Now that Jason Ryles has been appointed as the head coach for the Parramatta Eels on a four year contract from 2025, the focus has turned to the decisions to be made about the Eels roster.
Recent reports have suggested that the Melbourne Storm will release Ryles from his 2024 contract, allowing him to focus all of his energies on shaping the Eels top 30. This has now triggered a raft of rumours regarding the release, or recruitment, of players.
And so the debate begins.
There appears to be a conflict of opinion about whether the Eels need a tweak or a complete overhaul of the roster. Your take might depend on your definition of an overhaul. Does it mean a complete clean out?
My take is that it lies somewhere in between, especially given the players who are off contract. Ultimately the only opinion that matters should be that of the incoming coach.
Jason Ryles
But the coach, and the club, face some harsh realities.
Let’s examine the following inescapable list of considerations:
* The Eels 2024 roster is using at least 97.5% of the $11.65m salary cap (the mandated minimum spend). Though only 27 players are currently listed as being top 30 in 2024, at the commencement of the year there were 30 players named. The three that have left in Momoisea, Rodwell and Taumoepenu have not been replaced by recruits. Perhaps recruitment was not possible.
* The players coming off contract (see below) sit towards the lower end of the top 30 in terms of salary. Their departure will not free up significant funds to sign any elite recruit. Yet, their places, and that of the three 2024 free spaces, have to be filled. Consequently, there might be some who will be retained.
* The salary cap only rises by $150K in 2025. The Eels will have to factor in the addition of Lomax, and a potential significant upgrade of Talagi into a salary cap spend that is currently only losing, at most, the off-contract players listed below. It’s difficult to see how that will balance out, especially with spots that need to be filled.
* If the Eels intend entering the player market for quality recruits, or any recruits for that matter, they will need to release players who are currently contracted on rich deals.
Zac Lomax
This is the roster situation as it stands going into 2025
Off Contract
Daejarn Asi, Zac Cini, Morgan Harper, Makahesi Makatoa, Ofahiki Ogden, Bailey Simonsson, Blaize Talagi (player option) and Jock Brazel (currently Development)
Contracted for 2025
Forwards
Reagan Campbell-Gillard, Bryce Cartwright, Matt Doorey, Wiremu Greig, J’Maine Hopgood, Shaun Lane, Toni Mataele, Ryan Matterson, Luca Moretti, Joe Ofahengaue, Junior Paulo, Kelma Tuilagi, Sam Tuivaiti
Outside Backs
Haze Dunster, Zac Lomax, Will Penisini, Sean Russell, Maika Sivo
Spine
Dylan Brown, Clinton Gutherson, Brendan Hands, Joey Lussick, Mitchell Moses
Development (Supplementary List)
Charlie Guymer, Matt Arthur, Saxon Pryke (there might be others on this list that are not yet publicly confirmed)
Quick Roster Analysis
There are only 23 players confirmed as being top 30 in 2025. Thus far, the only additions for next season include Luca Moretti, Sam Tuivaiti, and Zac Lomax joining the top squad, and Matt Arthur moving onto a development deal.
Though both Guymer and Arthur are pathways players who have made their NRL debuts, and have a genuine likelihood of featuring regularly in first grade in 2025, neither will be top 30 in 2025 based on their existing respective contracts.
Charlie Guymer
The imbalance in the roster is obvious.
Whilst there are thirteen forwards with a top 30 contract, with at least another two on the development list, only five outside backs have a current contract for 2025. That includes Haze Dunster who has had his career devastated by injury, and Maika Sivo, who is heavily rumoured for an exit.
It’s arguably just as thin in the spine with only five players, which includes two dummy halves.
Furthermore, ten players will be 30 years of age or older in 2025 – RCG, Junior, Carty, Lane, Ofa, Matto, Moey, Gutho, Sivo and Lussick.
There is nothing wrong with players being over 30 years of age. Some, including halves, hit their prime around 30 – see Mitch Moses. However, in a game which is evolving towards being faster with every passing year, having such a large collective of players in their senior years can be seen as problematic.
The Decisions Facing Ryles
Fate has been unkind to the Eels in 2024. They were always at risk of having their depth exposed by injury. The 2024 casualty ward has been extreme, exposing the lack of depth and then some. By way of a simple yardstick, the club has just debuted two players who began the season in Ron Massey Cup.
However, being blunt, and based on exposed form, the roster as it stands cannot be expected to achieve improved results in 2025. As of today, the only confirmed changes to next season will be the addition of Lomax and the addition of another year to the ages of the players.
By my calculations, the Eels will need to add at least seven players and the money currently available will at best cover the recruitment of Lomax and the upgrade of Talagi. The available coin after that expense won’t then attract the type of recruits that many supporters would be hoping for. In fact I see it as a tight fit to fill the top 30.
