Well, it’s been the first time this year (or in some time) that I just wanted it to be over so I could go home. It was an unorganised mess out there.
I’ll be blunt, I though O’Sullivan had a very poor game. You expect your half back to be out there organising the team and setting instructions, but he just wasn’t. I would be waiting second… third man off and running it up. His kicking game was poor and didn’t make a huge amount of impact.
It left Salmon to do a lot of organising a more improvised play. Considering the week had with the Ricky Stuart Fiasco, I though he handled himself well. I wouldn’t be opposed to a Falls/Salmon combo next week.
Staines I would imagine has played his last first grade game for Penrith. I don’t understand why he makes everything he does seem so hard. leaping out of the air to take the simplest of catches, running up the ball then getting driven back almost as far as he ran. It was a matter of time before Ivan hooked him from the field. Crichton slotted in and did a great job for the remainder of the game.
We spend a lot of the game running left to right… Melbourne showed up to play a defensive game, and we had no answers.
… … and just to look for the silver lining on the cloud, by my rough reckoning we missed 5 or 6 tries by a whisker. We also had three quarters of our spine absent, which must have a profound effect on our ability to turn half breaks into something more substantive.
I think that we play a structured game where most of the players know what is coming within reason. I.e. Halves to kick to thei right winger on the fourth tackle. SOS seems to be too adlib, with the team not knowing who (or where) to chase, who to backup etc. We play percentage plays where we are most likely to get feild position etc. SOS unsettles the team in that regard.
Tough game last night
I thought the boys tried hard but it seemed like the storm wanted it more
The 1st 15 minutes we were all over them
We struggled making metres coming out of trouble our back 5 didn’t put us on the front foot our defence was poor we didn’t slow the ruck down Melbourne was playing always on the front foot
I have been very proud of the way our boys have played over the past few trying weeks. We’ve had a couple of losses, but are set up for a good run at this comp.
There can be no doubting the commitment of the players & last night there was no doubt they all gave their all.
In the losses against parra & $torm there were times in the game when we held the upperhand, including for 60 mins with 12.
In the past month or so, we have failed to score, taking advantage of our opportunities, which is different to previous. I said before the game that we have come close to scoring so many times recently, without getting the try, for a few reasons & that has cost us. It happened again last night. The tries will come when we have the guys back on deck while ever we continue to work so hard to get the momentum.
The $torm tries came from defensive lapses. The first came when Critter was caught at marker & we failed to adjust, leaving an overlap for storm down the short side. Perhaps if Dylan was there we would have adjusted. The second came from a one-on-one miss by Martin - a rarity. The third came from a late offload from Bromwich close to the line, a quick spread and Critter making a legs tackle when he needed to go higher. All that came in 13mins, with not a single point from either side in the game.
Yes, we looked off in attack, but there’s a reason that some guys get paid the big bucks, and they are needed to beat the good teams. Lesser players can beat poorer teams, but not often the better teams.
A challenge for us to to adjust our game to suit the ref for the game each week. For some reason the NRL think that Klein & Sutton are the 2 best refs, so we will get them regularly. By now we know their styles & need to work to make as best we can with them in charge. With Sutton there is no 10m & the ruck is inevitably slow. Klein, well he just has no clue. The bunker, well there’s nought that can be done with them!
Just one question. If a player is off-side and makes a try saving tackle, including hitting the attacker in the head, is a penalty sufficient?
We are well setup for a tilt at this premiership, so please keep the faith.
A positive note is that with Melbourne winning again, it means the Eels chances of a top4 finish are that much more difficult.
I think Ivan is trying to (for the most part) keep players in their respective positions come finals. Probably doesn’t want Critta at FB because we’ll need him at centre. Similiarly, with Salmon playing halves it makes sense. Give him as much game time there as possible, as injury cover for Jarome/Nathan.
Staines attacking game was average, but he did defuse many kicks. Always sucks losing at home, but we just need our best team on the park for the finals. Hopefully Martin’s ankle is okay and we can rest him up until then.
The Eels are going to limp into the finals. At best they will hold 6th. Outside chance of missing altogether if Raiders, Manly or the Merge can go undefeated from here.
