Dyldam Parramatta Eels forward David Gower gave us an honest assessment of the Blue and Gold performance after they fell to the Wests Tigers at ANZ Stadium yesterday afternoon, saying that the Eels had let themselves and the fans down.
“It wasn’t up to standard at all,” Gower said.
“It’s a bad thing to say in hindsight but we were a little bit behind from the start.”
“Our set plays that we nail everyday of the week, our passes were behind and we were shooting ourselves in the foot. We just weren’t crisp and it’s just so disappointing,”
“We should have been able to build on a great game last week and we let ourselves and the fans down and for that we apologise,” Gower added.
The Eels finished the game with a 74% completion rate, and the forward admitted that it was the team’s poor handing that gave the Tigers opportunities late in the game.
“Lack of possession was our own doing. Especially in that second half, when we were up 6-4 with ten to go, we just kept turning the ball over and you can’t afford to give them a chance.”
“The Tigers are a confident team and they played some good footy lately and we just kept giving them opportunities.”
“If you give a team enough opportunities, it’s eventually going to wear you out and unfortunately for us, that’s the most disappointing thing for us because we pride ourselves on being able to continually turn teams away and we weren’t good enough today.”
With ten minutes to go and the Eels holding a two point lead, Gower highlighted a key moment in the game that may have turned the result"
“That try they got, in my opinion it should have been a shepherd; he received the ball on the inside of the second lead, but it’s yesterdays news now that they have scored it.”
“It was a turning point in hindsight because after that we just didn’t complete and they scored two or three more late and one was on me and I’m pretty disappointed personally.”
With Reece Robinson ruled out late through injury and Ryan Morgan unable to return in the second half due to a concussion, Gower and Manu Ma’u were shifted to the centres. However Gower did not use this as an excuse.
“It impacted, and we just had to have a reshuffle of our team but we have great depth in our club and we pride ourselves on not making excuses if people go down.”
“We are proud men and we are proud Parramatta players and every time we lace the boots up or put the shirt on, we are going to give our all for the team and for the fans and the worst part is we didn’t do that today.”
“We let ourselves down and more importantly we let the fans down.”
With a 5 day turnaround, Gower urged the Blue and Gold to turn out in numbers when the Eels take on the Gold Coast Titans on Saturday 11 April at Pirtek Stadium.
“After a disappointing loss like that it’s pretty important to get back on the horse as quick as you can and lucky for us we are playing at home at Pirtek and we will need the Blue and Gold Army there in numbers to get us back on track”
