Hi everyone, hope you had a great week and I am sure you are looking forward to tonight as much as I am. I was also looking forward to checking out Silvertails this week. The Manly fan forum is well renowned in social media circles, right up there with 1EE and The Kennel. From what I have seen, those three sites are head and shoulders above the rest. Silvertails didn’t let us down!! The blog on the Eels salary cap issues has over 1000 responses and 47000 views. Gees that chip on their shoulder is huge!

One thing I have noticed is there seems to be a growing mutual respect between Eels fans on 1EE and Dogs fans on The Kennel. This was highlighted by a an effort to generate some money for an ill Bulldogs fan last year, and some friendly bets this year on the result of our contest in round three. The Dogs fans were genuine enough to settle their bets as well. No such love between Eels and Sea Eagles fans though…they hate us more then ever, for obvious reasons.

The three main topics for the forum this week were

1. tonights game
2. Foran returning
3. salary cap

The Game

The common sense bloggers are worried about tonight. They view our form as strong, our left side a dangerous and our halves as way superior to theirs. The crazies think that Brookvale will get them home.

• ‘Apart from the GF this is the game I most want us to win this year’.
• ‘Every manly fan on Thursday night should be chanting cheats if and only if they score’.
• ‘I’m feeling good about this game. We are due a win at Brookie. And we both played on Saturday so no five day turn around excuses from Barrett. Eels have looked real good. But at home we are capable of doing it. Bring it home coach’.

• ‘I’m so keen for this week, it will be game of the year IMO both teams finding form. I really can’t see us winning but if we do it will be off the back of our defence and our toughness. I’m saying parra by 6 it will be a brave effort from the boys but Foran and Norman will be to good for us to stop. I’d love to here the crowd give a spray to parra were gonna plenty of support against the cheats’!
• ‘As a team we are not where they need to be to compete with in form sides. Parra by 16’.
• ‘I can’t see us winning. However, if Foran does his hammy in the process it will ease the pain somewhat’.
• ‘Can’t see why there is so much negativity revthis game – we are improving its at Brookvale parra won’t play as well as they did last week against a very poor Canberra effort’.
• ‘Maybe someone should sound out Radradra on Thursday and see if he’s interested in wearing a Manly jersey. No one in an Eels jersey has passed him a ball since 2015′. For some reason I have never been so confident of a stiring win and a defining moment for our players and club’
• ‘Very similar build up and feel for another battle of brookvale coming as we finally prove our point on another bunch of cheating Prix who did what they can to hurt the club. Our players will remember. Manly by a heap after first half onslaught. Time to reclaim the fortress’
• ‘This could be the match of the year so far. The Eels have started well, but remember folks, it is Parramatta – its only a matter of time till they fall into disarray’.

Foran

A lot of dribble here as you would expect.

• ‘Going to boo him for the fact he is playing against Manly, but unlike choc, who when he left said some pretty horrible things about Manly, at least Kieran has nothing but good things to say about manly and acknowledged that the sea Eagles had given him everything and taught him everything he knows about footy. Still has some great memories and good relationships and nothing but fond memories of the club’.
• ‘It’s sucks he plays for parra but you can’t begrudge the guy too much, he’s a pretty respectable player in my eyes’
• ‘Too me he’s a spoilt, self absorbed, over entitled whiny brat. I’m so happy we don’t have to go through 6-8 months of him um-ing and ah- ing before every contract like he thinks he the golden child’.
• ‘He knew that he was leaving manly 12 months before announcing it. He carefully planned his departure to make it look as though he was torn between staying and going’. ‘He was always going and it shows that he is deceitful and a liar who only cares about himself’.
• ‘You wouldn’t want to be in the trenches with him with the enemy is coming over the top as he would be sitting in the corner sooking and doing nothing knowing that he had already joined the enemy. I wont be that emotional when he runs out. Reason being because ill be shadow boxing his head’.
• ‘He was my favourite player, but now I can’t bare to look at him. I’m not going to rubbish him, but I completely understand why people do, despite the fact that it’s getting old & boring. But none of the vitriol, can change the fact that our club lost a player, that used to be just as ‘Manly’, as the club flag. He should’ve finished as one of our greats’.
• ‘He played well last week for the Slime, if he brings that tomorrow night it’s going to be a tough outing for us. Our edge defence has been scratchy this year, and him going to the line with big units running off him could get ugly for us. Hopefully his first run down our left edge is stopped dead in its tracks with a Matai special. It’ll be hard to take if he dominates us’.
• ‘Foran, zero is your Next Level’
• ‘I think the consensus is that we don’t like him anymore’!

