NRL Team List
Round 18, Thursday 7:50PM, CommBank Stadium
Wins have been hard to come by but at least it is raining debuts at the moment for the Parramatta Eels. In another positive step forwards during a difficult period this week sees the debuts of Jake Tago (Eel #847) and Charlie Guymer (Eel #848) in Thursday night’s clash against the resurgent Rabbitohs. Tago takes over on the left wing from the luckless Maika Sivo, who has succumbed to a hamstring injury once again, while Guymer plays from the bench in place of Makahesi Makatoa.
Both players have been ultra-consistent performers in the NSW Cup for the Blue & Gold this year. Tago, a midseason acquisition, quickly locked down a berth in the backline and has scored 9 tries in 14 games and has averaged over 100m a game playing primarily centre with a dash of wing sprinkled in. Guymer has split his game time between lock and edge backrower and has flourished in either role with a tough, uncompromising playstyle that is underlined by smart hole running.
Matt Arthur also holds his place in the team after a strong debut against the Knights in which he played 28min as the deputy at dummy-half. It combines to give the struggling squad a serious injection of youth and energy as they look to spring an ambush on South Sydney on Thursday night. I tip my hat to Trent Barrett for making these pragmatic selection calls as well. He is putting the best course of action for the future of the club ahead of purely chasing results with more experienced options.
The Rabbitohs are fresh off a bye and running hot with a four-game winning streak to their name. Latrell Mitchell and Cameron Murray return to the starting line-up after successful outing for the NSW Blues in Game 2 in a further boost to their squad. Despite the home-field advantage for Parramatta, it feels like the Rabbitohs enter this game as heavy favourites and the Eels will do very well if they can go blow-for-blow on Thursday night.
If you are making your way out to CommBank Stadium on Thursday night, you can catch myself and Sixties live in The Bistro for the Pre-Game Show. This week will see us chatting with the cracking David Liddiard from 5:00PM!
| Parramatta Eels | South Sydney Rabbitohs | |
| Clinton Gutherson | 1 | Latrell Mitchell |
| Jake Tago | 2 | Alex Johnston |
| Will Penisini | 3 | Taane Milne |
| Sean Russel | 4 | Richard Kennar |
| Blaize Talagi | 5 | Jacob Gagai |
| Dylan Brown | 6 | Jack Wighton |
| Mitchell Moses | 7 | Cody Walker |
| Reagan Campbell-Gillard | 8 | Davvy Moale |
| Brendan Hands | 9 | Damien Cook |
| Junior Paulo | 10 | Sean Keppie |
| Ryan Matterson | 11 | Cameron Murray |
| Bryce Cartwright | 12 | Jai Arrow |
| Shaun Lane | 13 | Keaon Koloamatangi |
| Interchange | ||
| Matthew Arthur | 14 | Peter Mamouzelos |
| Joe Ofahengaue | 15 | Tallis Duncan |
| Matt Doorey | 16 | Thomas Burgess |
| Charlie Guymer | 17 | Michael Chee-Kam |
| Reserves | ||
| Daejan Asi | 18 | Jye Gray |
| Makahesi Makatoa | 19 | Liam Le Blanc |
| Wiremu Greig | 20 | Fletcher Myers |
| Morgan Harper | 21 | Adam Christensen |
| Luca Moretti | 22 | Thomas Fletcher |
NSW Cup Team List
Round 18, Thursday 5:20PM, CommBank Stadium
A big bounce back victory was asked for last week and that is exactly what the Eels delivered as they trounced the Knights 30-8 on the road. Now just a solitary win adrift of the Top 6, Parramatta can kick down the doors this week with a follow-up victory against the Rabbitohs.
Samuel Loizou comes into the centres this week in place of Jake Tago while Jock Brazel replaces fellow young gun Charlie Guymer on the edge. Ryley Smith and Saxon Pryke also hold their spots in the team as Nathan Cayless leans into a bit of a youth movement.
The Cup will play the opening match on Thursday night at CommBank Stadium.
| 1 | Zac Cini |
| 2 | Lorenzo Mulitalo |
| 3 | Samuel Loizou |
| 4 | Morgan Harper |
| 5 | Isaac Lumelume |
| 6 | Daejarn Asi |
| 7 | Ethan Sanders |
| 8 | Makahesi Makatoa |
| 9 | Meni Luke |
| 10 | Wiremu Greig |
| 11 | Dan Keir |
| 12 | Jock Brazel |
| 13 | Luca Moretti |
| Interchange | |
| 14 | Ryley Smith |
| 15 | Brock Parker |
| 16 | Saxon Pryke |
| 17 | Reece Alderton |
Harvey Normans Women’s Premiership Team List
Round 1, Saturday 3:00PM, 4 Pines Park
Team List Tuesday gets it first major addition this year with Round 1 of the Harvey Normans Women’s Premiership kicking off this week! A second expansion is awaiting us at the end of this month with the NRLW mind you!
