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Sixties and Forty20 take a virtual trip to the Top End this week as the Parramatta Eels host their annual home-away-from-home game at TIO Stadium in Darwin. This year sees the Blue & Gold face the newest franchise in the NRL in the tropical conditions of Darwin as the Dolphins come to town.
The boys chat about some huge NRL news to open the show after James Fisher-Harris shocked the NRL as he secured a release from the Panthers at the end of the year to join the Warriors.
The Jersey Flegg and NSW Cup teams have a double header against the Roosters at Wentworth Park. The Under 21s are still hunting for their first win of the year while the Cup are looking to consolidate on their breakthrough win against the Bears. Should we be confident of both results?
The conditions in Darwin are always testing, can Parramatta overcome them to secure consecutive wins? Brad Arthur has named Blaize Talagi to the interchange bench as his newest utility and the boys look at how he might be utilised in the torrid game setting.
The Tip Sheet will be live from the Bistro for pre and postgame discussions for the Round 7 clash. Be sure to come get a feed and say hello!
Forties, what’s happening? I always look forward to that one word I need to Google search for its meaning.
Interesting observations on Marshall King, completely agreed, I thought he stood out in a crap Bulldogs team. This is the same club that let Thurston go, I would argue that decision was one for the ages.
i hope the game plan is to blow them off the park early, Bennet has no choice other than to employ spoiling tactics, keep the scores close until the conditions neutralise any advantage we have on paper. We need to win this game by halftime.
So you mean you didn’t have to look up the word I threw in when Forty didn’t come to the fore – neologism?
Marshall-King is a genuine threat.
You got me Sixties, I was focussing way to much on Forties. I just looked up neologism and I still don’t know what it means.
Can it get any worse for the Dolphins? I just heard Bennett did not travel with the team due to illness.
I hope the Eels players don’t pay attention. The Dolphins will lift because of adversity.
Question around Matt Arthur and the position of Brad. I’m a fan of Brad and hope he brings success to the club…but should the noise become too much and he is forced out, do you see Matt following him?
I honestly couldn’t say. Matt is his own man and I’m sure his ambitions lie at Parra. But the Eels also need to make sure they don’t take him and his contract situation for granted, simply because BA is there. He’s not even on a Dev deal this year. He’s meant to graduate to Dev in 2025. I reckon he should be upgraded ASAP.
Of course you’d want Matt Arthur moved up the ranks ASAP. You’re so far up the Arthur’s backside you could give them an alert for bowel cancer before a doctor would.
Your comment reflects poorly on you. Why come here to troll and abuse?
TCT team do a great job and can share whatever view they like as fans putting together a pretty great Parra website.
Don’t like it? Then don’t come.
Abuse? What abuse? Are you that freckle you can’t handle the truth served with no sugar coating?
The TCT do a great job of share whatever view they have, much I can share mine, can’t handle it? Avoid my comments.
The Eels gave up. I feel sick.
Utterly appalling. Thrashed by a side that had so many players out injured. And Parra had one – Moses admitted a key player but there were thirteen other players out there so how much can be attributed to Moses absence?
Does Parramatta need a change of coach? As much as I like Brad Arthur yes I think it is time he moved on.
Forget the semifinals. On tonight’s performance avoiding the wooden spoon should be the priority.
I have been a passionate, loyal, and proud supporter for more than 50 years. Players play and coaches coach. Enthusiasm is the coaches domain, the eels have none. The team, the coach, the club were a total embarrassment tonight, I have never witnessed such a capitulation. I can accept defeat as we all should, but that lack of effort from the players, the stupidity and ineptness was an inexcusable capitulation. It is time the club realised that fans will leave, and the poker machines will not drive the sense of cohesion in the community, that a football team who gives their all each week gives to people who don’t have much in their lives. There needs to be change. Winning requires intense and consistent effort, we have neither, it is time for radical change.
Waiting for this mediocre poor excuse of a forum to make up more excuses for parramatta’s disgraceful performance tonight.
Can’t wait to listen to the podcast about how Darwin was too hot, the eels were unlucky and how the coach shouldn’t be blamed for this performance.
Over to you, sixties 😂😂
What are you trying to prove mate? You do realise we are all on the same side here.
These guys dedicate hours of unpaid time and no doubt invest out of their pockets to produce hours of free quality content. What do you do? I mean besides being a troll.
Yes, you are right, I’m a troll but you wanna know what you never said? That I was wrong and quite frankly, that’s what matters the most.
Anyway, can’t wait for this podcast where sixties and 40/20 blame everything and anyone bar BA.
It’s going to be some quality stuff.