It’s our 3rd loss of the season with a significant number of stars out…how quick are we to criticise.
Forget the scoreline, we lost, accept that bit. Now look at the critical areas of the game, we dominated field position, having 50+ tackles inside there 20 to 10 or so in ours, that is a massive Kudos to our forwards. Let the media waffle on, stallwarts of the game will know we outplayed them with the exception of the score.
Yes the Storm defended well, yes they took there opportunities, yes they had a few key players missing also, but you put NC and Luaiin our side, vs any 2 for them, and we run riot with that much time in the 20.
I for 1 am extremely happy with our current cirumstance, our stars will return fresh for the finals (hopefully we can fit Yeo and Api in somewhere for a week off too, maybe the warriors game) and our group as a whole will return to that structure that has us dominating the comp.
Q. With all the head injury issues etc, and some of the softest penalties you will see for high contact, what about when an attacker has the ball, and gets up with a defender in an aggressive headlock…is that acceptable??? BTW it was Nelson, the piece of crap!
At the end of the day I feel we lost because we couldn’t go wide around their defence. Storm defend that play very well. We needed to go through the middle and perhaps our best players for doing that are Edwards and Luai. We could well get our revenge in the first week of the finals when, hopefully, both these players will be available.
Yep, we lost the game and we had a number of our stars sidelined for one reason or another. I was disappointed in the fact our offensive execution flattered our opponent.
Forwards AOK. But our three-quarters sloppy and lax for much of the game. These are the guys that might yet figure in Ivan’s team sheets over the next few weeks. They need to pull their finger out. Our best team? … we’ll be hard to beat!
Agreed, Kev. Solomona is one of the brain dead grubs in the NRL.
And how a headlock is not a high shot defies logic. Mind you, the whole play-the-ball is a tin of worms. It should be simple; stand up, place the ball on the ground, then rake it back, with no risk of a defender striking out. But now it gives me the irrits when players repeatedly place the ball on the ground, and push up off the ball, typically driving forward into the marker who is then either knocked flat on his back or is penalised for just standing his ground. It has to be one of the worst parts of the game today, especially when so many players, after being tackled on a particular spot, crawl, lunge or just push forward before playing the ball, making more metres after being tackled than before. The marker has no chance - if they stand their ground, the player pushes past them and they are penalised for not standing square. Go figure. The final part of the fiasco is how so many defenders have their hand on the ball after a tackle is called, leading to contentious dropped ball rulings. Give me strength!
Some good news after all this. Liam Matin has been cleared of any serious injury. He could be available for selection this Tuesday against the Rabbitohs.
Penrith second-rower Liam Martin could line up as soon as Thursday night after scans cleared him of a serious ankle injury.
Martin’s season appeared in doubt when he landed awkwardly on his ankle in the second half of the Panthers’ loss to Melbourne on Thursday.
The State of Origin representative played no further part in the game and wore a moon boot post-match.
The Panthers initially suspected a long-term injury and were bracing for the possibility of making a run at consecutive premierships without their first-choice right second-rower.
But Martin has since been cleared of serious damage and was able to run 100 metre sprints unassisted at training on Sunday.
Club officials on Monday told AAP that Martin was now a possibility for Thursday night’s match against in-form South Sydney, but that he still had a slight limp and remained in some doubt.
Dylan Edwards, who missed the 16-0 loss to the Storm with a sternum injury, has a chance of returning for the game after training at fullback on Sunday.
Winger Taylan May is likely to need at least another week to recover from a shoulder injury but is no longer wearing a sling.
Elsewhere, Cronulla prop Toby Rudolf is set to miss the first week of the finals after suffering an MCL tear against Wests Tigers in Tamworth on Saturday evening.
Rudolf landed awkwardly midway through the second half and played no further part in the game. The Sharks confirmed on Monday afternoon he would miss four weeks of football.
Royce Hunt and Braden Hamlin-Uele appear the most likely to start in the front row in his absence.
Maybe this subject should be a thread of it’s own, I too have sooooo many issues with how it is (ISN’T) managed. The frustrating part is, every man and his dog will tell you winning the ruck is imperative, the $torm are specialists at raping and pillaging in that area and get away with it, and don’t care if they are pinged every now and then.
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