NRL Team List
Can you feel it? There be a grudge match a coming…
Fresh off our final bye of the 2017 season the Eels walk into a Sunday afternoon fixture that belies the relative ladder positions of the two teams involved. Round 20 will mark the first time that Mitchell Moses faces the Wests Tigers as an Eel and you can bet your last dollar that there will be plenty of feeling at ANZ Stadium.
Since Moses joined the Blue & Gold in Round 11 the Eels have won 5 of their 7 seven matches and while it would be a bit much to say they have gone from strength to strength – they are certainly doing an excellent job of building their push to the post-season. Moses himself has settled quite nicely, slotting a game-winning field goal against the Canterbury Bulldogs before guiding the Eels to a solid 22-6 victory against the Melbourne Storm in the Bleak City. His right edge combination with Michael Jennings and Bevan French is quickly proving to be among the most lethal in the NRL.
While their fans still harbour plenty of resentment for the real Slim Shady, on the field the Tigers have moved on as their new recruit Tui Lolohea settles into his temporary home in the halves. The transition has been a tough one for the Tigers though with a lone victory over the lowly Knights coming in the 6 games the Tigers have played since Lolohea’s transfer. They have played some decent footy amidst those 5 losses mind you with the Dragons and Sharks narrowly avoiding upset losses while Manly were given a first half scare in Round 19.
Back to the Eels and Brad Arthur’s men are boosted by the return of backrow enforcer Manu Ma’u while Peni Terepo makes his long awaited return from a pectoral injury on the extended bench – although he has also been named to start for Wenty.
There aren’t any other surprises this week as the Eels look to build on their NRL best 3-game win streak and go one step closer to locking in a berth for the finals.
Parramatta Eels side
1. Clint Gutherson
2. Semi Radradra
3. Michael Jennings
4. Brad Takairangi
5. Bevan French
6. Corey Norman
7. Mitch Moses
8. Siosaia Vave
9. Cameron King
10. Tim Mannah (c)
11. Manu Ma’u
12. Tepai Moeroa
13. Nathan Brown
Interchange
14. Daniel Alvaro
15. Kenny Edwards
16. Suaia Matagi
17. Will Smith
18. David Gower
19. Peni Terepo
20. Kirisome Auva’a
21. John Folau
Intrust Super Premiership
The Magpies also enjoyed their final bye of the season last week and are now sitting inside the ISP Top 8 and primed to make a serious tilt for the finals. Nathan Cayless welcomes Peni Terepo back into his starting team as the wrecking ball prop looks to mount a case for a return to NRL duties. Across the park the Magpies look to be fielding arguably their best team of the season with plenty of strike in the backline and a fearsome backrow that features two of the form players in the entire competition in Marata Niukore and John Folau.
Cayless has opted for a familiar extended bench with the likes of Woods, Lasalo, Stone, Morris and Schulte fighting it out for a spot. The notable addition here is the workhorse Magnus Stromquist, who has deposed from his starting role by Terepo. Barring the odd dropped ball, Stromquist has been a quality mid-season pick up for the Magpies.
Like their NRL and NYC brethren, the Magpies will face the Tigers this week. Alas there will be a scheduling clash between the two games though with Wenty hosting the Tigers at Ringrose at 3:00PM on Sunday.
Wentworthville Magpies side
1. Honeti Tuha
2. Nathan Davis
3. Kirisome Auva’a
4. Dane Aukafolau
5. George Jennings
6. Troy Dargan
7. Jeff Robson
8. Joseph Ualesi
9. Cody Nelson
10. Peni Terepo
11. Marata Niukore
12. John Folau
13. David Gower
Interchange
14. Matt Woods
15. Taniela Lasalo
16. Magnus Stromquist
17. Ray Stone
18. Jack Morris
19. Scott Schulte
Holden Cup Team List
It stands to reason that the junior Eels produced their best win in some time when the thrashed the Melbourne Storm 48-16 before the bye…because it was one of the few games that I couldn’t attend! Regardless, it is nice to be firmly back in the winner’s circle!
Haze Dunster and Oregon Kaufusi have been recalled into the team following their NYC hiatus due to the Australian Schoolboys Carnival. Continuing a stellar junior representative season for the Eels, 5 of Parramatta’s contracted juniors earned Australian Schoolboy honours with the aforementioned Kaufusi joined by Dylan Brown, Jesse Cronin, Ethan Parry and Kyle Schneider in the illustrious team.
