The official Parra GF post mortem.

[yy_cheng]

We didn't live by the sword so died in a cage like an animal.

We had stage fright.

 

[kia ora storm]

Hey guys...I know what it's like from last year...a great season for your club and your youngsters will hold you in good stead.

Hayne is a star and Cayless and Hindmarsh are legends...bad luck but well done on making the final.

 

[natheel]

they came out quicker and harder than the dogs titans and dragons did and it kinda shocked us but i thought that we still did well to go into half time 10 points down.
only thing that disappointed me in the first half other than the soft tries was the kick choices, hayne didnt kick once did he? but all the boys dug in and hung in there and didnt get blown off the park like broncos and manly did and im happy about that, apart from inglis 'gift' try i thought reddy and gothe handled him well.
dunno why slater got the churchill medal if there was one melb player that deserved it rightly so it was cronk.

Moi Moi played brilliantly from start to end
cayless was a bit tentative in the opening stages but ended the game well
hindy the usual absolutly inspirational in defence stopped 3 certain breaks
hayne was contained well by melbourne
burt played well made plenty of metres and so to grothe
inu and reddy both solid games imo
morts didnt get many opurtunities but still gave his all
robson same as morts
keating played well kingston played well off the bench
smith very quiet
lowrie meh
mannah ran hard when he had the ball
galuvao prob our best bench player
mateo made that one break and made some good offloads but melbourne contained him well too

i rate our performance and effort about 75/100

im happy we got to the gf and we are down in the history books as first team from 8th spot to make it that far
hayne has the dally m medal

all in all its a positive year for us after the diversity in the club at the start of the season

2010 bound now lets look forward guys we have a great year ahead of us next year

natheel out

 

[natheel]

The no contest was because Reddy was off the field and I don't think the other guys were alert enough to get in the right position.

how come reddy was off the field in the first place? was it coz of the hit on finch? looked like he copped it in the chin

 

[yy_cheng]

For the people at the game, I did not here one Parra chant on tv.

The dogs game was buzzing and Parra, Parra.

But didn't hear it at all or only once in the GF.

I heard the FUI... war cry and heard the announcers but no Parra Parra.

 

[JoeyJoJo83]

how come reddy was off the field in the first place? was it coz of the hit on finch? looked like he copped it in the chin

Yep cause of finch they wanted to monitor him for a bit. I still can't belive Ben smith did not try to contest for the high ball f**k me dead at least try and block GI

 

[hindy111]

it was quite-toe crowd was in the game for first 1 min.. than for 2 mins at start of second half and than for 5 mins at end...
Other than that it was all shock--Its hard to shout and cheer when your emotions jsut wont let you

 

[JoeyJoJo83]

For the people at the game, I did not here one Parra chant on tv.

The dogs game was buzzing and Parra, Parra.

But didn't hear it at all or only once in the GF.

I heard the FUI... war cry and heard the announcers but no Parra Parra.

Yeah I was at the game and it wasn't like the dogs game not much chanting it felt like we weren't behind the team like the dogs game

 

[Avenger]

Guys I was at the game. Despite there being 90% Eels fans I thought the atmosphere was a little disappointing. We just did not make enough noise. I remember when the team came out in 2001. I could feel it in my chest. Tonight felt strange. A little hollow and I'm not just talking about the end of the game.

 

[JoeyJoJo83]

it was quite-toe crowd was in the game for first 1 min.. than for 2 mins at start of second half and than for 5 mins at end...
Other than that it was all shock--Its hard to shout and cheer when your emotions jsut wont let you

Very very true my heart was in my stomach for most of the game. I'm so depressed

 

[Chook Norris]

For the people at the game, I did not here one Parra chant on tv.

I heard the "Parra Parra" quite distinctly, but quite clearly, not enough

Hard when the Storm are slowly choking your team to death. (note i'm not suggesting you are chokers like munge insinuated..)

--

Well done Parra for the year.. i must say i've quite enjoyed the ride ;-)
and i'm sure many others would agree

 

[yy_cheng]

I know it was hard to take when the team is behind but that's where the Parra Parra is needed to lift them.

