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Sixties and Forty20 get into the minutiae of a frustrating loss to a supremely gritty Canterbury Bulldogs’ outfit on the King’s Birthday public holiday in this Instant Reaction podcast.
The Tip Sheet looks at how the Eels bottled numerous opportunities to seal an important back-to-back win and how roster construction continues to hamstring the Blue & Gold in the backline.
Victories in the NSW Cup and Jersey Flegg see the Eels continue a midseason resurgence in both grades. The boys breakdown both wins and how each side performed as they swept the Dragons.
This game demonstrated the failure of Mark O’Neill and the lack of outside backs with pace. Still only have 26 players signed, which shows that we are still asleep at the wheel. The team also appears to lack fitness, motivation and smarts. No decent team loses today against a depleted dogs side ravaged my real time injuries and sin bins. BA was just the beginning, everyone else from Mark O’Neill down needs to go.
Let’s see if it’s really MON and what not that is the issue.
If the new coach isn’t given permission to get a decent clean out AND fill the actual roster with 30 players, and spend more on quality players.
Then it’s obvious the problem is much deeper than only BA & MON.
If the rumours are true that our club are largely low ballers and notoriously difficult to get deals done with.
Then a change of coach, BA sacked, and MON sacked in future may not even resolve the issues.
What I assume will have over the next 1-3 years is we will have a lot of scale goats.
But the club will not self reflect and actually purchase high quality players.
They’ll possibly keep giving excuses and only signing slow players.
I don’t know if a new coach could turn us into a finals playing team.
If we have no backs and can’t even fill a roster (lol)
The other issue is our strength and conditioning. We are always slow getting back, always rolled onto our backs in tackles. Other teams always find their Elbows and knees for faster play the balls. Steangth and conditioning is a failure our players legs are skinny compared to other teams and the amount of ACLs we keep having. Fitness is a huge issue. The Parra 49ers is a fitness issue. We did last a bit longer this week.
Well done to Bulldogs they were just tougher.
It’s a fitness issue I agree Pete but that’s also due to the size of our forwards.
We have a big forward park who are designed to be a power game type of squad.
It’s unfortunately not working for us as well anymore due to the game speed increasing, players getting older, teams figuring it out, or all of the above.
💯 agree our recruitment has been diabolical.who picked a reserve grade 5/8 who can’t tackle to play centre against one if not the best centre in the game.Stuff me not one back who can run 100 metres in under 12 seconds and can tackle to choose from.
A disappointing loss. Many players did enough to get us over the line but some frustrating errors in the attack zone and being outplayed for speed out wide brought us down. We had some encouraging performances by a number of players but we are still iff competitive status in several positions. Restructure time.
Apparently Connor Tracey isn’t good enough for our recruitment team.
Full credit to Bulldogs who signed Crichton. Without Crichton they lose that game. The way he coached his players to attack our weak left edge. He is a match winner.
Our lack of speed is negligent. A new coach will not be enough to turn this around. The football department has already killed off BA. Surely they cannot be allowed to continue.
Conor is too small & fast for our recruitment philosophy mate.
If someone is fast or isn’t almost clinically obese.
They don’t qualify as a strong candidate (joking) 🙂
“Brad arthur had the strongest voice in recruitment & retention “””Sarantinos and Mcelduff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xShnM23hOEY
Yeah I remember hearing them say it too, let’s see if that was the case and if they recruit differently moving forwards. Or if Ba was a scape goat for their recruiting.
He may have had the main voice. But.
B.A can say – Go and get player X or I want to retain player Y.
But MON is the one meeting player agents and if he can’t get deals done, then B.A couldn’t get/keep the players he wanted.
Sixties you interviewed Mark O’Neill in the pre season and didn’t ask him any tough questions. You were as flaccid as our defence. How about you blame him directly for this mess and re-interview him again? That would be a ratings winner.
I don’t believe it’s only Mon or Ba to blame.
Our club is apparently notoriously hard to get deals done with, and low ball them on money or shorter contracts than they desire.
All of these decisions don’t all 100% rely on 1 person as a scape goat.
Ba was said to have the most power & influence over the roster & recruiting decisions,
My feeling is the problem goes much deeper than BA or MON.
There’s a chance even with them gone, the eels will follow the same recruitment philosophy they followed for years.
(mostly bargain hunting unwanted players).
And results may not change a lot.
But hopefully I am wrong – and they do actually start to recruit fast back like players + agile middles.
Avenger, I am going to reply to this as you’ve basically accused me of not having balls in what I do. I’ll cop criticism, but I will answer back on this.