Brown, who is barely 17 years of age, continues to lurk in the fringes of the extended squad waiting for his chance at a call-up while fellow 17-year-old William Kei also holds down a spot in the extended roster.
Parramatta Eels NYC side
1. Anthony Layoun
2. Greg Leleisiuao
3. Emosi Alamoti
4. Noel Aukafolau
5. Haze Dunster
6. Dean Matterson
7. Joseph Taipari
8. Sean Keppie
9. Denzal Tonise
10. Beni Valu
11. Dylan Clifford
12. Salesi Faingaa
13. Mitch Butfield
Interchange
14. Reed Mahoney
15. Tangi Hokai
16. Frank Salu
17. Oregon Kaufusi
18. Dom Murphy
19. Dylan Brown
20. Nick Okladnikov
21. William Kei
22. Austin Dias
23. Jye Challenor
Forty nice read again mate..a wise owl made a good point to me today.
Moses has to take the emotion out of this wkends game and just stick to leading our team; he has NOTHING to prove to wests, and all to lead for Parra. I hope he has got the message about this. This game is going to be passionate and also tough; and anyone who thinks we will walk it in, I don’t agree.
Wests throw caution to the wind and this can unsettle us….
Peni come on down mate and good luck.
Well said Mitchy. Seems like this owl is pretty cluey!
Hmmmm have heard that from him before…and his little bird too.
Any idea why Meehan hasn’t made an appearance for Wenty yet?
Patience Adam. This is only Willis’ third week of training with the club. He has to build up his conditioning for this level of rugby league. I expect that any footy that he plays for Wenty this year will be a bonus in preparing him for the upcoming pre-season.
I dare say it is purely a conditioning matter. Meehan has not played anything near top flight footy for a while and you need a certain aerobic baseline to play even limited minutes.
40/20 good read.
I’m thinking this will be a tough game a lot closer then ppl think. I hope that we don’t let the tigers get the jump on us like the last game at ANZ stadium won 26/22 eels.
If we are leading at half time then you can be assured that we will win the game as we have never lost a game this year after leading at oranges.
Like I said to sixtiesboy in a earlier blog I’m liking the fact that we are getting players back from injury just at the right time. Hence the extended bench with Peni back n gower dropping out of the side. I personally would have dropped Kenny n have gower on the bench. He gower has a good offload for a big man n he doesn’t have a brain explosion like Kenny does.
Don’t want to get to excited but with all these players coming back all our sides will only get stronger from NRL to ISP to U’20’s.
I think it’s from this weekend the boys in all grade start to make the climb up the ladder. We have no excuses the time is now.
Eels to win 25/10 mom Moses or Jennings I’m tipping Jennings to really show his class.
Cheers the Rev.
Nice points Rev, say a few upstairs for us pls mate…
Will do my son
The element of confidence can be great or a killer, especially when a team believes they only have to take the field to win, & I see where you are coming from Rev. From this point on there are no rests for any team considered a finals team let alone grand final certs or the like.
The great thing is that in looking at the top team, I think its close to the strongest team we can field ATM, with Vave and Matagi both picked gives serious forward impacts for the front rows, Alvaro as the perfect replacement for Mannah off the bench works as well.
Mitchy makes an excellent point regarding Moses, the tigers are for him history, part of his past and he needs to simply play them that way, as just another team, but!. He, better than any others in the team knows the strengths and the weaknesses of each of the tigers players and on both accounts can play to their weaknesses for the benefit of the eels, but also be alert to where they are strong and also to the benefit of the eels.
It will be also interesting to see how Twal measures up against his old team as well. Should be a top game, and eels to win.
Yes Col, Moses just has to play our game plan; and yes Twal will be good to see how he goes against us…i predict 40-50 points scored; and we need to keep our def strong for 80
Colin probably the only change that I would make is to include Peni Terepo. I think that our strongest 17 players would include Peni. However assuming that he plays for Wenty this week as named then I think that this is probably a good thing to introduce him this way given the time that he has had out of the game so far this season.
Also in regards to Mitchel the comments are correct he just has to play his normal game and ignore the fact that this is his former team. So far since his arrival he has progressed very well and I look forward to what he can deliver in the future.
John
I would like to see Peni back on the bench, but a stint at Wenty for one or two games to get him into match condition would help heaps. Once he is back and if King is still doing ok, it does change things a bit. Although I would still like to see how he goes a while longer before being a full convert regarding his injury status.
