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Selection tricks more fantabulist than fabulous for Eels and Dragons

A late selection bombshell and an interchange that made little sense — Magic Round saw two coaches attempt to pull a rabbit from their hat and fail miserably.

Rob SutherlandRob Sutherland
@rob_sutherland3
2 min read
May 14, 2019 - 6:02AM

A late selection bombshell and an interchange that made little sense. Magic Round saw two coaches attempt to pull a rabbit from their hat and fail miserably.

* I should preface this by saying both of the coaches I critique here know more about rugby league than I ever will — but I know stupid and these moves were stupid.

MAHONEY BENCHED, GUTHO TO DUMMY HALF?

The Storm were in a mood on Saturday night, and therefore I’m not suggesting coach Brad Arthur’s bizarre late selection move is solely to blame for the result — but it certainly did not help. To set the scene, young hooker Reed Mahoney has stepped into the starting role this year and made such a success of it that he was being talked about as a potential Origin selection despite having played less than 20 games of first grade.

Clint Gutherson of the Eels looks dejected after yet another Storm try. Picture: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images
Clint Gutherson of the Eels looks dejected after yet another Storm try. Picture: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

Coming in to the round Mahoney was one of only three players to have made more than 400 tackles and he had the attack humming nicely with two tries and two try assists in the past three weeks not to mention the most linebreaks of any player at his position.

At fullback the Eels had Clint Gutherson, The King, ruling his position. Gutherson led the NRL for run metres, led the league in linebreak assists and was fifth in the league for try assists.

To summarise Arthur’s Eels had a hooker who was defending as well as any hooker in the competition and a fullback who was leading the attack as well as any other in his position.

Not content with greatness, Arthur then inexplicably benched Mahoney ahead of the Storm clash and asked his fullback to stop trailing the play in attack searching out weaknesses and calling for runners to probe holes and instead focus on playing dummy half.

The move failed spectacularly. The Eels looked rudderless in attack and discombobulated in defence and Melbourne were 12-0 up after 18 minutes.

Somebody talked sense into Arthur and Mahoney came on to the field in the 20th minute, but the damage was done. Melbourne had their tails up and went on to score a soul-destroying 64 points.

The move did not decide the game, but it set the tone and the tone was poor.

UP 18-12 MCGREGOR BENCHES LOMAX AND PAYS THE PRICE

In the 50th minute of the game between the Dragons and the Warriors, Ben Hunt puts up a bomb, Zac Lomax flies through the air, knocks the ball back to Makaele Ravalawa who runs through to score a try. But he didn’t. The touch judge says Lomax propelled the ball forward (he didn’t) and so it’s a handover to the Warriors.

That’s it for Lomax though, despite having already scored a try and being the team’s goalkicker, coach Paul McGregor hooks the kid and puts Euan Aitken on. That’s the same Aitken who had been pretty darn horrible all year and had been recently demoted from starting centre to the bench — for good reason.

The Warriors pile on the points scoring a try minutes later (not Aitken’s fault it was on the other side) and then two more both of which benefited from poor defensive reads by Aitken.

If Aitken was not good enough to play 80 minutes, why does McGregor think he can manage 20?

Originally published as Selection tricks more fantabulist than fabulous for Eels and Dragons

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Original URL: https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/nrl/selection-tricks-more-fantabulist-than-fabulous-for-eels-and-dragons/news-story/3fd857b77e2b86cd595e22d8a023464e