Salary Cap

If the club sold these in blue and gold we could pay off our fines

They saved their best for this topic.

• ‘Parramatta, the premiership club …… what an outstanding oxymoron’.
• ‘I can’t believe the NRL are querying this. Choc’s excellent computer programming skills are well known. Clearly he developed the app’.
• ‘An ex player that I have known for 25 years, spent 31 years at the Eels. He was so well thought of they named a building after him. He brought great success on the field and off. He got moved along in a political move. It cut deep’.
• ‘The management/board is such a mess makes ours look like a well oiled machine. If I was an Eels supporter I would be gutted by some of their actions’. – yeah well I think we are. 

This post was on Feb 3, quite prophetic. ‘If I were part of Parra I would just say “hands up, we didn’t realise, it was an honest mistake but we understand it is a breach and accept the punishment of the NRL salary cap commission”. Otherwise the investigation will just dig deeper and deeper and the way I see it, no club is that clean skinned that they could withstand a detailed deep digging investigation’.

More…

• ‘Pauli Pauli is an apt adjective to describe how Doesn’tmatter is run’. – not bad
• ’10 points is solid but the size of the penalty should reflect what they have done’. – wow some common sense !!!
• ‘Part of this will be the dollar value of the rorting, but another part is the level of dishonesty and cover-up involved’. and in my view that is where the punishment will come from. 
• ‘In the Eels case this does not sound like incompetence. Or negligence. It sounds like deliberate cheating, in which case hammer them down to zero for the year’.
• ‘GREG INGLIS IS PARRA’S ACCOUNTANT’

They have even taken to writing nursery rhymes about us…

Alas Hoppa Junior, didn’t get a thing

Choc was in the counting-house, counting out his money;
Foran was in the parlour, eating Brad and honey;

Hasson was in the garden, banging out the goats,
When down came a Greenturd and took away their boats”

and songs…some not bad, highlighted by this one.

“Sing a song of Salary cap,a pocket full of cash,
Foran twenty Parra players, have a secret stash,
When the books were opened the birds began to sing,
Parra, bend over, and take it in the ring’

• ‘They should be playing for no points this year. Karma I believe it is called’
• ‘The one eyed eels site is an absolute crack up at the moment. It seems like some of their posters keep posting all the negative press articles just to stir others up. Someone posted the Zorba article and I have never seen such rude comments about Zorba, even on this site’.

• Yeah they seem to oscillate between blaming the media and blaming Steve Sharp and the board’.
• ‘Some of them are even condoning the cheating and are blaming disgruntled ex board members or whoever it is that’s leaking info to the press’.
• ‘You’d have to think that if its not a major penalty that the other 15 clubs would almost revolt’!!
• ‘If they just give them a slap on the wrist ( quite possible) I think the fans should pummel the media demanding Toddy’s head’.
• ‘If in fact they just lose say 2 or 4 points ( slap on the wrist) we will know that in reality the NRL neither owns or runs the game, TV will have decided what they want’!!

Just now on BSB, Jamie Lyon said:
Manly were nervous before their first game this year with all the new faces.
Their first training session since the Warriors game happens at 9am today.
Having the youngsters in the halves is making him feel ten years younger.
Broookie’s had an upgrade – they’ve fixed a couple of seats.
He’s been working with a kicking coach – Damian Hill. Coincidentally, his golf swing has also improved.
He hopes we give Foran the same welcome he gets every time he goes back to Parramatta but minus the coins maybe.

Unfortunately, with DCE out tonight, there was no mention of him anywhere. Still love this from the front page of the Gold Coast Bulletin. You may have seen it before.

ok thats it for this week. Next up I am back to the Cowboys Stampede hoping to have more to report than last time when I fell asleep reading their forum. You would think the premiers would have something to say wouldn’t you?

Go the Eels,

Chris

Pictures courtesy of google.

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