I write as Sixties but the club and many others know me as Craig Hawkins. Whether it’s the club or supporters, I’m easy to find when people want to take issue with my opinions. And you have no idea about what I speak to the club about in person. If they are private conversations they stay that way, but from my perspective, I don’t write or say one thing on the podcast and then say another when I’m face to face with people.
We started The Cumberland Throw to be like an on-line magazine by Eels supporters for Eels supporters. Although supporters get a chance to express their opinions in replies, we aren’t a forum. So that involves us taking on both responsibility for the quality and validity of our content as well as being able to take criticism. But having a crack at me with that flaccid comment when I’m not a faceless keyboard critic who never speaks face to face to the club is a garbage comment.
We aren’t acknowledged as “media” by the club. We are seen as supporters. That means our access is limited. It’s why you don’t ever see current player interviews on TCT. When Forty and I do podcasts with Buckets or anyone in the club, we aren’t approaching them as official media where there is an obligation for them to speak with us. The opportunity is there, via the questions and the context, for the people we speak with to provide information. The context is a discussion, not a 60 Minutes grilling.
Give me a break, Sixties. You had a golden opportunity to question the Head of Football on what you have correctly seen as the biggest flaw in our playing roster. Yet you danced around it, almost accepted it during the interview.
Nobody suggested that you should be disrespectful but the question should have been asked as you yourself describe it, TCT is an online magazine for the supporters. You should have asked that tough question, you don’t have to be media to do that. You talk about it every week, don’t you want to know the answer? Don’t you want to know who is responsible?
Everyone wants to know the answer, yet for want of a better word you were flaccid in your approach.
I hear both of you and it’s difficult for 60s and 40 in that circumstance no doubt about it. Selfishly, it would have been nice to hear the HOF put on the spot but i see reasons why not aswell. In any event, if they had it was clear the HOF would just have put his usually worthless spin on things (as he did throughout that whole pod). The muppet even dared to blame haze not coming back fully healthy as one of reasons for poor backline depth. An utterly incompetent HOF in many respects.
Ron
Absolutely spot on, complete deflection is the norm from the HOF, I have had the opportunity to question him on issues several times and he is not that self assured and really has little charisma. No wonder there is difficulty in landing targets, the whole committee signing process is slow, cumbersome and seems more concerned with monetary value than playing ability. That’s how we end up with journeyman needing to be up skilled, someone like Crichton made so much difference.
That’s interesting to hear B&G. I’ve never met them but unfortunately that’s exactly what I expected based on what I have seen and heard. There’s a perception around the league that parra leadership are a bunch of pretenders and the objective facts re: their management of the football department bear that out. They seem happy to collect their pay and sit on their hands as long as media isn’t looking at them and putting pressure on them. But that doesn’t make hearing your experience any easier (considering they are still at the helm unfortunately)
Give you a break? I’ve tried to explain the situation but you continue with the flaccid comment. I shan’t be commenting further.
Your explanation is weak and does not make sense. You say that you are not media but are an online magazine for Parra supporters. What’s the difference? And you are also a forum. Just because you introduce the topic and say your name is Craig, people with a pseudonym like me comment and interact. Just like a forum. You can also interact and delete comments like a forum. You haven’t explained anything.
So it seems you really don’t understand eh? Media means official accredited NRL media and they are the only ones that the club allows to interview players. We are not official media so we get no access. How’s that?
A forum allows anyone to publish their own posts, no matter the standard. We do not do that. We have a set of authors who post original articles. They are the only ones who can do so. You, as a reader, can only reply to posts here, you cannot create your own. You’ve been around forums long enough to know the difference. You are choosing to be argumentative Avenger.
So true
Such a disappointing loss…
Too many errors
Parra’s administrative execs and head of football are in hiding. I feel no sense of connection between the team and the fans, nor the admin and the fans nor the admin and the coaching staff/players. All I see is the players/coaches and admin separately going through the motions and trying to say the right things to the fans/media. Where is the accountability? When will we see some with a smidgen of competence take control of this shitshow and move on the pretenders who currently hold decision making roles. It’s always lip service as window dressing with this lot
Hey Ron I agree, I think the issues go a lot deeper than the scape goats of BA or MON.
A new coach may Improve some things like team selection or a few tweaks, but the issues may lay much deeper.
In the eels front office.
I like Baz but he needs to stand out from the crowd if he wants to be noticed.
He definitely won’t get the job playing it safe.
At the moment he’s basically playing the Brad Arthur game. BA had many good traits but the main reason he’s gone in my opinion is that just didn’t hold players accountable for their performances and as such, they let him down.
