Patient Brown keeps loss to premiers in perspective
Promising young Eels half Dylan Brown says his team's loss to the Roosters – the first of his impressive three-game career to date – will prove an important learning curve in his development.
The 18-year-old was again composed with and without the ball, making good decisions in defence and running and kicking the ball impressively.
However a couple of missed tackles and one grubber for a seven-tackle set at an inopportune time will ensure he has things to work on when he returns to training on Monday.
"It was definitely much more challenging than last week against Luke Keary who's a very good player," Brown said after the 32-18 result.
"I feel as though they were targeting me quite a bit. We were talking about details throughout the week and that's what we failed to do so we didn't get the result.
"My body is a bit sore, I'm a bit surprised to be honest (with the physicality) but it's good, hopefully I can get a few more games.
"Going into the second half I definitely thought we could have taken it out. Towards the end it was (missed) one-on-ones and too many errors. You can't win doing that."
Plenty were wondering if wins over Penrith and Canterbury sides that didn't give a great account of themselves had created a false dawn for Eels fans but Brad Arthur's men showed they were up to the task to lead the premiers with 20 minutes to play – before a few soft tries and untimely errors undid the good work.
"Throughout the whole team, we all knew we could win," Brown said.
"I feel as if we keep coming every week with the confidence going into games knowing we could win we'll be able to do better things this year."
He praised fellow left-edge defenders Shaun Lane and Michael Jennings with making his life easier in defence.
"It helps with Shaun Lane and especially Michael Jennings, he talks to me a lot throughout the game, he's an Origin player, he knows a lot about the game and he lets me know when to go and when not to go. It just helps," Brown said.
One notable play – that was mentioned post-game by Roosters coach Trent Robinson as a sign the club was playing with confidence and labelled a 'trick shot' – came from Brown's boot.
A short chip in attacking range on just play two of a set, five minutes into the match, went behind Roosters fullback James Tedesco for Mitch Moses to make the tackle to force a repeat set. The Eels opened the scoring the next set.
"We planned that," Brown said.
"As I said we're going into games with confidence. We just had a crack to show them we're here to play."
But he knows his kicking needs to be spot on as a back up to Moses.
"Mitch knows that being on that left side, for a right foot kicker it's a bit harder so he tries to take as much kicking as he can but when it's my turn I know [what I need to do]; I've been practising heaps at training," Brown added.
That budding combination with Moses will only improve with more time together on-field.
"The more we play the better we'll get. It's only been three games. A few more games and me and Mitch will start to do a few more things, hopefully it gets better," Brown said.
His skipper Clint Gutherson had the same assessment of the pair and the new-look spine as a whole with youngster Reed Mahoney also showing good signs.
"They're both new; Reed's played a handful of games and that was Dyl's third, we'll only get better and better the longer we play together," Gutherson said.
"If we can keep that spine together for the whole year it will go a long way but we've still got a long way to go.
"Dyl's always going to be there working on his game but I think he was a bit disappointed tonight as well. A couple of missed kicks and missed tackles but that's a learning curve for Dyl and he's going to get better for it."
https://www.nrl.com/news/2019/03/30/patient-brown-keeps-loss-to-roosters-in-perspective/