Dude, you need to find something better to do with your time, than come here and abuse a bunch of guys who publish a bunch of good, free material. It doesn’t matter whether you’re right or wrong, there’s no reason to carry on like a pork chop.
You’re missing the point mate, this is not about being right or wrong. This is an open forum and public podcast, I’m sure the boys have many opinions they share privately but they are not at libities to shoot from the hip like you are.
You have the right to disagree with an opinion but with respect, clearly something you can’t get your head around.
So you can only share an opinion on here when it suits a certain agenda?
Of course being wrong or right matters, otherwise no such thing would exist.
Can our season get any worse than that woefull performance.All we need now is for Lomax to back out on his deal.Surely our players are not playing for their coach.Time for change,tonight’s performance was inept.
I was having the same thoughts Gianni.
Zac looks happy at the Dragons at the moment, and they’re winning games.
There is no doubt he watched the game last night.
A backflip would be the icing on the cake.
I’m actually pretty disappointed at BAs presser too – he took zero accountability, said the players are choosing not to turn up and are taking soft options.
This is not a coach uniting his players, this is now a coach blaming his players and appears himself out of ideas.
Here’s the dictionary definition of a Coach: “someone whose job is to teach people to improve at a sport”.
If you’re the coach and your team play terribly with low effort, it means you’ve failed at your job as a coach.
Time to go BA, time to go Mark O’Neill
I’m not sure I agree. Brad has tried to protect them for years but he’s right – some players in this team take soft options when the going gets tough and they have done for years. Why they are still here is beyond me but they are and there needs to be a clean out. There is very soft underbelly to this team and every other club and supporter base knows it
No, he’s barely ever protected the players, he’s just took the attention away from them but now the pressure is on, he’s thrown them under the bus.
BA is all for himself and that’s it. His presser was deadset disgraceful, its lacked leadership, intelligence and loyalty. Everything that’s needed to be a great coach and leader. He’s lost the playing group, you’re just in denial, like all BA fans. A real leader knows when the war is lost and it’s time to fold, for betterment of people he’s leading and for himself but BA would rather the kingdom fall underneath him then allow to stay stable by walking away. The only thing saving BA right now is a tight ass board who don’t want to pay him out. It’s about money for both parties, cause if Brad had any respect for the club, players, fans and sponsors, he’d walk into to parramatta headquarters tomorrow, resign and work a deal that both parties would be happy with.
Taking attention away from them is protecting them…
Look at what he said after Canberra – he protected them and people smashed him for not being outraged.
This time he calls out the team and people say he needs to be softer and protect them.
I wouldn’t read too much into a press conference other than to note that BA is seriously unhappy with certain players but can’t drop them because of depth. Doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be doing better as a coach but he clearly doesn’t want certain players out there atm
But don’t get me wrong – I haven’t seen our season has fallen apart so quickly like this since 2018. It’s dumbfounding how shit we are and how weak minded we are when someone gets injured (even if it is a halfback). Moses is one player and the team of full of highly paid players. But unfortunately those players aren’t able to lead it seems. They need their hand held by Moses and need to be “in the mood” to play footy.
The problem with cleanouts is the baby is often thrown out wth the bath water. We can’t fill 30 spots, rarely does a club run a broom through their playing roster unless the playing roster lacks talent, we don’t lack talent.
The coach is usually the first head to roll, it’s easier to replace a coach then it is to replace players.
Sixties, It’s time for you to unleash properly. I know you have it in your mate and please for the your own credibility discuss the coach and his flaws. It’s not just recruitment to blame here. The Dolphins beat us with their cup team and Bennett, FaceTiming on his iPad.
The worst part for me is watching my 8 year old son get into his Eels guernsey, get out his hand-made eels flag (ready to wave it every time we’d score). The look of joy draining from his little face in the second half. The video session should contain footage of fans the team let down, when they threw in the towel
If you showed that to the players, I highly doubt they would care. Letting their mates down? Yeah they care about that.
Same at our place N.Senada. I often wonder should I have made the kids follow another team. Just so they didn’t follow the same disappointing and torturous path.
I watched my 21 year old do the same thing expect he didn’t have a flag.
It’s easier when they’re little, your little fella will wake up this morning, jump on his XBox and life is good again. 21 year olds want to pull doors off hinges.
Poor coaching!
No game plan for conditions despite going there every year?
Poor commitment!
Beaten by reserve grade team and Assistant coach.
2nd Embarrassing loss 40+ points
3rd worse defence in NRL
I haven’t bothered to look at the table, I am surprised we are third last given we have coceeded 40 points twice in three weeks.
