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Roosters defensive system at fault as Eels run rampant
The Sydney Roosters’ indifferent NRL season has continued with Trent Robinson’s men falling out of the top eight with a 26-16 loss to Parramatta.
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Considered a frontrunner for the premiership this season, the Roosters were dismantled in the opening 40 minutes by a slick Eels outfit who bounced back emphatically from Monday’s shock loss to Canterbury.
The Roosters, usually renowned for their stoic defence under coach Robinson, have conceded 146 points across their past six games.
Granted they lost brothers Egan and Nat Butcher to concussion and were without Luke Keary, Victor Radley and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, but the Roosters (7-8) have won just once in their past five outings.
“I don’t believe it’s personnel, whoever comes in should be able to do the job,” Robinson said of his side’s porous defence.
“When you come in you execute the principles and the system you want to apply.
“We haven’t been able to get that done, so it’s definitely our (defensive) system.
“They change angles a lot and we should’ve executed on that. We lost the ruck but attacked well and our combinations were good.”
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On the eve of selections for State of Origin II, Parramatta duo Ryan Matterson and Reagan Campbell-Gillard gave good accounts of themselves in the battle for NSW spots and Eels coach Brad Arthur confirmed Matterson would re-sign on a four-year deal..
Campbell-Gillard and the Roosters’ Queensland prop Lindsay Collins were both placed on report.
Roosters winger Joseph Suallii grabbed a try double to press his claim for a NSW berth.
Suallii kickstarted one of the most chaotic opening halves of the season, evading a Maika Sivo tackle to touch down in front of 21,757 fans at Commbank Stadium in the third minute.
The Eels immediately responded with late offloads from back-rower Shaun Lane to send Clint Gutherson and Dylan Brown over for tries, with Isaiah Papali’i also touching down.
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Sitili Tupouniua hit back for the Roosters but just before half-time Parramatta went up a gear and Robinson’s men couldn’t go with them.
A try to Sivo, who had earlier sent Joey Manu flying with a one-handed fend, started on the Eels’ left, went through 10 different sets of hands to the right and finished with the big Fijian crashing over on the left-hand edge.
Reed Mahoney further hammered home the Eels advantage to give them a 26-12 lead at the break.
“We’ve got to have that drive and the killer instinct to play like that every week,” said Arthur.
“We’ve got to make sure we don’t go to games relying on our talent. We were close to the best version of ourselves tonight and we’ve got to do that every week.
“I liked our second half more than our first half. They came at us extremely hard because we showed plenty of grit.”
At the start of the second half Suaalii regathered his own chip kick to give hope of a response from the Roosters, but when Egan Butcher was knocked out cold, the fizz went out of the game.
Butcher was taken off the field by a medicab in the 54th minute and neither side scored thereafter.
Comments on RugbyPass
Who got the benefits out of Schmidt, Lowe, Aki, and Gibson Park?
11 Go to commentsWhat’s new its a common occurrence, just the journos out there expecting a negative spin. The outcome will be beneficial to jordie and Leinster. The home grown lads hav got some experience to step up to and be more competitive, that or spend the 6 months keeping the bench warm.
11 Go to commentsI’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
1 Go to commentsThose are pretty good draws for the two top Aussie teams. I certainly wouldn't want my Chiefs to have a quarter final in Brisbane. None of the top teams will want the Crusaders.
1 Go to commentsHonestly, I am a bit lost here …. Ireland - RSA was (at least in my opinion) perhaps (from a purely technical / rugby-skills-show point of view) the pinnacle of the RWC2023 - almost flawless playing (putting aside the kicking of RSA which was the difference between the two teams), rugby at it’s very best …. if I were a Bok and after the game some Irish lads came around saying “see you in 5 weeks same place”, I definitely wouldn’t have thought of it as being in any way “arrogant”, rather a sort of jolly “if we both continue to play like this, no one could stop us” - besides, few of us fans would have, at that time, been surprised to see the same teams playing on 23 september and 28 october 2023 ….. well, we all know Ireland chose to hit a slump to keep the QF curse alive …..
135 Go to commentsThere’s value gleaned from having an All Black star running and training with your team. How many games he starts (or even where he plays in the backline) will be decided on a week by week basis based on the needs for that week. But the overall learning and growth for all concerned, I’d think, is massively beneficial. Especially for Irish players.
11 Go to commentsSon, whith just " raw athlete “ , you are able to beat “ better rugby players “ by 74 points…. May be England should recruit in athletics….
1 Go to commentsPffft. It’s not a one-way street bud and Irish teams don’t seem to have had an issue taking kiwi players previously.
11 Go to commentsParticularly great to have captain Scott Barrett back after going off last week for the Crusaders. Codie Taylor a real leader and mighty Tamaiti Williams join Fletcher Newell in the front row. Those 2 will make a big difference. Great bench with the likes of Tom Christie, Jamie Hannah etc who are playing well. Should be a great derby.
1 Go to commentsDoes a blitz defence not have a weekness against a well-placed grubber kick, perhaps angled cleverly. All the defence is up and the full-back can only cover so much ground. Thoughts?
28 Go to commentsWhile Iose is destructive in the Canes set-up, he is not big for an international 8 and could struggle against the top teams. With his speed, he could be developed into a seven but, as Ben points out, he doesn’t show a scavenging game with the Canes or make dominating tackles. Sotutu has shown a step up this year and attitude plus motivation seems to be the big areas of growth. Deserves another AB shot imo.
3 Go to commentsNaholo is my only question mark for this side. He wasn’t the only one who had a forgettable game against the Brumbies but he was passive, defensively poor and generally lacked energy. Needs to get a whole lot busier for me. I would have liked to see Sullivan on that wing with Higgins on the bench (if staying with a 6-2 as BeegMike points out on here!)
3 Go to commentsWell, I am sure that Eben said exactly what he meant to say, exactly how he meant to say it. Does he strike you as a man that doesn't know arrogance when he sees it. He should know it because he has shaken the arrogance out of many foes before.
135 Go to commentsPls get it into your thick arrogant heads that the final was played by two Southern Hemisphere teams. The best against the best and that Argentina was just unlucky otherwise non of the Northetn Hemisphere teams would have seen the light of day.
135 Go to commentsAs long as New Zealand youth are involved in sport they are passionate for, and are well supported, it’s all good. I love league as well as rugby. NRL clubs have long since scouted the First 15 competitions, the NH and Japan scout super rugby and NPC. It’s a miracle there’s any players left for the all blacks to pick from.
4 Go to commentsI'm a Bok fan, so I don't say this lightly, but he is one of my all time favourite players. I am really going to miss watching him play. Thanks for many great memories. You are a true legend of the game.
3 Go to commentsBest way to deal with all of this is to play another game.
135 Go to commentsIt’s 12-15 games Luke. Ringrose has barely played in 2024 and Henshaw and Keenan have also been out for spells in the same time period. There are always injuries and for younger players to play with the likes of Barrett will be great for them. It’s just looking for negatives where there are none.
11 Go to commentsAndy Goode pushing his own agenda with very dubious considerations on refereeing performances. Luke Pearce speaking a bit of French doesn’t make him a good and adequate referee for the Champions Cup final; his latest refereeing performance in particular was not so great.
4 Go to commentsJordie knows that he has to earn the right to put on the jersey, whatever that jersey might be.
11 Go to comments