The reality is that supporters will have to prepare themselves for the release of players near the top of the salary list as it is the only way for the Eels to add high quality recruits to their roster.
Who will that be?
Herein lies the next dilemma.
For the Eels to get any value out of moving a player on, there must be a destination club willing to take them on for most of their current contract.
For example, if the Eels were to release a player on $600K and another club was only prepared to pay $300K, then there is only $300K of cap relief. That means the Eels could only spend $300k at the most on a replacement.
Simonsson is off contract
Such an outcome might even mean that there is better value in retaining certain players.
So the next question is, could we expect any of the current roster to attract an offer close to their current deal?
The answer to that question could very well be more of a deciding factor in player retention than the 2024 form of the players.
If high profile players are released, some decisions probably won’t sit well with fans who are likely to point the finger at other players. It is my belief that supporters will have to accept uncomfortable or unpopular calls.
My Hope
As painful as it is to say it, there are players who must be released. I might not be happy with who that is but like all supporters, I will have to accept it.
For the club to achieve better results, the roster has to be re-shaped to meet the challenge of a game which is now faster. A quick examination of the roster is all that is needed to understand the imbalance, the lack of depth, and the inability to meet the demands of a changing game. That’s without looking at the unfilled spots measured against likely available cap space.
If the Eels can free up significant money, a couple of quality recruits will be essential – an outside back and am impact forward.
Beyond that, the club must decide to shift the focus from recruiting mostly fringe players who they believe they can get value from, to younger emerging players. It doesn’t mean that they can’t recruit a fringe player but they need to look to the future, whether it be in the Eels pathways or beyond.
We can look back at errors made to this point, but the focus has to be making the right calls moving forward. Ultimately, big decisions await Ryles and the recruitment and retention committee.
How many will be primarily in their control, or determined by market forces, remains to be seen.
Eels forever!
Sixties
A major concern is that several problematic performers are contracted for two more years including some holding an option for 2026. That pushes us into 2027 before a major rbuild is possible. The type of player we would be happy to release is unlikely to be in demand elsewhere. Much of this situation has been caused by sheer bad luck. We have had an awful run with injuries : Sean Lane was outstanding for us in 2022. He had three dreadful injuries last year – not surprising that his form is significantly down this year. As well, several if the men off contract have been very valuable to us this year – I think of D,J Asi as an example. I think we’re just going to have to be patient and do our best.
Noel,
I think you are spot on about Lane. I have mentioned once or twice that he has not come back the same from those three major injuries in 2023. I think his confidence is way down and mentally it just seems he hasn’t been able to get it all together for the end of last season as well as 2024.
How to get that back he probably knows better than many, but that still doesn’t make it easy. Personally, I hope he can but I’m starting to really doubt it.
Don’t underestimate the value someone like Lane might attract from other clubs. The challenge is going to be getting them to pony up most of the freight, or better still, offer a longer term contract that the player will want to take.
It’s a fire sale and everyone knows it, so while Mark O’Neill has to push hard for the best outcome on every deal, he can’t be unrealistic either. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that his career in football management hangs in the balance.
Nice post sixties. Matto news is circling about him being told he can leave, but without sounding rude to some of our players, there’s players who in my opinion offer far worst value to our roster.
It might be that some of those players have longer contracts, and the eels have to be strategic about how they look to remove them.
Maybe it’s because of like what you said – they don’t want to get caught up paying half their wages to get rid of them.
They’ve been reportedly denying they are looking to offload paulo.
Paulo and lane are not actually needed for this roster moving forward, not in terms of their contract sizes compared to the value provided.
Matto is also playing good some games, but not close to the level of playing standard of which he was (before getting a new contract).
It’s obvious to most of us fans Lussick likely has no future in the eels first grade side, unless there’s significant hooker injuries to Hands & Boods…
Getting A proper starting specialist NRL level hooker, and a solid back rower, and 1 or 2 young backs who are fast, even if they are semi green players.
With an estimated $2 million + in cap space freed up (if all of those individuals were to leave) ….
You could potentially see a eels outfit looking like a completely different side in 25’ or 26’
The issue is obviously that no other clubs would pay Paulo around $1m per year.
No other clubs would consider lane at $700k or whatever he is on.
I would expect the closest to being accepted by clubs is matto, who is apparently on $600k.
No nrl club would want lussick you would suspect, no offence to him, but he has been more of a back up hooker, even in UK super league.
HERES where our clubs shot in the foot in my opinion.
No other clubs have so much invested into forwards.
You look at our backs list in the top 30, it’s absolutely shocking.
Even in the QLD maroons team Billy worry’s more about having back up outside backs than many other positions.
It’s a simple fact, backs are constantly doing hamstrings or having knee injuries (seemingly)…
Our roster, it’s laid out in a way where it’s like they didn’t account for backs being injured.