There’re no need to panick, the boys will have the worst defence in next few weeks.
Our defence has always been shithouse at the best of times and covered up by possession dominance but last year and now start of this year shows it’s got even worse. 2nd worst defence in comp by a long mile over last two years. Even when we win our defence doesn’t really hold up. We seem to win in spite of the shortcomings and gaping holes we have in defence. And so much for this foward pack we spent money on. Have never been consistent and are no where near value for money.
You need a psychology degree to begin to understand what happened last night.
The team literally gave up! And against a cup team with a sprinkle of first graders.
A team with even a scrap of respect for their coach would not just give up, and that’s twice in three weeks.
Brad has done a lot of good things for this club so I don’t want to start Brad bashing but if the buck doesn’t stop with Brad then where does it stop? Lack of desire, not turning up, taking soft options, I can see all that from my living room but why Brad? why? Why does a professional sporting team just give up?
The players are not blameless either, I don’t have the answers and clearly, nor does Brad or the club.
Is it just me, did anyone else sense a loss by looking at the team in the dressing room before kickoff and the body language on their faces as they ran out?
The dressing room, yeah I noticed the Dolphins in a tighter group, our shed we were spread wandering around with little animation or banter. At the time I thought the Dolphins were given a broom closet and we got the gymnasium.
I relate to broom closets, many years back a mate and I were leaving a small bar in the Caribbean very very late and instead of taking the front door we walked into the broom closet and the cleaner was in there, sitting on a bucket smoking a joint. When we backed out, the remaining patrons and staff cheered us out the front door…Australians from another planet.
Who does our team play for? There are players I can say objectively play for fans, themselves, their families, the area etc
There are other player where it seems they don’t really engage with the fans or the area and that aspect of things. They play for themselves, they’re spot on the team to get picked each week etc. There is no real purpose beyond that.
Is that a failure in the team culture?
A lot of teams form a circle on field after every try and sync breathing. We don’t..
Disgusting pea hearted performance.
Poor coaching. Failure to adapt and recognise the changes in the game.
Next week’s team changes are limited due to depth and incompetence in football department.
1. Gutho with extra tape to hold his arm on
2. Simonsson tries hard
3. Penisini
4. Harper (need Lomax now)
5. Sivo back too early but Russell is pedestrian
6. Brown take the pressure off him
7. Sanders just steer !
8. Ofahengaue.
9. Lussick not 80 minutes
10. RCG
11. Tualagi
12. Cartwright
13. Hopgood
14. Hands
15. Paulo
16. Greig
17. Moretti
Matto, Lane, Russell dropped.
Asi injured or dropped for Sanders
Lussick isn’t 80 minutes we need something different through the middle.
Defence is a joke at this club.
Never watch replays, I have no attention span these days, but what the….happened there? No scoreboard sugar probably left a mental dent at half time plus two missed conversions and a badly bombed try. Is my memory OK here, but going to 10-4 seemed to be the end? Did the Dolphins get an endless run of 6 agains that we never recovered from? (Good teams do, Thurston said the ‘feels like’ temp was 34, man, where was the drinks break, seriously that’s too hot for this brutal game). Their 1,7 &9 carved up our middle, little blokes v big blokes at 34deg. We constantly had 2 and 3 forwards on the ground or backs turned when Marshall-King received the ball. No names here, but some blokes in position were only there as scenery, they were flat footed and tackling with arm grabs. I read somewhere that the Dolphins had 70% possession after 10-4, say goodnight in Darwin Jonboy. Sidebar..give Hands game time,Lussick is a mixed bag playing 80, the ball hits the deck one time too many with his passing, Moretti needs perfect passing for his style, he drops the ball every game when he has to reach. How do you get outnumbered on a short blind? Lack of awareness, lazy response, attention to detail, communication, chronic deficiency…all of the above?
“How can you get out numbered on the short side” you can only laugh.
The players should be ashamed of themselves, they literally gave up the moment they realised they had to work for the win.
Brad will pay for their sins, he will be held responsible despite the clubs problems being much deeper than Brad. Unfortunately the buck always stops with coach.
Perhaps Brad has gone stale but I do feel for him, he doesn’t have the depth to hold players accountable and set an example.
I like Brad and I wanted him to win a premiership but that hope is fading fast if not already invisible.
Sixties called it and Marshall King delivered.
Yes, we should have player swapped JMK with Mahoney when JMK at the Bulldogs. Or at least signed Api! MON asleep at the wheel as usual.
No podcast yet? I’m guessing this episode is being re recorded. The boys may need more time to reflect. I’m not sure how I would record this episode as a live reaction. All credit if they did.