Draw a line in the sand, perform or else.
Today we had some players that didn’t come up to the required standard and we have replacements who crave their opportunity.
Reward performance and punish non performance – it really is as simple as that.
I love the Ange Postecoglou approach to coaching. He said ” I’m not a Tottenham fan, I’m here to coach and get results. I’m not their mate. If they don’t perform they don’t play”
Postecoglou doesn’t have players around for dinner, isn’t their mate but is absolutely loved and revered by his players.
In a lot of ways, Wayne Bennett is the closest we have in the NRL to Postecoglou. Bennett doesn’t associate much with his players, preferring to be standoffish and letting his assistants carry out his instructions but they definitely know there is a standard.
Shaun Lane should have been in reserve grade weeks ago as should Lussick. Why are they still being picked ?
Maybe the reason they are just going through the motions is because they don’t need to have that hunger to stay in the side ?.
Russell surely doesn’t deserve to be picked every week. Is there a replacement, someone who deserves to take his place ? Maybe but perhaps find out. Tell Russell to go back to Cup and demand to be picked.
It really is the difference between a coach like Bellamy and what we have at the Eels.
Bellamy is no coaching guru. He just demands the players hit a required standard.
If players want to play for the Storm, they need to attain that standard and stick to it.
I do absolutely acknowledge the criminal lack of roster. Perhaps it is time to give Zac Cini a run ? Or sign Tago on a top 30 contract ? What do we have to lose now ?
Nothing kills a team faster than a lack of competiveness.
Doing the whole podcast without mentioning the elephant in the room where the head of recruitment has overseen a bit of a dogs breakfast since 2021.
The no1 back up half has signed elsewhere, possibly a result of a decision 18 months ago not to put him on a development deal, and being prepared to enter the past 2 seasons with a completely unbalanced and short roster. A failure to see that the game has changed its dynamic to reward speed, the Eels basically have the slowest back 5 in the comp with not a lot beneath the NRL.
The need for an experienced HOF and NRL recruiter is vitally important, even talented juniors as young as the Harold Matt’s signed elsewhere which was strange given they had won player of the year in our junior comp. Hopefully if and when the new coach is selected , then refreshing R&R should be a prerequisite.
Today highlighted the issues and any further backline injuries or suspensions will be almost catastrophic.
I don’t think the current mob have the skills to turn it around. It’ll be all arse covering from here. The next thing they will point to is the shiny new centre of excellence and how much revenue the club makes as part of another strategy to placate fans. We are being taken for granted year on year with this mob
Also I have noticed the TCT boys are not willing to get into those problems with HOF and the front office – why that is I can understand on one level as they are involved in club and have still made their feelings known about the shortcomings of the roster. The inference as to whose feet their criticisms are directed to is obvious even if they don’t say it outright. But I suspect there’s something more to it aswell. Perhaps it’s even worse than we know and they don’t feel they can tell us just yet until the club does something about it
Ron, it’s likely the issues as you mentioned are far deeper than just HOF, etc.
The club has a bargain hunting philosophy that obviously runs a lot deeper than BA or MON’s decision making.
The club obviously is tight fisted, they don’t even have 30 players on the roster.
As much as well love the eels, we are ran by corporate execs who brag about our club profits as a point of success.
I haven’t heard other clubs referring to their NRL club’s financial success as a talking point (unless I missed it).
Maybe we have a good club that’s doing well with money – but unfortunately hasn’t got the competitive “winning mentality” edge over clubs have running the show.
Roosters, panthers, Melbourne, etc.
To these Clubs their actions and recruitment tell you they are actively trying to win the comp.
Our club doesn’t even bother trying to sign top players or spend extra for class depth signings.
It’s all dollar savings at the eels and trying to unwanted players into stars.
If the clubs do financially successful as they say they are.
Why don’t they try invest it like other top clubs do on top tier talented players?
We don’t even actually try to sign anyone good from other clubs.
So when they say they want to win a comp,
It’s not even taken seriously.
You can’t win the NRL competition with severely limited rosters and bargain recruits who are rejects from other teams.
They can try say they want to win a comp all they want.
But their actions are completely the opposite of any clubs who actually wins or competes for the premiership most years.
The club is tight and saves money by short changing their roster, low balls external talent, blames lack of players available as an excuse for not filling a roster.
The bulldogs are a perfect example of what can happen when you buy actual quality players.
The eels would rather sign Morgan Harper, Tualagi, lussick,
Then sign Crichton or Conor Tracey.
