MICHAEL HAGAN: The gold and blueprint for Eels to break premiership drought

I can’t remember a finals series where a couple of the bottom-ranked teams are coming in with the best momentum and form at the right time.

The sixth-placed Roosters have the best attack of any team in the last five weeks (average of 36.5) and the eighth-placed Raiders are running a close second at 32.5.

Meanwhile, in the top four the Sharks have the best defence in the last five weeks, averaging 11 per game, and the Eels are ranked second (14).

Panthers vs Eels

The Eels have also won their last three games and I like what I see in Parramatta having the building blocks to be a premiership-winning team.

Whether they finally break their long-running drought or not remains to be seen but they have everything in place to at least make the Grand Final while a Preliminary Final would be a pass mark and anything short of that would be a failure.

Any team that wins a premiership needs an element of luck, especially with injuries, but you also need cohesion, a clever halves combination, some X-factor, a strong engine room up front and momentum.

Looking at the Parra roster this year, they’ve used 27 players over the 24 matches but seven of those guys only filled in a few times here and there so they’ve had the luxury of keeping the same core team on the park more often than not.

Cohesion is important both off the field and at training but also when you’re out on the park and you know where each player likes to be, what their strengths are and how to cover up their weaknesses.

The Eels have made the semi-final stage in four of the past five years and many of the current members of the team have built up some battle scars from those playoff exits. They’d be sick and tired of coming up short and just like we saw with Souths (who lost a couple of prelim finals before they won) in 2014, the Cowboys in 2015 and the Sharks in 2016, droughts can be broken.

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

There’ll be a Parramatta team at some point that does it, these guys will have that mindset of why can’t we be the ones.

I coached there for a couple of seasons 15 years ago and pressure to repeat the 1980s glory days era is always nagging away in the background at that club. It is a psychological road block to overcome but this team seems to have been able to put that to one side.

There’s been talk that their premiership window could be closing after this year because there’s a fair few players leaving in the off-season. I agree that most teams only have two or three years to compete for a title before things start to drop off and the Eels’ window won’t slam shut after this year but this is their best chance and it will slightly tighten next season.

A premiership team needs halves who complement each other and the Eels have got that with Mitchell Moses directing the side around the park and Dylan Brown putting the finishing touches on.

Moses’ kicking game is critical and he’s played four seasons now with Brown and they’ve developed a halves partnership that reminds me a bit of what Jarome Luai and Nathan Cleary had struck up at Penrith by last year when they went all the way to the title.

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

I’ve been impressed with what I’ve seen, especially late in the season, how they set up in certain spots on the field and then sending it wide for Moses to give Brown, Clint Gutherson, Shaun Lane and Maika Sivo down the left edge. 

With Isaiah Papali’i on the right edge, they’ve got plenty of X-factor for those times in games, particularly in finals, when you desperately need to put points on the board. 

And another important factor for any team that has won a Grand Final for as long as I can remember is having two front-rowers who can churn through the hard yards up the middle. 

Junior Paulo and Reagan Campbell-Gillard are in career-best form and along with Reed Mahoney, they keep the middle tight in defence. Shifting Ryan Matterson to lock also seems to have brought the best out in him and I like that he can play long minutes.

Momentum is also on Parramatta’s side – they were dominant against Melbourne last week and they’re entering the finals as probably the form team of the NRL along with the Roosters.

Penrith could regret their decision to rest nearly their entire team last week against the Cowboys. It’s a pretty big gamble and they’ve got Nathan Cleary coming back in after his five-game suspension so their momentum is not the same as what it was coming into the finals this time last year.

Parra don’t seem to fear the Panthers, which some other teams tend to do.

Storm vs Raiders

Jahrome Hughes coming back means they have that three-way attacking strikeforce back together with Cameron Munster and Harry Grant.

I’d be tempted to move Munster back to five-eighth with Nick Meaney at fullback because I think when he’s in the halves with Hughes, they seem to have better cohesion.

(Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)

In big games, you need Origin or international standard guys in those two positions and Canberra have found their mojo since Jack Wighton and Jamal Fogarty have been able to string a few games together in the halves.

They’ve won seven of their past eight and they’ve been quite successful in Melbourne the last couple of years so, with Joe Tapine and Josh Papalii, they have the physicality to match Nelson Asofa-Solomona and Jesse Bromwich up front.

Melbourne and the Raiders have developed a healthy rivalry and this game should go down to the wire, especially with two of the best (and most competitive coaches) in the NRL in Craig Bellamy and Ricky Stuart – one of whom will go home disappointed.

Sharks vs Cowboys

Cronulla getting the tick-off to play at Shark Park is a huge advantage and a good reward for finishing second. 

North Queensland are still a young team who have finished their season strongly with three wins from five games but are still learning how to prepare and handle the occasion against quality teams. Their recent form in Sydney for big games against the Rabbitohs and the Roosters wasn’t their best but it provided some good experience for the playoffs.

I think the Cowboys are learning around how to play at certain venues and how to handle the pressure. They need to learn a couple of lessons fairly quickly about adversity, in dealing with situations when things are going against them. But they are healthy and full of running at this time of year.

The Sharks have a few quality players to come back in and will be tough to beat on Saturday night.

(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

Roosters vs Rabbitohs

It will be much different to last week in terms of intensity with a few big guns coming back for each team.

The Roosters have been up for the past two months, winning eight straight, and Souths have the benefit of Cameron Murray, Damien Cook and Campbell Graham coming back.

The form of James Tedesco, who lines up against Latrell Mitchell, will have a huge bearing on the outcome along with the intense battle up front.

Having the best defence is so important at this time of year and the Roosters have made great strides in that area at the end of the season conceding less than 14 points per game.

In all four of the playoffs in week one I don’t think the favourites will have it all their own way and I am expecting a couple of upsets.

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