Hagan's heroes and zeroes
Hagan's heroes and zeroesMelbourne Herald Sun, Australia
Cronulla (8) SOMETIMES one team wants it more than the other and that's how it looked as the
Sharks kicked, chased and tackled better than the Eels over the 80 minutes. The
Sharks made their least amount of errors for the season (seven) and completed
...
Source: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/sport/nrl/story/0,26799,25565717-5016307,00.html
Hagan's heroes and zeroes
By Michael Hagan
June 01, 2009 12:00am
<EDITED> Full article can be found
here
Cronulla (8) SOMETIMES one team wants it more than the other and that's how it looked as the Sharks kicked, chased and tackled better than the Eels over the 80 minutes.
The Sharks made their least amount of errors for the season (seven) and completed 84 per cent of their sets, which was the difference between the two teams.
The decision to elevate rookie halfback Scott Porter to the starting side also paid off.
He kicked early on the tackle count most times and generated 670m from 21 kicks.
Putting Nathan Stapelton to fullback also worked as he fielded kicks well in tough conditions.
He ran 22 times for 184m and made no handling errors in a good performance.
But it was up front that the Sharks mostly dominated.
Their young forwards John Mannah, Kade Snowden and Luke Douglas worked hard and made good metres in the middle of the ground.
They drove the Eels backwards with strong defence and did a good job on Fuifui Moimoi, who was restricted to 99m.
Their senior players Anthony Tupou, Reece Williams and Trent Barrett provided the leadership for the young team, which levelled the scores at 10-all with 12 minutes remaining.
Barrett kicked a wobbly field goal with five minutes remaining and the Sharks players and fans celebrated accordingly.
Parramatta (6) YOU had a feeling the Eels may struggle to score enough points to win without Jarryd Hayne, Kris Keating, Feleti Mateo and Krisnan Inu. This was compounded by their error count, including a clanger on play one 12 minutes from time and 10m off their line when four ahead.
Their coach must have been seething at the lack of execution and patience shown by his team, but it was the fast-moving Sharks defensive line which put them under pressure.
The Eels started well by completing their sets and playing field position, which led to their first try by Joel Reddy after some good work by Todd Lowrie and Daniel Mortimer, who made a solid debut.
Jeff Robson executed a clever kick at the far post for Luke Burt to score after a Cronulla error in yardage to lead 10-6 at the break.
Parramatta applied some pressure to the Sharks in the second half, but a tough call on Matt Keating, when he had the ball stripped at the play-the-ball, and an error by Taniela Lasalo in good field position let the pressure off. The Eels only completed 61 per cent of their second-half sets while Cronulla completed 82 per cent of theirs to win the game.
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