comp. He is very talented, but speed is vital in his position. So we shouldn't expect to many great moments from him, like chiming in with speed and busting the line wide open like all the great fullbacks can and do.

In fact I have a feeling that coach, may eventually move him back to centre after a couple of months. He will give him apple opportunity to make the position his, but I don't think long term he will it in that position.

What I think will happen, is when coach finally has had enough of our backline conceding simple line breaks and tries, If he can find another player from the lower grades that he feels could handle fullback, he will drop Champion and move Hopa into the centres again.

Or he will move Robinson to the back. Either way, if the backline doesn't improve defensively and Hopa doesn't contribute with sparkling mojo to the backline, expect these sort of changes to take place as the season unfolds.
 

TheRam

Coach
Messages
13,885
Ram I agree that we always seemed to be short one defender on the edges. But the scramble was certainly good, and the boys certainly aimed up with a bit of oomph when defending on the goal line.
The rub of the green certainly didn't fall our way...sure they had a try called back but that was more than balanced by a missed forward pass leading up to the first try , and the line drop out call when the ball was clearly not played at by our defender ( think it was Semi) Some 50/50's seemed to favour the eagles more as well
Parra certainly tried to gift Manly the game in the middle part of the first half with as BA says , lack of ball control


Manly really threw nothing at us all game and they still scored two very easy tries due to very ordinary defensive reads out wide.

Time will tell.
 
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