The importance of trust, and the ability to be patient, are evident in most walks of life.
Watching our game last Sunday, it hit me that for all the strides our club has made over the past 6 years, both on and off the field, the ability to trust and be patient have been among the most important qualities we have developed.
Old habits are hard to break and at times I see the media try desperately to pander to and agitate the small section of our fan base who hold onto past factional wars, but it is so pleasing to see the vast majority of the Blue and Gold Army change and become more mature and wiser.
I feel for fans of other clubs, even those who support some of our bitterest rivals, who are watching factions within their club play the media game by leaking stories and innuendo for the purpose of destabilisation.
I also shake my head and watch as those same clubs keep talking about rebuilding and developing better depth and strength in their squads while at the same time they go out and spend ridiculous money on players who other clubs have let go either because of attitude issues or behaviour concerns or both.
Sweet victory in Canberra
They mistakenly believe that they can be the ones to turn these players around instead of putting the right coaches and staff in place to develop juniors and recruit undervalued but talented players. They lacked patience and the skill to develop a pathway forward and stick to it, no matter the media cry or fan backlash that is created.
Looking for, and expecting miracles, is a well-worn path to continued and prolonged mediocrity. I can remember so many times reading and hoping that this next big signing for Parra was going to be our saviour only to be disappointed as past old habits came to the fore just as they were probably always going to.
Like many supporters I got sucked into that vicious cycle of believing there was a single messiah, be it a player, coach or someone in the football department who could come along and fix it all.
In truth, as our club has shown, Jack Gibson was so right when he said winning starts in the front office, remembering the front office staff are appointed by boards who in turn are appointed by members.
The members of our club championed for a long time to change the way our football and leagues club boards were formed and the results are just starting to bear fruit. Our club is stable, self-sufficient and has in place good people who care and are not driven by self interest.
Any club, even the best run clubs, will always have to make choices and not all will turn out to be right. I’m sure that many Rabbitoh supporters hate seeing Adam Reynolds in a Broncos jersey, just as the Storm fans won’t like watching half their forward pack turn out for the Dolphins next year.
However, sticking to proven theories on how to manage your salary cap and maximise opportunities for long term growth and success can often result in having to make tough decisions that seem to be wrong in the short term. Having a clear picture as to the type of coach your club needs and then aligning recruitment and development to the skills and needs of that coach is what brings about sustained success.
Clubs that are run by factions or give in to media pressure because they fear the next board election will always make short term decisions. As Parra’s fan base can attest, short term decision making often brings nothing but long term pain.
That off-field maturity, trust and patience is now also reflected in the Eels on field performances.
Parra’s victory over Canberra was their second victory in a row at the nation’s capital, a venue that in the decade prior had not yielded any wins.
It was an impressive team performance, in challenging circumstances, that matched this year’s victories in Melbourne and Penrith.
Even the win at Newcastle was something that Parra had been able to achieve frequently over the past two decades. I would also argue that had the Eels held on for one more minute against the Sharks, we’d now be talking about securing five victories at five “hoodoo venues”.
What that demonstrates is the growth in our team’s maturity.
In 2019 Parra was rightly criticised for being unable to win away from our home ground. Furthermore, such criticism also identified the Eels inability to get into the grind to win close games, either at home or most certainly away. How times have changed.
Cold but happy with his game
The best player on the field against the Raiders was unquestionably Dylan Brown.
As this talented young player has progressed through the Eels system, the coaches have shown great patience and trust as he battled both injury and inconsistent form. They trusted his talent, attitude and work ethic and continued to back him. BA and his staff played the long game and the rugby league world is now witnessing a star who is still just 21 years of age.
Mitch Moses was equally influential against the Raiders. His kicking game kept the team in the contest, gaining pressure relieving territory.
There was a time when many of us were very frustrated by his kicking game, especially those seemingly pointless mid field bombs.
But again, Parra’s coaches and Mitch himself kept working on improving and becoming more consistent. The reward for that patience is a playmaker with an elite kicking game who can guide the team to victories, especially when the team is on the back foot.