They might say they would like those players.
But they instead would rather sign 3-5 rejects than 1-2 actual quality players.
And that there shows the difference between consistent top 4 clubs and us.
It sucks and it’s hard to admit all of this writing it.
But coming from a business background – it’s simple knowledge when trying to build any successful enterprise.
You are only as good as the team you employ.
And generally speaking – you get what you pay for.
We don’t have many quality players because we don’t actually want to pay for them.
We are probably very lucky we got Lomax.
This is a good signing but we can’t only sign 1 good player every 4 years.
My thoughts exactly Arthur never stood a chance no no coach with this set up extremely disappointing
Perhaps as the board are all businesses men they are only interested at what the balance sheet looks Ike can we save money by not getting a full roster or get by with a bargain price one so no gravity or quantity brought in . Perhaps Mon is trying to keep his job by not paying what is required to get a full roster
The thing we do know if the board gets jumpy when there is media pressure. I would love some journos so step away from their rubbish click bait and put the HOF, ceo and chairman under microscope for their persistent failures. They don’t care about fans but they do care about their precious reputation in the media
Maybe they are afraid to lose whatever little access they have.
Unfortunately, sometimes being getting too close to the hierarchy or club personnel, one tends to lose the will to criticise.
Agree with you and Ron 100%.
And there is all this talk about Chieka as the next coach. I could live with Cheika being the Eels head coach – if there was the right team behind him. But you can’t have him as head coach. The coach we pick has to be skilled in whole of club development – pathways, programs, etc. Cheika might be a good culture coach, but he has no background in the rest. Mind you MON had basically no background and they gave him a gig…
Bennett would never have come and had the current committee be apart of the football operations. He was no chance of coming. And i don’t see how we lure anyone other than someone desperate for an NRL job, with MON and co having to have so much input.
The Eels need to lock down a new Head of Football first. Someone an NRL coach would want to work with and who could rebuild the entire club together.
All fair comments.
WTF are the retention/recruitment committee doing with the vacancies ?
Players being forced to play in positions to cover the failures of those faceless people behind the scene.
The one problem we have now is that we can’t sign any players because that’s the job of the new coach.
No players are going to come over only for the rest of this season and offering a longer contract may not agree with the new coach.
Our only option is to give the young players a chance and see if we can find a diamond in the rough.
Brad was the head of retention and recruitment. Go and ask him
At the game I felt sorry for Asi as I feel he was put into a position that meant he was always going to fail. In my view today’s loss sits beyond any player on that field.
On the way home I had time so I checked our club website and saw the club has Asi listed at this point in time as a centre. I am a nerd and check these things, I don’t remember him being listed as a centre on our official website before. But for argument sake let’s say the club genuinely see him as a first grade centre and that is his main position in our top30.
I then checked our team list and NSW Cup list for 23 and 24. He has played three games in centre, rd 3-5 in Reserve grade in 23. That’s it. Anyone who knows anything about league knows centre- left centre especially, is such a difficult position to defend at. Most teams strike centres are right centres and they have stronger attack going right.
So either way it is an example of terrible management. If he is put into our top 30 as a centre especially when you consider we have limited centres, play him there in reserve grade, let him ‘learn’ how to attack and defend there. Instead we play him mostly in the half’s, occasionally at fullback and then use him to fill up out our list to make it appear that we have a balanced squad.
Just as a side note, if Asi role in our top 30 is mainly centre that means we put a top 30 together with no back up 6 or 7. I mean what could possibly go wrong with that.
The facts are Asi is not a centre, never has been and never will be. Nothing that happened today was surprising.
My great fear was only made more real today. The board is going to find out too late that any new coach coming into this club will not succeed with those still in charge of our footy department there and shifting blame.
Sure blame BA, blame Trent, and blame the next one to come into the chair but the coach can only pick those players who are put on the roster, a roster that is short and woefully unbalanced and has been so for 3 seasons straight- including 22 when we had to play Waqa in the grand final.
This reply is not about BA I have never met the guy. It is about people being responsible for doing their job. Most people saw Asi fail today but I saw something else. The failure I saw is that he was given a job to do that he does have the skill to do.From my eyes the real ones who failed our club today were not wearing jersey’s on that field and no new coach is going to change that.
I will turn up next week as I did today and support every player as I believe a fan should do. I will do my job. I wish others would be made responsible for doing or not doing their job.
Spot on Shelley
It hurts to see a mostly decent roster languishing at the bottom of the table. Our weaknesses are huge and easily exposed.
We are like a crystal vase with a leak, it may look pretty but useless.
