Head-to-Head Tipping: 66%Line Betting: 55%
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Panthers by 10 – The Eels probably owe the Panthers a debt of gratitude for having unwittingly handed their local rivals a Grand Final berth. As it turns out, had the Panthers lost the Finals Week One meeting between these sides (rather than hand out the convincing 19-point beatdown that they did), the Eels likely wouldn’t even be here. Parramatta would have had to knock over Souths last weekend rather than the Cowboys, and given the avalanche of short fields the Eels gifted North Queensland, they likely would have been on the receiving end of a hiding. But, the Panthers did thump Parra in Week One, and as a result, the Eels were able to squeak their way through to the GF in one of the worst Preliminary Finals in recent memory. Whether they were scoring from forward passes, kicking it out on the full, or allowing some of the most superbly soft September tries in years, Parra did their utmost to look every bit the bog average, extraordinarily fortunate scrubs that they are. However, at the end of the day, none of that matters. They can be every bit as underwhelming and ordinary looking as they wish up to this point, the fact of the matter is that from here, all anyone will remember is how well they play this Sunday. Which begs the question: do they have one good game in them?
While we’re not prepared to rule it out – we’ve written off the Eels on too many occasions this year, only to see them pull out win after win – we will say that it seems pretty unlikely. Contrary to the myth that Parramatta’s unstructured, second-phase heavy gameplan causes the Panthers’ defense fits, the reality is that in the Eels past five matches against Penrith in which Nathan Cleary wasn’t sent off, the Eels offense averaged a meager 1.8 line breaks and 1.8 tries per game. Further, they did this while averaging over 12 offloads per game – so for those in the media arguing that Parra’s loss three weeks ago was because they weren’t offloading as much as usual (they made 11 that night, by the way), we suggest you check your numbers again. In fact, rather than offloading more, we’d argue that Parra’s best bet to win on Sunday night would actually come from offloading less. To our eye, the best Parramatta have looked against Penrith over the past two years was in last year’s Preliminary Final – a match in which they produced 3 line breaks and outgained the Panthers by over 100m… and they did that while making just 6 offloads (their 4th-lowest total of the past two years). The secret for that success was in their domination of possession (53% v 47%). By starving the Panthers of the footy, the Eels were able to hide their defensive frailties and give themselves more opportunities to attack. This is how the Eels most trouble Penrith – not by getting fast and loose (which they typically do, to little effect), but rather by camping deep in Penrith’s territory and seizing opportunities as they present themselves. If Parra want to get offload-happy, they risk seeing an uptick in errors for very little gain (it stylistically rarely troubles Penrith, anyway), which then exposes their defense to Penrith’s ruthlessly efficient red zone offense.
If the Eels are prepared to settle into the grind and wait for their opportunities, Penrith aren’t perfect. The loss of Taylan May presents opportunities to attack with structure. Last weekend, the Rabbitohs appeared fixated on wanting to attack the Panthers’ left edge, with the Bunnies running their good ball set-up plays around the left-hand upright, so they could the shift the ball toward the right. In hindsight, this was a glaring tactical error by Jason Demetriou, as it saw them fail to utilise their own elite left edge attack, and neglect to punish the sub-standard defense of Charlie Staines on the Panthers’ defensive right. For their second try, the Rabbitohs found Staines wandering out of the line to take neither the ball nor the player, and Richie Kennar strolled in untouched. That would be one of the last times Staines was tested all night, as the Rabbits instead directed their traffic to the right (with occasionally disastrous results). The Eels would do well to learn from that, and work towards Sivo on the left, where he has the potential to incinerate Staines one-on-one. This means attacking a little wider than they have been, with assists needing to come from Clint Gutherson or Bailey Simonsson, rather than Shaun Lane or Dylan Brown (if they’re working around Lane, they’re likely to find themselves repeatedly shut down by the best defensive half in the competition, Nathan Cleary, who only gives up a line break once every 3 games).
If Parramatta can do all of these things, yes, we believe they can make this game competitive. But that’s an enormous if. If, for example, the Eels play like they did against North Queensland, there’s a serious possibility that Manly’s 40-0 Grand Final record could be in play for the Panthers – that’s how much better the Panthers are than Parramatta on average. The Panthers have the superior offense (3rd v 6th), defense (1st v 9th), and absolutely destroy them for yardage (1st in both RMVOA and RMCVOA, vs 5th and 12th respectively for Parra). If this match plays to form, Penrith should very quickly leave Parramatta eating their dust. But on any given Sunday, you just never know. If Parramatta have taught us anything this year, it’s that.
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