With Peni fully fit, ad Frank also up to scratch it really gives us some decent grunt heading into the end of seasons games.
I agree with your comments on CK. It is more driven by being able to get another forward on the bench. If you are going to add FP to the mix it also means one of the current forwards has to make way. Not sure Frank got to a point prior to the injury where he could force that move.
Hopefully Mannah comes back injury free after the break we need him at his best.
Hey I am curious…Jesse Cronin?
Is he of the Royal Cronin bloodline or just a coincidence?
Pure coincidence JonBoy. Plays more like a contemporary of The Crow in Mr Perpetual Motion as well!
Good spiel Forty, great read mate.
The NRL and ISP teams announced, have a settled look about them although there are quite a few inclusions to the extended bench that has actually bolstered the Wenty starting side. *I reckon this belated reality gives us the strong depth that BA envisioned when planning recruitment targets towards the end of last season. By settled, I mean what I saw in my minds eye at the start of the season. Real competition for first team positions.
Without this depth we could not have got to where we are now in 7th position nor could we hope to progress once the finals start. To know that the return of J. Hoffman and Frankie P. in the next couple of weeks is another salivating prospect for the diehards here on TCT!.
Another thought….How ironic to have had so many devastating injuries with a few off field dramas thrown in in the early rounds which really decimated the first and reserve grade teams only to get to the pointy end of the season having so many experienced NRL level players returning to the field? The inclusion of Mitchell Moses in rd. 11 was a Godsend IMO and will prove to be the icing on the cake to a slick backline with great try scoring ability. Now getting every opportunity behind a very willing forward pack supported by 3 or 4 blokes who can come into the top 17 without missing a beat.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see BA include Peni at the lost moment and see Vave drop off and back to ISP. His level of fitness at the moment is a bit of a concern.
Peni has been what’s been missing at the back end of each half and when good, agressive go forward has been needed.
I just wish one B Scott was in that list. Always tough, his form at the time of his injury was fantastic both offensively and defensively.
Gotta love The Beau. Regardless of how well our Eels perform, they will miss Beau.
Yes agreed Beau is tough and a good experienced played. He is missed and we only hope Tep and Mau and now Peni can take the team further.
It really is a shame Gazza. Beau didn’t enjoy the greatest start to the season but just as he was really settling into that bench role he gets wiped out for the remainder of the season. The same really applies to Kaysa who put in some rough efforts early on but just as he started to hit his strides he suffered a major setback.
We were fortunate enough that Cameron King and Will Smith have done a fantastic job to cover the hole at hooker but no one else really brings that mongrel edge to our ruck like Beau.
Forties, excellent points, and this year has not been kind to either Beau or Kaysa and after not great starts the two of them get knocked out for the season in the very same game.
I was not a great fan of King but I am also prepared to say he so far has proved me wrong, and hope he goes through the year injury free. If he does he should earn an extra year on his contract, meaning that next year will be a real contest between of them as both then off contract at the same time, along with Smith who also goes off contract end next year as well.
It may also prove interesting as there are couple of fair 9’s coming up under the 3 who may put more than a little pressure there.
So far our forwards have responded to the lose of Beau and others, with Kenny back on the bench, we may see him more focussed in what he needs to do for the team without the brain schnapps
Ive been an advocate of releasing King Cameron for much of the season and thus far hes been fantastic once gived
n his chance. I would have loved to see a combination of King to start supported by Kaysa on the bench. This may well be our combination in 2018 and one that will have Peats supporters forgetting his name.
Im happy with our selections post Kaysas injury. In my mind hes being covered very well. Beau Scott on the other hand is, in my mind, irreplaceable. You’ve probably guessed Im a huge fan.
I’m a huge Beau Scott fan, however i’m very impressed with how we have coped without him. He was brought to the club to balster our defence and i’m glad that when we don’t have him in our team we still aim. I reckon we have such a balanced team and great depth that you could take any one player out of our 17 and have little impact on our performance. How refreshing!
Is it possible that Cameron King could turn out to be an 80 minute player with a few more games under his belt. The advantage here is that it would allow another forward onto the bench. Maybe the days of an 80 minute DH are over I don’t know.
What I have learnt from watching Cameron King in his limited appearances is that his service from DH to the first receiver is excellent.