EAGLES FOCUS ON SEASON’S POSITIVES AFTER FINAL-ROUND HEARTBREAK
In an extraordinarily even CRL Whitehead Plumbing & Gas Men’s Premiership, it was inevitable there would be a hard-luck story when the competition was whittled down to four finalists.
Eastern Eagles finished the season with a wet sail and were only seconds away from a Round 14 victory at Halswell Domain that would have catapulted them to a third-place finish and an elimination semi at Wainoni Park.
Instead, a last-gasp Hornets try consigned the Eagles to a 24-20 defeat and fifth on the Massetti Cup ladder. The result is still raw for the club, but the development of a youthful team rendered their 2024 campaign an unequivocal success.
“The boys were pretty devastated, to come so close,” Eagles coach Archie Jacobs admits.
“But there was a lot of learning this year, we’ve got a lot of young players in the squad – a few guys that have never played league before.
“I’m philosophical about it, footy goes that way sometimes and as much as we wanted to be (in the semi-finals) the lead-up to that game had been massive.
“When we started that third round (of regular season matches) we said, ‘we’ve got to win every game, every game’s a grand final’. We won the previous three and didn’t quite get that fourth one.
“I’ve been to a few finals and lost a few finals at various levels, and I understand that footy is like that – that’s why people go and watch it, you don’t know what the outcome’s going to be. It was a great game of footy, but it just wasn’t meant to be for us. But we look forward to next year.”
By almost every metric – barring their eventual 6-1-7 ledger and position on the table – the Eagles had premiership dark horse written all over them.
Eastern claimed a victory against every other team at some stage during the season and finished with a positive points differential, while their biggest loss was by a mere 12 points.
“That’s been one of the keys from last year – we had to find some consistency,” former South Island Scorpions 20s mentor Jacobs explains.
“What (those statistics) tell me is that we never stopped competing, and as a coach that’s all you can really ask. If you’ve got a team that can do that week in, week out, you’re onto a pretty good thing.
“It’s probably a reflection of what we built through the pre-season. We had a very hard pre-season and the boys went through some pretty hard times. But as I said to them, our core value has to be hard work. I want us to be an 80-minute football team.
“There are so many positives to take out of the season. Defensively we were thereabouts, no blowout scores – and we know defensively we could have been better, too.
“As we went through the season we plugged up a few problems we had and at the back-end we started to see a bit of consistency. That’s the most pleasing thing for me and that really came about through the belief, and that belief was set through the hard work.
“The boys knew that in terms of fitness and conditioning we were always going to be there at the end every time. Sometimes we were able to run (our opponents) down because we’d worked so hard.”
A four-match mid-season slide would prove crucial, though, while managing just one win and a draw in six games decided by four points or less was ultimately the difference between featuring in the playoffs and watching the big matches from the sidelines.
But a newfound ability to compete with – and beat – the cream of the CRL Whitehead Plumbing & Gas Men’s Premiership marked a significant step forward.
Setting the tone with a two-point loss to perennial heavyweight Linwood in Round 1, the Eagles went on to earn a 24-all draw against the Keas and a 16-10 win to snap a nine-year drought against their neighbours. An early-season win over Hornby, Jacobs’ former club, at Leslie Park was another highlight.
“We just needed to prove to ourselves how good we were,” asserts Jacobs, who knows his team could have made a splash in the playoffs.
“It would have been very tough to beat Linwood, they turn up for finals – like Hornby – but I would have given us a pretty good chance if we had been able to get in, given how well we play against those teams now.
“Last year when I took over there was still a ‘big brother’ mentality with Linwood – not in a bad way, there can be respect given – and we probably looked over at them like they were going to be hard to beat.
“We give every team a level of respect, but now we know we can beat them.”
The Eagles’ tyros to announce themselves on the top-grade scene this year included: second-rower and first-year rugby league player Amby Pulega; industrious prop Lino Tauti; teenage fullback Simon Uliano; 18-year-old Mino Petelo, who switched from the back-row to wing; Norths Devils Mal Meninga Cup brothers Deijdre and Denzel Siaki; and, returning from rugby union, winger Noah Saukuru.
Meanwhile, wily spine players Cyrus Timo-Latu, Taniela Leka and Uale Peneli found their groove as the campaign wore on and provided the necessary experience and class to tie the effervescent Eagles line-up together.
The efforts of the squad this year is set to have a snowball effect in interest to don the red and white jersey in 2025.
“I’ve had a few messages from guys I’ve coached over the years who want to come over and have a run with the boys,” Jacobs reveals.
“For me, I don’t care what your reputation is, if you work hard and you’re consistent you’re in with a fair crack.”
The season is far from over for Eastern as a club, with the Eagles’ Canterbury Cup side setting the pace for much of the year before landing second on the table with a great chance of carrying off the silverware on CRL Grand Final Day at Ngā Puna Wai on August 11.
The Premier Reserve side’s success is another sign of the progress the Eagles have made collectively over the past 12 months.
“When I came over I said the only way you can be successful is for both the prems and Bs to be successful,” Jacobs says.
“You look at every side who’s won the premiership over the last 10 or 15 years, generally their B side’s in the final or winning it.
“When you’re coaching a premier side, you’re coaching a squad – you want to have that consistency right across, doing very similar things so when guys are transitioning in and out it’s not so hard for them.”
EASTERN EAGLES – 2024 TALE OF THE TAPE
Played 14 – Won 6, Lost 7, Drew 1 (5th)
Points for – 294; Points against – 271
ROUND 1 – lost v Keas 14-16 (A)
ROUND 2 – won v Greyhounds 22-17 (H)
ROUND 3 – lost v Knights 14-24 (N)
ROUND 4 – won v Hornets 32-10 (H)
ROUND 5 – won v Panthers 16-10 (A)
ROUND 6 – drew v Keas 24-24 (H)
ROUND 7 – lost v Greyhounds 20-24 (A)
ROUND 8 – lost v Knights 20-22 (H)
ROUND 9 – lost v Hornets 14-24 (N)
ROUND 10 – lost v Panthers 16-28 (H)
ROUND 11 – won v Keas 16-10 (H)
ROUND 12 – won v Greyhounds 44-20 (N)
ROUND 13 – won v Knights 22-18 (A)
ROUND 14 – lost v Hornets 20-24 (A)