It is exciting times in the female footy space though as the Parramatta Eels announce their inaugural HNWP team that will take on the Sea Eagles in Round 1. To the club’s credit they have leaned heavily into the ethos of being a development club with plenty of names that should be familiar to fans that have followed the Tarsha Gale Cup in recent seasons.
That starts with Tahleisha Maeva captaining the young team. Maeva was a core player from our outstanding 2022 Tarsha Gale squad and now helms a senior squad filled to the brim with hungry NRLW prospects. Debbie Doueihi, Bella Sandford, Tallara Bamblett, Raphaella Perigo, Alysha Bell and Ashlee Pottinger are all Tarsha Gale graduates (as are Kyanna Lokeni and Laila Dimech in the extended team list) with the Eels while it is great to see Losalio Payne back with the club after starring for the club back in season 2021 in the TG.
Helping guide this young team are NRLW talents Tyla Amiatu, Chloe Jackson, Tafao Asaua and Rory Owen as well as NRLW Development prospects Yasmine Baker and Chelsea Makira. Obviously there is plenty of footy to be played by this team with results pending but in a vacuum it is hard not be excited about the Eels fully embracing their development club identity.
| 1 | Yasmine Baker |
| 2 | Debbie Doueihi |
| 3 | Bella Sandford |
| 4 | Rory Owen |
| 5 | Shaye Shipton |
| 6 | Tallarra Bamblett |
| 7 | Sarah Dimech |
| 8 | Tafao Asaua |
| 9 | Chelsea Makira |
| 10 | Tyla Amiatu |
| 11 | Chloe Jackson |
| 12 | Tahleisha Maeva © |
| 13 | Ryshe Fa’amausili |
| Interchange | |
| 14 | Raphaella Perigo |
| 15 | Losalio Payne |
| 16 | Alysha Bell |
| 17 | Ashlee Pottinger |
| 18 | Kyanna Lokeni |
| 19 | Laila Dimech |
| 20 | Aliti Namoce |
Jersey Flegg Team List
Round 18, Saturday 1:00PM, Kellyville Park
A loss to the Newcastle Knights has pushed the Eels back down the ladder and 3 wins adrift of the Top 6 entering this week. It leaves them little recourse but to win out meaning they need to account for the Rabbitohs on Saturday at Kellyville.
Ollie McCarthy makes his Flegg debut on the wing this week after a good season at fullback in the SG Ball. Antioch Faitala-Mariner is also back this week and reclaims his spot at centre. Saxon Pryke has been named to backup from Thursday night in the NSW Cup but this could easily change pending what sort of minutes he plays in that grade. Otherwise the Eels are rolling out a fairly familiar team sheet and one that has produced strong results up until the last two weeks.
| 1 | Apa Twidle |
| 2 | Mohamed Alameddine |
| 3 | Antioch Faitala-Mariner |
| 4 | Araz Nanva |
| 5 | Ollie McCarthy |
| 6 | Matthew Hunter |
| 7 | Joshua Lynn |
| 8 | Sam Tuivati |
| 9 | Yehya Ayache |
| 10 | Teancum Brown |
| 11 | Raf De Stradis |
| 12 | Dom De Stradis |
| 13 | Saxon Pryke |
| Interchange | |
| 14 | Pat Spence |
| 15 | Max Tupou |
| 16 | Tyrese Lokeni |
| 17 | Damascus Neemia |
We currently have the worst set out outside backs, backrowers and hooker rotation in the comp (hopefully Matt Arthur develops well over next 2 months). We have a great halves pairing and a decent fullback. This reeks of 16th place or a spoon side. Too many holes for Moses and dyl to plug. The fans deserve so much better than this state of affairs.
At least the 2 debutant, Matt Arthur and Moses will provide some relief from the mediocrity we have seen week in week out. I applaud Barrett for biting the bullet and debuting younger players. Next job is to move on some of the current ones
That’s because the champion former coach destroyed our salary cap
Not correct, but accuracy never is never high on your agenda
NRL 360 tonight are suggesting there’s more rumours lomax might backflip on the eels due to us being a basket case at present.
Let’s hope his playing partnership with Moses at origin is enough to help him stick to his decision. 🤞
The last thing we need is him back flipping.
I doubt he would. 1) he has no coach clause and 2) the cooling off period as finished. Seems like media beat up.
But that does not mean zac wouldn’t have a reason to backflip – we have clowns running the show and an incompetent Hof who can’t even cobble a top 30 together. We have board members who take 2 months to decide who is coach after conducting themselves in a deplorable manner in announcing their main target brushed them. I wish there was a way to get some form of accountability from them but I’m yet to come across it. The circus continues
100% Ron
Damn the media are absolutely full of shit.
