Parramatta star Anthony Watmough has slammed his team's defensive attitude after giving up almost 200 points through the first eight rounds of the NRL season.
Ahead of Sunday's clash against 3rd-placed Melbourne, the Eels languish in 15th spot and have conceded a competition-high 199 points.
While Watmough was confident in the side's ability to post points, he admonished the side for being lazy in defence.
"We're just not working hard enough for each other," he said.
"We can put a hit on. We know we can say, `We can do this, we can do that'. But until we start doing it as a unit, then those little chinks in our armour are going to appear in defence.
"We've got to get our attitude right. That's probably the big thing: attitude in defence. You've got to want to do it for your mate, you've got to want to be there.
"But we're probably just that little bit off, and that's the only difference between teams winning and teams losing."
The high-profile recruit has been openly critical of his individual form since shifting from Manly over the summer, and admits he still isn't where he wants to be at this stage of the season.
But on Tuesday Watmough let fly on his teammates, who have given up almost 20 points more than any other team thus far.
"We'll be sitting up a lot higher if we defended a bit better and you will be going, `You're a genius. You move to a club and you are coming second or third'," he said.
"But we've let ourselves down in defence across the park. I'm not singling out anyone but saying just in general, we're the best attacking team but the worst defensive team.
"We've got to have a hard look at that."
Watmough was omitted from the Kangaroos side that was defeated by New Zealand last weekend, and was rested for the City Country fixture in Wagga Wagga.
Blues coach Laurie Daley picks his team for Game I on Sunday week, however Watmough says he remains focused on helping Parramatta push up the ladder.
"I'll wait for when and if that phone call comes. I'm not going to look too far ahead and I'm not going to read into it too much. We've got a few weeks to go before things start to get really serious there," he said.
Watmough played the first two games of last year's breakthrough series win, but faces a tough task getting a recall with Daley saying age will be a factor at the selection table for the upcoming series.
"Look, it's totally up to them. We might be getting old, but we've done some amazing things together over the years," he said.
"If they look in a new direction, they look in a new direction.
"Who am I to question what they want to do? That's their plan. If they've got a plan to go with youth, then good on them."
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