The club needs to move on a coach now otherwise recruitment can’t start.
Forget this season, it was done weeks ago, all that’s left is to blood some of our juniors, recruit a coach and talent for season 2025
I don’t think I can handle another off season lamenting about a short roster.
Yesterday’s game, well I shouldn’t be surprised by a loss but I was, I really thought we would win and win convincingly. The Dogs battled through injury, lost the penalty count, had a man in the bin and still won. That loss really pissed me off and completely wrecked what was otherwise a good long weekend.
Get to the real problem , MCELDUFF , weve been on a downward spiral ever since he came into power , poor roster management , poor recruitment , botched salary cap , losing 9 players fromgrand final roster in 1 season ,look deeper people !!
I’ll add a more positive comment:
We played absolutely atrocious in terms of holding on to the ball and executing plays close to their try line.
And we still almost won against them.
We could have easily won that game.
And we didn’t have trouble finding the try line against a team who other teams have been unable to score easily against.
It moses nailed those moments up near their try line & we held on to the ball.
We might be sitting here listening to the podcast after a relatively easy win.
We only just lost and we played awful.
Canterbury is a good side as of late.
If we played poorly and they could hardly get by us.
With some improvements on holding on to the ball and completing our sets to get to the kick.
We should still beat a lot of teams this year.
Bulldogs apparently not lost one home game this year – and we had completed sets horribly and almost won.
I still think we can beat a lot of teams this year – baz will be on them to get to the kick in their sets next week.
Let’s see if that’s enough to make us at least compete with the roosters next week.
On to the next one. 💙💛
Yeah I’ve had time to reflect and there were some good moments.
All in all, the new coach is going to have the devil of a time converting this team into a force. Perhaps that’s what Hannay was alluding to ?
I thought young Blaize was really good and so was Joe O.
I wonder if the idea was to roll the dice and have 27 “better players” and run a short roster to manage the cap. Could you do that as a strategy in theory? If it was the thinking, then its backfired completely for 2 years, and isn’t leaving us in good shape for next year.
There’s a lot of work to do before September to get us into a position for 2025. I don’t want to rush what should be a 5+ year decision on a coach, but at the same time, we don’t dig ourselves out of this hole without some serious roster change. 2025 seems to me like its inevitably going to be a year of re-build, but the question is whether it will start from Round 1 or whether we will be still trying to figure it out come September next year.
It’d be a shame to think this club couldn’t capitalise on having the core of an elite spine with Moses, Brown and Gutho in our squad, by putting another 27 competitive players around them, before they sail off into the sunset.
The club hierarchy and roster management is truly pathetic. Same problems year on year and them don’t address them. It shows they were never 100% focused on winning. Making top 8 and getting the odd win here or there against Penrith in the regular season was enough for them. Nothing changes until those above are changed and the football team is properly resourced. It is an embarrassing institution in every sense of the word and I can only applaud the players who put in each week despite the shit show around them.
Totally agree. For the hierarchy, it seems they are only after the financials and not truly after winning the Premiership. I reckon us being in the finals is good enough for these clowns as long as membership and merchandise and cashier’s kept ringing.
They are businessmen and not sportsmen. Only with the Eels with not much any influence or involvementd of the previous players. Broncos, Panthers, Roosters are example of having old players guiding the team. None with the Eels except for the NSW Cup Cayless who is useless.
Bernie Gurr should come back if he still love the Eels to straighen this forlorn ship again.
Spot on re the spine, and it now looks like a quality No 9 may find his way into the hub, just when the spokes are looking worn. I can make a case with Lomax, Talagi, R Penisini, AMS on the horizon and hopefully Simmonsen back, but obviously a bit more is still needed in quality and depth.
MickB, your last paragraph infuriates me because it’s so true.
For years we struggled to find elite halves, the closest we came was Taylor and Buettner and that was short lived.
Our premiership window is open while our spine is in their prime, Moses possibly has a few years left in his prime, Gutho is a year to year proposition now.
I could accept a few lean years on the back of a premiership, like you wrote, it would be a shame not to take advantage of an elite spine.
It would be a shame for Moses and Gutho not to experience a premiership, I’m not a cryer but I think I would shed a tear if I saw Gutho hold up the trophy.
I have a signed photo of Price and Cronin holding up the trophy in 1986, I was too young to fully appreciate that moment, the Eels being successful was a norm for me. I walk past that photo everyday and can’t believe 38 years have past without success.
