On a day that felt like an early taste of summer, the Eels squad took to Salesyards Field 1 for an extended fitness and ball work session. To be honest, it was a surprise to witness ball work during the first week of pre-season training, but with quite few new faces in the squad it was probably a good idea to get the blokes as familiar with each other, and our patterns, as soon as possible.
Ronnie Palmer – An Early Observation
As Geoff, Al and I watched Ronnie put the blokes through their paces, we commented on the drills being football relevant. The combinations of runs, lateral movements and hitting the ground at regular intervals would all contribute to being football fit. Effort upon effort is required in the modern game and is becoming even more pertinent under the reduced interchange. As Geoff wisely offered, “there’s a lot of muscle memory in what they’re doing.”
What we witnessed during 2016 was a Parramatta team that was football tough. Adding Ronnie Palmer to the staff will only take this to the next level. The veteran trainer has seen it all in a career that has him at legend status in rugby league circles. His knowledge and expertise in working with footballers is second to none and I’m expecting the squad to very quickly show the benefit of his work.
The Cougar at work!
The Ball Work
From complex grid drills to running standard attacking shapes at defenders, the players looked very sharp. It’s important to emphasise that under BA, there is a genuine emphasis on producing footballers. To clarify, some coaches in recent times have surrounded their footballers (blokes who can use the ball) with athletes. These Eels players all work on their ability to use the footy.
It’s commonplace to see the coaching staff working individually with players to make small adjustments in how they position their hands and feet in both receiving and delivering the football. Whether it be position specific or directed at up-skilling all of the squad, the drills and extras are producing a team of footballers who are more than just ball runners.
Working with the football so early in the pre-season is also engaging for the players. These blokes know that they are going to get flogged at this time of the year so most keep themselves in really good shape during their time off. Mixing up the work keeps the blokes fresh in what almost amounts to a 12 month season for many of them. I know that quite a few enjoyed this session today.
The Standouts
To be honest, the entire squad trained superbly today. That might sound like a ridiculous “rose coloured glasses” comment to make, but it’s an accurate one. All of the players look incredibly fit and a quick conversation with BA after training confirmed our thoughts. As he observed, there’s blokes in the squad who’ve made sure that they’ve returned from the off-season fitter than they’ve ever been. It’s a good place to build a season from.
As Craig Sultana pointed out to us, the elite players are often easy to pick. They’re the ones who maintain fitness, lead the drills and always do extras. It’s no accident that such blokes are NRL stars, because they put in the hard yards every season.
A surprise for me was the fitness of Kirisome Auva’a. Obviously he hasn’t been involved in NRL squad training for a little while and will need to build his fitness. However, he has looked quite fit in his return to work and looks a little taller than I realised.
Welcome Smith and Vave
I must give these two blokes a special shout out for saying g’day to us today. Both seem like great blokes and Siosaia is bound to be one of those big bloke characters that rugby league fans love to cheer. I’ve always been impressed with Will Smith’s pace and he confirmed that he was probably competing with DWZ at Penrith when it came to fastest at the club. Both Vave and Smith will add an extra dimension to the squad this year.
A special thumbs up for TCT from our new recruits.
The Extras
All players were working on extras at the conclusion of the session, with most concentrating on passing skills. Tepai and Peni were doing some interesting work with one hand catches sharpening their hand/eye coordination. The extras is where you see members of the squad getting that individual attention to fine tune aspects of the game. It’s well worth watching.
Our halves and dummy-halves completed their extras with some impressive kicking. Jamal Fogarty, Kaysa Pritchard and Cameron King practised their kicking to the corners, and the accumulation of footballs around the corner posts was evidence of the accuracy on display.
We had to put this great shot of Kenny in somewhere!
Author’s Comment
I normally don’t get to these early pre-season sessions, but I’m glad that I caught a couple this week. My thanks go to all of the staff and players for making us feel so welcome. The football department are creating a great connection with the fans, and though these aren’t “open training sessions” we’ve had our share of players and staff greeting us after they’ve completed their work (please note – this shouldn’t be treated by fans as an expectation. There are dedicated fan days for such purposes and normal training days are not meet and greets.).
Nonetheless, the opportunity to have a yarn with the staff has helped our understanding of what the team are aiming for this year. I hope to bring further training updates via “Friend of the Throw” correspondent Geoff (Parrathruandthru)
Eels forever!