The long term and short term improvement of players was also exemplified by Sunday’s contributions from Marata Niukore and Bailey Simonsson. How many Canberra players would have woken up on Monday a little worse for being on the end of one of their tackles?
Try time in Canberra
Both Marata and Bailey have become better players since arriving at the Eels. They are more skilful and more consistent. It’s another nod to the coaches and football staff who are obviously creating an environment that enables continual and consistent growth, for juniors and recruits alike.
Patience and trust go hand in hand. A moment from Sunday which stood out for me involved Will Penisini and Dylan Brown. This moment summed up just how far our club and team has come under the leadership of our board and head coach Brad Arthur.
When Gutho dropped the bomb that lead to the try just before half time I put up my hands in exasperation. We can imagine how Gutho would have been feeling. But Dylan and Will stayed strong in their body language. They didn’t drop their heads, or show any physical or verbal sign of exasperation.
Instead, these young players immediately moved towards Gutho to help him get up and come back into the team huddle. In that moment these two young men stayed composed and demonstrated their respect for their captain. They had his back and trusted him to make amends and and knew his importance to the team.
Ultimately, they showed that they are great teammates. The quality of being a team player is a common trait of Parra developed players, be they juniors or recruits.
I can’t deny that there are players that I wish the club could have kept. I’m not looking forward to watching Marata run around for the Warriors or Ice play for the Tigers.
But the development of this team and our club has proven that trust and patience are at the core of long term success, both on and off the field.
When tough decisions have been made, I trust our staff to add recruits with potential and I trust the environment they come into will give them every opportunity to improve and succeed just like the current squad.
Making tough retention choices because you’ve developed players to the extent that they are highly sought by rivals is a far better option to being a club desperately searching for that rare miracle.
Shelley
As frustrating as it seems to see Ice, Mahoney, Nuikore and possibly Matto leave..i have full trust in the process…if we are able to keep RCG, Paulo, Gutho, Moses, Brown and Pinisini long term….we are in a great position. I have full trust in our recent recruitment strategy and development of juniors that the club knows what its doing as we move into 2023.
Watching the game on the box, has advantages, except when my Kayo links are not working for the larger screen, but sitting through 2 areas that have me more than annoyed and desire to turn the box off, rather than a brick thrown at it.
There was no difference as far as penalties from the eels, but a huge difference going Canberra’s way. Sick of that same game play as other teams have the happy knack of hiding their errors and would be penalties.
To see the see saw flow of the game at times was exciting, Canberra have some intimidating players as bad as some of the other teams, and rarely get pinned for their aggression as they hide them in the group tackles.
The end minutes to the game where the eels won the game with great ball work had me looking to a nice peaceful and non aggressive watch of the game as we gained the 2 points, but prior to that I had more negatives than positives running around on that screen.
End of story is well done eels, get rested for the next round and hope we don’t lose players from SOO at the next match.
Good to see you back Colin. Agree with your comments.
Hi John.
Have not really been away as I read most of the posts.
I have to admit that as much as I watch and read about the games, I am not finding it as good as it was, & dare I say pre Covid while I cannot blame that on the game but it seems to have something missing as an overall. Its not just one thing meaning blame the refs, players and coaches, & while I cannot put my finger on it, there is something that is lacking in the game.
I can rarely sit through a game, especially non eels ones and rarely do I find enjoyment in it.
Wouldn’t it just terrible if we can’t hang onto Dyl ? I know he will be tempted by some inferior clubs dangling the ‘million dollar carrot’ but considering all the work the club has done to develop him, it would really be a kick in the nether regions.
I think that Dylan Brown and Mitchell Moses are such a strong combination and Parra will prioritise it. I know that we lost Mahoney, but Parra have two halves that are highly sought after in positions that are very hard to fill; so I don’t see Parra getting rid of either of them anytime soon. They also get the best out of eachother.
They will be a priority.
Well said. I am so proud of the Eels for the determination that they show and their belief in themselves. They haven’t been perfect, but they are constantly improving and have become a team to fear.
Another good article Shelley. You talk about recruiting the next big thing or changing the coach to find the messiah.