At the end of last season I made the decision not to renew my two season tickets that I had held for many many years. The seeds of that decision were sewn at the end of 2022 with the failure to resign Mahoney and Ice and the subsequent knee jerk reaction to sign a 34 year old Hodgson and Jirah Momoisea as their replacements. I knew what was coming. Predictably Hodgson did not see out the season and retired and Momoisea was released arfter after one season spending a lot of time on the bench for NSW Cup. He never was the required standard.
I will always support Parramatta but this club has to stop taking supporters and season tickets holders for granted. I will not fork out $1100 on season tickets whilst the people running this club keep running a depleted roster. It seems like they are saying you made the Grand Final a couple of years ago what are you complaining about.
Yesterday the Dogs had all the injuries, a player in the bin and a significant (deserved) penalty count against them. At the end of the day they just wanted it more. Why is that the case?
I share your feeling that the fans are taken for granted. I still show up and even continue to make the tortured journey to magic round to see us lose each year. But, more often than not over last few years, I feel myself shaking my head at the teams poor play, lack of identity, lack of resilience and overall lack of engagement with the fans. Winning games might Band-Aid things but open heart surgery is needed.
Do they engage with the fans less than other teams?
Is it after games etc compared to other sides?
Something that can be fixed by; attitude and accountability; I.e. by coaching
46 missed tackles
3.6 second play the ball speed
419m kick meters
On the Bulldogs
Crichton has made a huge difference to that team. Just shows all recruitment was a failure at Bulldogs…Then they sign Crichton and they are now making finals.
Will Lomax provide that level of competitiveness that we saw in Crichton yesterday? I think so.
Lomax is good but not Crichton good.
The eels should take note of what signing a highly valuable player on the market can do for a side – it can completely transform the club.
The eels seemingly only ever sign other clubs unwanted players.
You’ll notice loads of star / game changing players do hit the market – we avoid those players.
We are cheap and only buy the players other clubs don’t want.
The only 1 good signing we have had literally in several years is Lomax.
No club is going to compete for the title without signing new quality players.
Not trying to be too negative – but if you analyse our club.
We would never sign an Api, crighton, Conor Tracy.
These players are clearly game changing players – we seemingly never sign anyone who’s legit fast or a game breaker.
It goes deeper than BA or MON skapegoats – the club’s philosophy is to bargain hunt in terms of recruiting.
You may not agree with it – but look at the recruitment for many years now.
Good players leave and bad ones attempt to replace them.
The club buys unwanted cheap players and thought BA was a magician who could turn them into gold.
This is definitely a deeper issue than people realise, it starts at the top (as they say).
As well as the diabolical recruitment and retention choices, the club also hasn’t had the courage nor foresight to move certain players on (Sivo, lane, makatoa, Ogden etc) and refresh the squad every year or two with younger faces (juniors or recruits) and thus fresh voices. It’s clear the current senior players aren’t good enough to get us over the hump and the inconsistency in their performance over 4-5 years speaks to a need to shake up senior players. Of course, Brad would have been a reason why not as he was loyal to those blokes but we panicked after some players were leaving in 2022 and resigned lane, sivo and matto to big deals to save face and reward temporary upticks in form that on any longitudinal analysis was never going to be maintained (given prior poor form and aging nature of those players).
We bought a ver old/injured hooker in Hodgson instead of paying a bit more for api. We bought Momoseia instead of Joe Chan. We bought cini instead of one of the countless more serviceable reserve grade winger from sharks (iro, stonestreet etc) – and we got cini AFTER sharks put him on train and trial and decided not to sign him. He was another off the scrap heap. Harper – off the scrap heap. Ogden – off the scrap heap after misdemeanours. Sivo from reserve grade. Asi from scrap heap after warriors didn’t want him and cowboys had no real use for him. The list goes on and on and on before you get to which juniors we have lost in that time.
Correct.
I suspect HOF gets paid a significant bonus by the club if he comes in under budget on the salary cap. This is a possible reason (except negligence and incompetence my preferred reasons) for ongoing vacancies in the cap. He will always low ball and bargain buy inorder to ensure his bonus is paid.
Well put Ron.
They only sign Players of the scrap heap.
The club honestly needs to somehow catch wind all the supporters are on to them and how ridiculous it is.
If you get any organisation, in business, sports, media.
If you were to build a team up of employees who are mostly unwanted individuals no other organisation wants.
What outcome does that likely result in?
It’s very easy to predict the likely outcome for any organisation in any field if this was the recruitment strategy.
We need to somehow get media of largely influencing al voices putting this towards the Eels execs.
How can they honestly say they are trying to win a comp?
