While there may be still some doubt at the top and middle of the table, the bottom four for 2012 has been settled.
It is not even ten rounds into the season, but it’s clear that Parramatta, Penrith, Canberra and the Gold Coast still have a long 2012 in front of them.
These teams’ output has been poor to pathetic to date. Parramatta and Penrith are copping weekly hidings, while Canberra and the Gold Coast are not much better.
Most Eels’ fans had given up on this season a few weeks after it started, and some had given up even before that. Parramatta are a joke. Their team lacks talent and their new halfback looks like he doesn’t want to be there.
The Chris Sandow fiasco is very similar to when Adam Dykes went to Parra, but actually wanted to stay at the Sharks.
The way he played, you could tell where he wanted to be. Sandow is South Sydney through and through. He took the big dollars but doesn’t want to be an Eel.
The Eels should send him back to Souths – although Souths may not want him back. Souths are going pretty well this year, and young Adam Reynolds is turning out to be a decent first grade halfback.
Penrith’s form over the last four games has been disgraceful. Blokes like Gus Gould, Ian Chappell and Craig Foster have always had all the answers in the media, but getting in and doing it in administration level or within a team is far harder because you have to deal with the politics involved.
Gus has gone in at the deep end and his team is a rabble. Look at Michael Jennings, another high paid player, he doesn’t appear to be even trying. Even the recruitment of supposedly decent coach Ivan Cleary has failed to spark this side.
As for the Raiders, you can pinpoint the moment it was clear David Furner couldn’t coach. In his first year of coaching Canberra played Parramatta at Parramatta stadium.
Canberra used a scrum move where the scrum broke two ways and the lock ran through the middle of the broken scrum to score what was a disallowed try.
Now, this may have been great in 1978 but to use this in 2009 during the video review era was farcical and showed a bloke who didn’t show innovation, rather just a lack of ideas on how to score tries.
Gold Coast put in a decent show against the West Tigers, just losing in golden point, but with Scott Prince slowing down they will finish in the bottom four.
The good news for the other teams is now only 12 teams are effectively fighting for a top eight finish.
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