Sixties
All images (except of Vave and Smith) courtesy of the Parramatta Eels.
Having had a look through the two galleries on the eels home page, I have to say they all look in good nick indeed. A player I have a bit of an opinion of, and am hopping he makes the grade is Alex Twal. from a couple of the photo’s of him in the forwards gallery he seems to have put on some muscle and size in his upper body area, which should hold him good steed.
Its also interesting that for all accounts he had already signed an contract with the club that took him till end of 2017, however he is also now shown as having signed a contract for the same length of time, end of 2017. Has he been upgraded or something?
I think that there may have been existing contracts included in the list (though I couldn’t say for certain). Alex looked quite impressive on Tuesday. Led a couple of fitness drills.
Sounds good.
Jack I have had a gut suspicion for a while now that once the likes of Wicks, Mannah finish they would be replaced with Twal and Alvaro. With Brown now signed and if he controls his play those three I think will be or at least could be the mainstay for a few years. Alvaro and Twal both need a couple of more years to harden up their muscles and work rate, although Alvaro was more than adequate this season, if he continues his build, then all good.
Colin I agree with twal, looking bigger, stronger and fit! Truely hope he develops into a first grade player for us in the near future. He certainly stood out in the pictures.
Jack and Col, it shapes as an important year for Alex. Had some strong games last year but thought he tapered off near season’s end.
Mate, like all players they will have to play tops to earn a spot also a contract. For a young player and prop age is in his corner, when compared to others. There’s certainly other players in the squad that age is not in their corner and question as to how long they can go for. While much will depend on his play, more will depend on what the coach sees of him in the future, but for me, I think he is too valuable a young prop to lose, needs likely 2 more years to show what he can do.
Great read Sixties, you’ve got me pumped for next season already. Keep up the good work guys.
TCT will be a must read for all us Eels tragics………
Thanks for the kind words Kev. We will aim to step it up even more next year.
Interesting that we’re doing ball work already. Saw on Taka’s instagram yesterday that some of the boys were playing touch footy, some awesome ball work from the boys.
I have just noticed the eels player profile page has had a couple of alterations on it with Jack Morris and Alex Twal added to it, and Watmough is now gone. David Gower is still shown so maybe he’s not signed with SL.
Gowie has been a great servant Colin.
Mate, I believe he is very underrated by eels fans. He came here and has given his all, and I believe played above his weight.
He will likely need to have top form though to oust some of the forwards from the top team next year though.
Colin I was on the Central Coast on Saturday and getting some petrol. As I climbed out of my car I noticed the vehicle parked next to me had Eels stickers all over it, very invested fan. I looked up to the driver who was jumping back into his car and he had an Eels insignia tatooed on his skull. First I thought it may have been you then I noticed the “Kev” number plates on his car as he drove away.
Now that is a dedicated Eels supporter. The coloured Eels insignia in the tatoo on the shaved skull had to be 10 cm’s in diameter.
That’s what you call passionate support John!
John. that was not me. The last eels car sticker I had was one of the very first put out by the club that said. I’m a sticker for the eels.
I regretfully have two tats, the result of a drunken night in my very early 20’s along with an ordinary needle and bottle of indian ink, with two so called mates being the tattooists. Thankfully my shirts hide the rotters.
Went to Wyong Leagues last Tuesday, and there was a black highly clean 4 wheel drive in there, with a very big eels sticker on back window along with eels number plates on it. Looked pretty good I thought.
Thanks for the heads up about his Instagram.
Once again, quality article Sixites.
Looking forward to more
Cheers Vince
A great article as always Craig. Thanks for keeping us in the loop. Looking forward to hearing about how the boys progress through the off season.
Cheers mate. I’ll post what I can but probably won’t get to training again till January.
Aaaah great read Sxties. It is very good to see Ronnie with us. He has lots of good experience and superb skills to go with it.
As Big KEV (RIP) said, “I’m Excited”. Wish I was closer and would have taken some rff to join you…..
It is handy living so close, but work is always there. Thinking of starting a “go fund me” to be a full time fan. What do you reckon? I can dream….
Mate we can all chip in some funds…10 schools at $10 k…can be done, as long as you write the risk assessment