If they don’t even employ 30 players on the roster.
And each time we sign new players…
It’s literally players other clubs are offloading.
It makes zero sense.
Everyone can see it.
Obviously the club execs worry about balance sheets more than legitimate NRL club success as the first priority.
What these short term minded individuals don’t realise.
Is that if you can win premierships or make it deep into the finals yearly.
Your merch sales, tickets, memberships, sky rocket.
These clowns are employing scrap heap players and lying to us that we can win a premiership with this roster.
They aren’t trying to recruit to win a comp – they recruit to save money by buying the cheapest players possible.
Even if they often aren’t even good enough after a few games to play in our NRL team.
It’s honestly ridiculous and outrageous.
If you look at any successful club.
New recruits are usually upgrades or significant depth improving players.
Our recruits generally are huge downgrades.
And they usually aren’t even good enough to be depth signings.
We move them on within a year or can’t use them (not good enough)
Doorey, Murchie, Momosia, Hodgson, Cini, are good examples just to name a few.
I meant to say:
We need to somehow get media folks (or)
largely influencing voices putting this towards the Eels execs
Someone needs to press them on their horrible recruiting process of almost exclusively singing unwanted players
Or the fact they next fill the roster and have no depth
Ron, I assume you read where Tigers’ Shane Richardson recently hopped on a plane to UK to ‘sell’ players in a clean out, and it was reported that already a number have offers being considered. End result yet to be seen but couldn’t help thinking ‘that’s pro-active!’.
Interesting that both Dogs and Tigers threw contracts around for a rebuild, made some mistakes but instead of wallowing in them, have been active in improving their rosters.
I actually don’t like how Richardson goes about his business. He talks too much and selling players in that way will only produce a toxic environment as the players are still there and you are airing them out in public. We have to tap lane, sivo, Ogden, maka and possibly matto on the shoulder but discreetly so they can keep playing well and help us now while improving their bargaining position
Observation not criticism. The stripping challenge. The bunker went with the on field decision (happens often) but Preston’s wrist and fingers when he felt the ball definitely bent into a momentary clawing action which dislodged the ball. If it had been in the course of a tackle his hand would have more likely just brushed the ball more into Tuilagi’s grip. My guess is that if the ref had ruled strip and the Dogs challenged, the bunker would have come up with my very forensic opinion too. That was really a game of many moments.
I’m all for the progression of female referees but Kasey Badger is a long way off the required standard.
She is terrible, her gender is irrelevant.
Agree but …welcome to the year 2024 !!
Ethan Martin looks rapid him and Blaize/Lomax on wing will reqlly turn our backs around
It’s been the same problem for the last 5 years.
No defence on the left hand side.
The outside backs prefer to let the attackers outside them and chase. It never works.
Asi had no idea, he was totally lost in defence.
Arthur never addressed it successfully, if Barrett doesn’t we will be with the Tigers.
If they do nothing else this week, they should train the outside defence or Young and Tupou will put on 50.
Take those 3 tries away and we win by 12.
The middle of the field was solid. Criticizing the forwards is unfair. Apart from a few mistakes, they held their own.
One thing that has to improve is passing, especially from dummy half.
So many plays died because passes were too high or too hard.
Take nothing away from Canterbury, they were good, but we were the better side all game, let down by a problem that the team has had no idea how to solve.
Hey mate, why do you think they’ve never been able to fix edge defence?
Do you think Is it a coaching issue? Not enough quality players in those positions?
I’m honestly interested to see why you guys think they’ve never been able to fix it.
In my opinion it’s a personnel issue. We have too many slow and immobile forwards. That means we don’t get our spacing right in the middle (as we are tighter) and then (given they can’t cover distance well in short time) and we don’t get good enough inside line/speed pressure to work out and slide to edges. Our backrowers (lane/kelma) are also not good enough in their defensive line speed and reads. Papalii was the same, very poor laterally and it’s on show now at tigers. Marata was better but often injured or suspended. Now add to that the lack of speed in our centres (who defend right for reasons above) then you have the major reason we have leaked points on edges like a sieve over many years.
Until we change composition of middle to be more mobile and get some speed in backs we physically cannot compete with better teams who have the modern back and good halves to hold up the meagre inside pressure we do manage to muster from time to time
Defence starts in the middle, right from the markers. The markers have to shut down the dummy half from running with just a single step each to either side of the play the ball and then the one on the side the ball is shifted to has to link with the A defender with everyone outside then pushing out. I’d love to see the stats, but I’ve got no doubt the Eels have at least 1 defender left behind the ruck more than any other team, and by a ridiculously high margin. Straight away you’re on the back foot – the A defender has to hold and push in, not out, in case the dummy half goes and the slide just doesn’t happen. Even then, when they do get it right, there’s far too many times a lazy B or C defender doesn’t meet his brief and the outside defenders are left posted. That said, there’s also too many times the wingers jam in, but this is a result of what happens inside for the most part.
