Friday night’s game against Brisbane was always going to be a test for the Parramatta Eels. Facing the competition leaders in Darwin on a short turnaround was always going to be tough, but the Eels made it tougher on themselves with simple errors and were obviously exhausted early.
If you want to read a full recap of the game, friend of the site Liam of The Maroon Observer has a tremendous write up that I’d suggest reading. I’d also highly suggest subscribing to his substack as he’s putting out at least 4 pieces of content per week, and if you know the high quality of work Liam produces, you’ll understand how much quality writing will end up in your inbox each week.
Back to the Eels though. Some regular Eye Test readers may know that the Parramatta Eels are the official team of the Eye Test, although I’ve tried not to make it explicitly known, other than my eternal love for all things Daniel Alvaro.
I’ve tended not to cover the Eels too much on the site over the years, as I felt being impartial was a difficult task due to years of frustration watching them.
Any significant length of time supporting Parramatta breeds a rare level of pessimism. You know there’s a disappointment coming no matter how well they’re doing, you just don’t know what form it will take. And when things are bad, everything feels significantly worse than it is. The fleeting joys are usually short lived.
But I’ve seen enough this season that I’ve had to look into what the problems are.
At a surface level, letting go of the only first grade hooker they’ve developed internally in the past forever seems sub optimal. Reed Mahoney wasn’t perfect and has his obvious flaws – currently leading the NRL in missed tackles (13 ahead of second place!) and penalties conceded (and was 2nd last year) – but you can’t deny he was a good fit for what the team wanted to accomplish with the ball.
Josh Hodgson was a tremendous hooker during his career, and the fact he’s been able to return from multiple serious knee injuries is a testament to his strength and determination. But at 33 those same flaws Mahoney has are magnified tenfold with Hodgson, especially playing alongside middles who tend to play longer stints than needed with a coach who hoards interchanges until they’re no longer needed. I’ll get to the Hodgson elephant in the room later.
Equally allowing Isiaah Papali’i walk despite being arguably the finest edge back rower in the competition, to the Tigers of all places, still seems baffling at best. J’maine Hopgood looked like the buy of the season after a few rounds, but it turns out that fantasy points are useless. The good news is that he’ll turn 24 in May and is about to enter his physical prime and he should be a part of the Eels pack for many years.
I understand the need to secure their starting props long term, and Junior Paulo and Reagan Campbell-Gillard have been two of the best around. However, given the paucity of quality dummy halves and the impact a strike backrower can make on a game compared with the relative contribution of starting middle forwards, the value just doesn’t seem there. And then there is the loss of bench depth with Oregon Kaufusi and Marata Niukore moving on, which has been evident early in the season. But what is done is done, their bed is made, and they must live with it.
Given the changes to their team, it would be difficult for the Eels to be as successful playing the way they have been in prior years. They’ve not been dealt the best draw either, with multiple games against teams coming off the buy followed by the short turnaround game in Darwin.
When I have covered the Eels previously, I’ve noted their very obvious Achilles heel. When they have the majority of possession, they make metres quite well through the middle of the field. But when they’re unable to maintain that strong possession percentage, teams can consistently find metres (especially up the middle of the field) and the Eels are often gassed early in games to a point where they can’t contain them.
This was evident last season when I noted how their average distance per set conceded was one of the worst in the league. They had no issues making metres but couldn’t stop opponents once they gained some momentum. This tends to point to teams working them over through the middle of the field, to the point where players start dropping off tackles or gaps open up as tired defenders can’t cover space laterally to close them.
The fact they made it to the grand final in spite of this weakness is a testament to their attack and ability of control field position. But as mentioned, when they meet a team who doesn’t allow them that domination, they tend to crumble.
This the possession ponzi I’m talking about. If your ability to dominate games requires an endless infusion of possession and extra sets, eventually someone is going to be left holding the bag. And it’s looking like the 2023 Eels are the ones holding it right now.
Parramatta aren’t getting downfield like they are accustomed to, their metres per run this season are the lowest in the NRL. Usually, I like to set the scene for these team deep dives with a look at their margins over the course of game, but this time I’m going to get start at the root cause.
Below is the average metres per run this season for all 17 NRL clubs for season 2023. As usual all stats are from Fox Sports Stats. Note due to ANZAC day games this season falling on a Tuesday, this only contains the first six games from Round 8, which is we’re using averages.
Here’s where you can see the cracks in their ponzi scheme. The Eels average just 8.29 metres per run, lower than the Bulldogs (8.46). That mark is over 1 metre per run lower than the Broncos, and 70 centimetres per run behind Penrith.
Over the course of a game with an average of 135 play the balls, that can add up to almost 100 metres per game fewer that the Eels would gain under the same circumstances as Penrith, and nearly 150 meters fewer than Brisbane.
The reason this matters is that the Eels allow 8.98 metres per run, 68 centimetres per run more than they make themselves, as seen below.
For every two sets of six Parramatta and their opponents have, the Eels will around a run full of 8.3 metres behind. Here’s the net metres per run chart showing that the Eels are last in the NRL for this metric.
Again, this shows that on average, only by consistently having more possession can they end up with better field position than their opponents.
This is where the foundation of their ponzi scheme has crumbled. In 2022, Parramatta averaged 31.6 complete sets per game, second in the competition behind (no prizes for guessing) Penrith at 34 per contest. This year the number hasn’t dropped dramatically, down to 30.4, although it places them 10th among the 17 NRL clubs.
Last year Parramatta opponents averaged just 27.6 complete sets per game, 4th lowest in the league. This year? 30.8 complete sets per game, 9th in the competition.
These don’t sound like significant changes, and they aren’t. What has changed is when they’re getting these complete sets. Below is the difference between complete sets in the first half (blue dot) and second half (orange dot), with the grey line representing the difference. And it’s where you’ll see the the cracks forming.
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