In a way we did that when the board recruited the fellow from Melbourne who conducted the review at the end of the 2018 season.
Even so the board showed the courage to stick with the findings of the review and have the faith in BA despite all of the naysayers and extend his contract.
The outcome of all of that is that we have not been outside the top eight since the review.
We have a club that follows good governance and no longer relies on a hand out from the club. On the field we are a threat and as you point out beating our hoodoos.
John, we had the honour of sitting down with Bernie to go through the review findings. He did that with all mainstream media people and we were privileged that he allocated a time for us too. That review identified the playing group’s faith in BA and the need for the club to make some changes in how they resourced their support. Since then there has been restructuring, additional staff appointed and the move to Kellyville. The results speak for themselves.
Tks Shelley. The club has a professional, wholistic approach now. No whims, no knee jerks. One thing that really frustrates is the apparent lack of a pathway to holding a roster together under the salary cap structure. I don’t get why all clubs work under the same rules but those that achieve excellence are punished. The market just seems so imperfect, but then again welcome to the world.
BDon, I see the problem as being historical. Taking off my Blue and Gold goggles, Clubs like Parra and Penrith have such a massive geographical area to cover, which delivers more local players but also brings the associated costs. Other older clubs like Easts have the traditional boundaries, and they’ve had to look to other areas like the Central Coast for their pathways. It’s very imperfect and will continue to be so without change.
I for one do have real concerns about our recruitment and retention. On one hand we are being told we have become a “destination” club that players will come to for unders yet we can’t seem to get our own players to stay for what the club sees as a fair deal.
Mahoney was a must keep yet he was offered insulting money so we buy a 32 yr old with shot knees. Our game is based around our forwards “power game” but we have now lost half of our starting pack. Lane is the only backrower that we have under contract for next year and he is the weakest backrower in our current starting side.
And don’t get me started on the Dylan Brown contract situation. We have the best young half in the game under our noses and his value is raising by the week. He should have been upgraded and extended well before now.
If the club don’t start signing decent first graders for next year soon the season will be a disaster.
Great read Shelley.
We are winning from behind and showing resilience. Resilience is something we have been needing for a long time.
Whilst initially I was dumbfounded by the loss of Reed. I now see it for what it is. Most of the guys leaving all have one thing in common. They all want September off.. LoL
We need to make sure we don’t lose Dylan or Mitch these guys are the future we can build around.We have RCG and Junior as forward leaders and Hodgson will be a great senior addition next year. But I guess like it or not we will be in a rebuild 2023 and we need to make sure we get the type of players that can take us forward.
Thanks again
Pete, the better we can get at retaining key players and being selective about who we can’t keep, the closer we can get to being like clubs who never have rebuilding years. I like your take on September holidays!
Have to agree with Clive below. Regarding Reed Mahoney, what people seem to forget is that we got him as kid because the Dogs didn’t want him, we develop him at significant cost in time and money to the point where he is close to State of Origin selection and then we let the Dogs take him back. Money and time wasted. Gould caught us with our pants down. Whatever money they spent on Hodgson could have been used to keep Mahoney. The forwards we are losing next year particularly Papali and Mahoney have high work rates and play big minutes. And to those who think making low ball offers is a smart negotiation tactic one of the first rules of negotiation is don’t insult the other side particularly when they have other options.
Joe, I don’t disagree with the thoughts you express, but I took the trouble to spend a bit of time breaking down how a salary cap might be allocated. When you look at the number of $500k to $1mil players, both present and potential value,we have on our roster, it is very difficult to retain them all. Quality spine and props (6 players) can easily account for 50% of the cap, then there’s another 24 players to accommodate, which is average say $200k per player left.
My point is that Hodgson would not have come cheap despite his age and injuries. That money could have been directed elsewhere, No we can’t retain them all. However my concern is that a distinct and continuing pattern appears to be developing in our negotiation strategy which from the outside at least seems to lack urgency.
Joe, the Hodgson money wouldn’t have kept Reed as there is a massive chasm between the money the Dogs paid for Reed and what we paid for Hodgson. There’s even a difference between what we offered Reed and what we are paying Hodgson.