I am not blaming any of the fans btw.

 

[nöyd]

For 15/20 minutes in the second half we played like we have for the past 8 weeks or so, unfortunately that is futile when up against a side like Melbourne. I think to beat them we had to put Fui out wide ala Dave Taylor and hit them on the edges, not much good though when your down by 16 with 15 minutes to go.

 

[Fishboy]

I thought we could've easily won that game but it was one of those days where it wasn't meant to be.
One thing we need to learn to do is control field position through a better kicking game. That has been missing the entire year and final series. In each of the past 4 games we started poorly - poor clearing kicks which puts us on the back foot early. In previous games, we were able to defend ourselves out of trouble and counterpuch when the opportunity arose. Today melbourne were just to clinical and made us pay for each of our errors.
As for next year, although we've got another couple of great guys coming on board, I don't see who is going to put his hand up and make the kicking duties his own. For mine, mortimer doesnt have a big enough boot, didn't see enough of kk before he got injured to know whether if his up for it and hayne, although he does have big enough a kick, i don't know whether we should burden him with the full time kicking duties.
Think about the scott princes, the cooper cronks, the cameron smiths and wind back to 2001 (taylor) and 2005 & 2007 (tsmith) and you know what i mean.

However, I'm sure daniel anderson realises that this is the missing piece in the jigsaw and he'll pull something out of his ass to fix it.

I think all eel fans have a right to be confident that next years is ours if we continue this brand of this footy into next year. We have shown today that if melbourne is on a level above all else, we have risen to be at least on par with them.

2010 gf - parra vs storm!

Go parra!

 

[Skeletor]

It was without a doubt the kicking game which screwed us. We were obviously told before the game to kick to their winger, so our team did it even when it wasn't the best option.

What kept us in was the inspirational play of the likes of Hindy and Fui.

Melbourne did a fantastic job in stopping Hayne. During our run it looked like when Hayne stopped to make something happen, the defence stopped and let him pick out a seam, that didn't happen with the Storm defence.

 

[Gronk]

For the people at the game, I did not here one Parra chant on tv.

The dogs game was buzzing and Parra, Parra.

But didn't hear it at all or only once in the GF.

I heard the FUI... war cry and heard the announcers but no Parra Parra.

You're right YY. It was a silent Parra crowd compared to the Dogs match. As if we all knew that we didn't have a hope.

 

[Gronk]

I heard the "Parra Parra" quite distinctly, but quite clearly, not enough

Hard when the Storm are slowly choking your team to death. (note i'm not suggesting you are chokers like munge insinuated..)

--

Well done Parra for the year.. i must say i've quite enjoyed the ride ;-)
and i'm sure many others would agree

I thought that as well at the ground. Storm stole our oxygen with their ruck tactics.

 

[Gronk]

Agree with Belly that we were a deer in headlights. In the first 30 mins it seemed that our only attacking tactic was giving it to Jazz. They shut that down pretty easy.

Hayne is not the reason we strung all those games together and made the GF, yet he was seemingly the only go-to man on the 4th or 5th tackle for most of the match. Stupid.

 

[Tollett]

My perceptions while at the game: we peeled off Melbourne too quickly in the tackle....but when they were defending they set up camp, rolled out the rucksack, fluffed their pillows and all had siestas laying over us for about 36 minutes at a time. Not sure why we didn't test out Archer's limits more when it came to slowing their speed around the ruck.

Oh and that Inglis try sure was a clincher. At a really bad time too just after Grothe had struck back for the Eels.

 

[natheel]

i thought the slater try was the clincher gave them a comfy 16 point lead but credit to our boys didnt give up at all.

shows the pride in our side they couldve layed down and let storm beat us by 30 points like manly did in 07 but guys like hindy and cayless and burt stood up and not to forget fui

but i was reading the paper this morn and the ratings of the players from both sides

hayne and slater both got 7.5's
moi moi 8.5
cronk 8

based on that i dont see how slater got the ccmedal and cronk or moi moi didnt get a mention

plus our forwards got the higher ratings where inglis' 8.5 gave the storms backs the edge over parra
happy burt got a 7 he played a great game imo