In short, I agree with Ron, it’s a personnel issue.
It’s true. On their first try you could see that Crichton was trying to make Russell bite even though Asi had him. He delayed and delayed and I’m screaming at the TV ” don’t bite Russell, don’t bite stay on your man” but of course – he bit and came in on Chichton and bang ….
So bloody frustrating.
We have never got the up and in structure right.
I remember watching Steve Renouf get outside players by stepping sideways as the ball was played so that he was always starting outside the defender.
Our outside backs don’t line up square and tackle head on.
Waqa Blake was the worst at it. He always tried to chase.
I watched Cronulla against Manly I think about a month ago and the wingers stayed back and pushed the attackers to the sideline. Manly have good, fast outside backs who couldn’t get past them because of the structure.
We tend to run in and leave overlaps.
How many tries have you seen over the last 3 years where the winger and centre are standing still looking back at Gutherson and Brown scrambling in vain attempts to stop the outside man scoring in the corner.
The first try that Crichton scored was a terrible defensive line.
Asi and Russell both came in creating a two man overlap.
Wilson’s try was typical of the problem. Russell came in to try and cover from Asi’s missed tackle but he got Crichton on the ground and would have easily been cleaned up by Gutho and Brown. Russell got no one.
We also see forwards rushing up one out in the middle of the field. This leaves gaps that make for easy inside runs.
Only a few good one on one tackles, especially one from Junior, saved us in the middle this week
I have to go back to the early Brian Smith days when the players would check off with the defender alongside and run up together. It looked like a schoolboy drill but it became instinctive that they would work together in defence.
We also have to make sure the marking defender attempts a front on tackle.
Even if the tackle is broken, it gives the inside men time to cover the gap and keeps the outside defender on his man.
This has been the difference in Bailey Simmonsen this year. He gave up chasing and started tackling directly.
Lomax will make a difference but not if we continue with the current structure.
I thought that Talagi and Penisini managed it ok.
We would have probably been better with Russell in the centres and Asi on the wing.
V disappointing end to the game tbh. Too many issues for me to list, and some obviously mentioned above.
TCT always offer fair and forthright views.
I personally feel we will be back to where we were 10 yrs ago with new coach, without much learnt from the board.
They should be seeking out Melb and dare I say Penrith to view things there.
I also cringe about the kids listed above in the news feed with us who are staying on and the ones leaving.
We have NO backup half / same for outside backs / need to give the likes of MA and Guymer and co a run after the nexy bye / as others have said get in someone as head of footy with the nous to keep juniors and deal with player managers etc.
We should be competitive each yr in the junior ranks.
Even Flegg have lifted over the last period of time and Reggies.
It is not bloody rocket science.
Great post Milo
This for me goes down as the most disappointing game to view as a fan this year, only a player or two from our best side on the paddock, bulldogs down 2 players by head knocks by halftime, hoping for a bit of luck then Mann gets 10 in the bin, then Preston goes down, I thought one more try and we have it locked up!
Well, error after error, and the bulldogs, who created plenty of chances to score then we did, from the time Mann was binned, we got out coached and outplayed with 24 to go,
I watch the eels in a calm manner, but not yesterday, i was a least thinking moving Asi back to the middle or to the bench as his confidence was shot and who could blame him taking on the best centre in the comp, and moving hands out a bit wider to take Browns spot, and moving Brown in the centres to plug the defence with more pace that was lacking with Asi, but no, we kept things the same and attack after attack it was easy for the bulldogs,
At least try something to stop the rot.
Whether BA, Barrett, Bennett, Bryles, Bannay or Bheika the failures on recruitment will have them hamstrung in making any progress. Apart from Mitch and Dylan Parra seems to be the slowest club in the comp. It needs to change and I hope the new coach gets the team he wants.
Watching the game you could see the Dogs gaining ascendancy when down to 12 players. While Parra played with heart they seemed to lack that belief which will be something the new coach will need to find a way to address.
Something positive out of yesterday was Kelma’s running out wide. Yeah he has a few mistakes but he could be a weapon if he cuts down in the error.
See team list Today?
What’s your thoughts on why baz has Asi starting at #14?
Interested to hear your takes.