They moan constantly about the way the Eels dismissed their coach without having an apparent replacement but ignore the fact that Barrett was there willing and able to take the role and that many many clubs have dismissed their head coach during the season.
Trent Barrett is a NRL coach and to not give him that time to show his wares would have been very disrespectful.
Yes, the board are taking their time but wouldn’t you rather them take the time and do it right ?
Now they are bleating about Zac Lomax doing turn around and not coming to the Eels. What a crock.
The only way Zac is not coming to the Eels is to do a Judas Lyon and play in England or rugby for 4 years.
That’s it.
The contract is as tight as a nuns …
All this asking Flanno etc . what a load of stupid talk.
Lastly, how refreshing is it that there is absolutely no leaks from the Eels head office ?
All these so called experts coming out and saying this and that is all absolute speculation.
The board may know nothing about football but they know plenty about business and that includes finance and keeping secrets.
The next thing to do is to put in place is a coaching team.
Whatever happens, let’s remember that the journalists know about as much as all of us and the bleatings on 360 is there for click bait only.
yep and not a peep about Luai having second thoughts about going to the west tigers
Of course, we are the easy target at the moment.
All we heard last night was that there was going to be a dramatic meeting at the Eels last night and they will announce the coach.
So where’s the announcement?
Damn they are full of shit.
They know nothing.
It’s the old saying – ” a broken clock is still right twice a day”
Spark & Ron I agree fellas, they probably just made it up from nothing for a talking point.
In all seriousness though – I agree with you saying how bad it is they keep blasting us for “not having a coach”
Trent Barret is our coach and it’s not his first rodeo.
People will say that he isn’t a good coach because he hasn’t been very successful yet.
The eels was in shambles before he took over and we’ve had even more injuries and we do not have depth for sufficient replacements.
NRL 360 makes out we don’t even have a coach more or less (lol)
Yes sure, it’s not our “new head coach”
But as far as I’m concerned, if our juniors are going to be getting first grade playing time up their sleeves.
Then baz is being a successful head coach for our clubs future.
I don’t mean in a sense of us winning more games.
Because even if we win some more we will not make top 8.
What I mean by determining “success” is if it results in more of our cup players getting a chance playing first grade in 2024.
Then I personally would rather see that then all of our old players take up most first grade playing positions blocking our younger talent from growing into quality grade standard NRL players over the coming years.
If you look at the panthers they will push our older and very good players if they believe a junior or two can fill that role sufficiently within a 12-24 month period.
I’m more than happy to see Matt Arthur, Charlie Guymer, Blaize, even Brendan Hands stack up more games even if we are not a truly competitive side (in terms of premiership quality), for a few years.
Gus guild believes parra never thinks long term enough and I believe he is on to something.
Penriths now champion teams are mostly their juniors who were given patience and a lot of development.
I believe some of our champion younger players could become our Eels first grade teams best players within 3-5 years.
Good on Trent barret for giving these young men a go.
The dividends for these young gentleman playing in 24’ will be paid out to us during the future 25-26 seasons.
We need to stop investing so much game time and resources into players who stock is only going to drop or stagnant / will not progress.
Lussick, sivo, lane, matto, paulo, makatoa.
These are stocks whos value in terms of playing ability’s are dropping dramatically in real time.
I see now use in us constantly prioritising them.
We are down the bottom of the ladder anyway with them in the team.
I would much rather see us at the bottom of the table with younger players at least gaining experience so we see a positive outcome from it.
I understand we can’t move them on instantly.
But If we are going to be coming near dead last?
Why don’t we start really focusing on building for next year and the year after.
A new coach will likely be looking to offload most those guys I just mentioned.
I’m happy to see us by outside the top 8 if we are developing and rebuilding from the youth within the club.
What I’m not happy seeing is old over paid players making up most of the team and holding back our juniors (who are our future) from developing.
I’m extremely pleased with baz now giving these young men opportunities opportunities.
Our club needs to move away from always holding so many older players.
We gain zero ROI for being a retirement home club.
NRL is increasingly becoming a young man’s sport in many positions especially the speed of the game dramatically increasing.
Old fat slow forwards are a death sentence for your defensive systems in the game of NRL in 2024.
The scary part?
Most of these players are apparently contracted even next year.
The new coach needs to be aggressive and somehow move most of our older forwards off.
Imagine lane, matto, paulo, makatoa in another 1 years time?
There’s been a huge drop from last year to this year.
The club cannot afford to drop even further, we are already equal dead last.
I have no doubts our forwards are a large part of that.
Lomax and Simmonson next year – solid backs. Will p in form is also decent.
The other issue is gutho – he looks like he cannot run anymore with his knees.
Age, weight & speed has been a massive issue causing the decline of our mighty parra eels in 24’.
“I tip my hat to Trent Barrett for making these pragmatic selection calls as well. He is putting the best course of action for the future of the club ahead of purely chasing results with more experienced options.“
Well said 40. Props to baz for this.
Regardless of the outcome this weekend, it’s a very progressive decision he has made for the future and these young deserving eels juniors.
Yes it’s about time too. Although one may conclude that the changes were injury forced rather than any progressive innovative move that Baz made.
I would have applauded loudly if he had made a statement and dropped an established player like Lane for someone like Guymer.
I would have rather seen Russell move to the wing and Tago bought into the centres , I know Tago has played a couple games on the wing but he’s a centre and I hate seeing players out of position.
Or even move Talagi into the centres and Russell out on the wing.
Anyway , it’s not like Baz is playing with anything like a full deck of cards that’s for sure.
I don’t want to hear anyone bashing baz for his decisions, eels fans complain about our luck of young players who get a chance.
Then some say they are useless when they come in green and drop balls (like blaize) lol
We need to stand together and support the coach giving eels jnrs time in first grade, even if we lose or make many errors.
The upside benefits of providing these young men opportunities goes well beyond just making them happy and adding nrl experience to more players on our roster.
It provides light at the end of the tunnel so to speak, and inspiration to other cup & SG ball players in our ranks that you can reach our first grade side if you play good.
We’ve been known as a difficult club to get a pathway into nrl opportunities since we tend to have a bias towards old experienced players we recruit and keep in our 17.
Young blokes in our junior ranks who have played with our new eels getting a debut can them begin to see themselves possibly having that opportunity.
It’s well documented that employees and athletes alike will lift significantly in performance and improve retention when they can see a better career progression pathway in their work place.
It’s a very positive think what our club is doing giving them this opportunity.
It will go well beyond just what we immediately see with our own eyes.
These young eels becoming first grade players will inspire many more eels jnrs that it can be done, and it is possible.
When kids see other people just like them succeeding in our club, this will give them more confidence that if they play well and continue to improve that they might get a shot at NRL level.
Whoever the new coach will be:
All I hope is that he focuses to develop from within our club.
I’m happy to see us not be in the top 4 for a few years.
If we can build a legit premiership threat of a team by using our champion eels jnr’s as the foundation.
I don’t want to see the short term thinking of chasing immediate success and only using old players & paying overs to keep them like what has taken place now.
Obviously we don’t know everything as fans.
But I strongly feel like a more powerful eels club of tomorrow must contain a lot of our former pathways players who develop from within.
The eels spirit isn’t a metric we can measure – but i believe that passion & loyalty is extremely important for our club.
We don’t want players only coming to us for money who do not care about the club like we do.
Any update on Toni Mataele. He should be fit from his injury by now. Is this Moimesia 2.0?
Lussick SL bound again?
Toni has been doing rehab with Ofahiki Ogden. Not sure about where he’s at this week. I know that there will be roster movement, though most of the contracts that are up are at the lower end of the roster as far as coin is concerned. To make significant recruitment moves, they’d probably need to find new homes for those still under contract. We would probably try to do that first, before signing anyone. There are some clubs that are more aggressive and do the deals first, then make it fit.
Certainly agree that Baz deserves props for giving the young guys a crack. I don’t think Arthur went particularly well against the Knights (some pretty ordinary service at times), but they need to persist with him, giving him reps and help him connect with Moses.
I am left a little befuddled at Lane getting promoted from the bench after doing exactly nothing all year. I actually think Joe O has been going quite a bit better than Lane. But neither provide the connective ball playing of a modern day 13. So not much we can do without Hopgood. But presumably Joe O starts at prop and Paulo comes off the bench.
Might have actually been interesting to give Paulo a run as the 13…
I can’t see any result other than a blow out loss unfortunately (the 5 day turn around vs team coming off a bye… again.. won’t help). If they keep this close and we are talking about some positive performances and a coaching announcement afterwards, that is probably the best we can hope for.
Joe o will come in as starting prop probably late change as usual, I agree I wonder how paulo would go at 13?
A possible blow out loss may take place.
But if our younger players are gaining NRL experience that’s still a long term benefit to the team.
What I don’t want to see is a team dead last on the table full of old players and no younger players gaining experience, I’m happy to see us not be a top 4 or top 8 team if we are building for a better tomorrow.
Our Fans will just need to be patient ok Boods, blaize, Guymer, Tago.
These kids are green and will take some time to calm their nerves at first grade level, as well as gain the necessary experience.
I would much rather see us losing with young talent building up their skills for our season next year.
Then many of the old players who will be moved on by the new coach out there playing that provides no future benefit for us with them playing if we can’t make the 8.
Very exciting times to see these young men debut, win or lose. IMO