There’s zero actual proper back up fullback, and very limited centres or backs if 1 goes down.
I’m not buying into the fact of HOF can’t fill a roster.
As this post 60’s wrote suggests.
We have minimal cap space due to soooo many forwards, on way too much money.
Maybe our old coach could make it work with his playing style.
I’m not sure.
But to me looking at this roster we’ve got..
It looks like a house of cards.
If one half, one outside back, or our fullback goes down.
We are literally toast as a team.
Our winning % indicates this is the case.
Maybe BA could make it work with a squad being this unbalanced somewhat.
He had a knack of often getting a lot out of forwards.
But our teams balance is so bad you need to have an almost 100% healthy roster.
For us to stand a chance at being competitive.
Anyway.
It’s all out in the open now.
Ryles has been in two clubs where they always value significant outside backs depth.
He is apparently a good forwards coach and very defensively minded.
So let’s hope they can pull some magic 🪄
If they can do some adjusting on this roster I can see a big improvement for 25’
But if we get stuck with say; Paulo, Lane, Matto, Greig, makatoa.
Then I’m not sure how far the new coach can improve us.
Unfortunately Ryles can’t resolve poor Cap management but hopefully he can spot the qualities in Players that Melbourne has used when buying their bargain priced forwards. Resilience, toughness, humility, hard working…. the attributes missing from our overpriced pack at the moment. With our Spine and Forwards taking up so much cap space it’s no wonder our outside backs are lacking in creativity and flare.
For sure, it will be hard for him to manage the existing bad managed cap.
Maybe us eels fans will have to remain patient next year.
Kinda Just like how bulldogs fans had to be patient until Ciro got his own players on the roster.
Realistically, at least 3 out of matto, lane, sivo and rcg need to be moved on. I would prefer first three but we may have to move rcg cause he comes off contract sooner. The deals handed to sivo, lane, matto and options therein were not good at the time and now are down right horrible.
How do we trust the builders who presided over this mess to do and effective knockdown rebuild/reno?
Also, blaize talking with Penrith. So is his brother. Smells of bad news and parra losing another promising set of juniors. Arthur apparently wants to leave aswell per prozenko. The place stinks.
Why RCG not Paulo? RCG has been having a dig all year and is consistently one of our best forwards. Paulo is an absolute plodder who should be arrested for impersonating a front row forward.
I agree but rcg comes off contract sooner than Paulo. Just talking from logistics perspective I think they will have to cut rcg. I agree that rcg has had more of a dig this year and it’ll be a shame to see him go if they do cut him out of necessity
What necessity is there? Why cut someone playing well that doesn’t help anything.
Because we need to free up cash and have an imbalanced roster. Using rags 750 would go along away
I disagree with the notion that their contracts are bad in isolation. I think their contracts reflect what the top ten players of a GF team would get. The problem as I said in the previous blog is that we don’t get anywhere enough from our bottom 15-20 players, they are the ones that are actually overpaid in a perverse kind of way, and that’s largely because our pathways are underperforming. If we had a much more productive pathways system we wouldn’t have anywhere near as much pressure every time a key player comes off contract. We would be in the position to say no to guys like Matterson or Lane, we could say to Talagi “You’re not sure if you want to be here, fine, let’s talk to our other exciting young outside backs”. We wouldn’t have Isaac Moses taking us for a drive every time one of his players comes off contract. We wouldn’t have to give Dylan Brown arguably the least team friendly contract in pro sports history.
You don’t see the Panthers overpaying, because they can afford not to, their pathways allow them to say no to Jarome Luai or Api Koroisau or Villi Kikau. Can you imagine saying no to our best players ? No, because we simply can’t afford to.
I disagree that the contracts of lane, matto and sign were not bad at time of signing. Given their age and form in years prior to 2022 and the naturally decline that would set in as they got older (they weren’t young when they resigned)- it was always going to be bad business giving them such long deals. But biggest gripe is the length of the deals and the options in favour of the player. It’s down right terrible from a squad planning perspective.
But I also think you and 60s right in some respects. The only way we create space to fix some of the holes in the roster is paying portions of existing contracts (lane, matto, sivo) and then promoting juniors (guymer, Pryke, tuivati etc). No point shipping some off and then using remainder to get cheaper option with not much upside.
Stonestreet from sharks is someone we need to target. There’s many other good younger players currently playing reserve grade that we could pay 250-350k and guarantee top 17 or starting spot.
If blaize leaves. Young Arthur leaves.
Then it’s a sign the clubs ran by idiots and it’s a sign players have lost faith in the club or better yet who is running our club.
Players as you know not only buy into contracts to make decisions, the vision sold to players about the future and the leadership in a club can have a significant impact on players making contract decisions.
It’s a sign of bad times and a fish rotting at the head of our club if more our pathways players are all wanting to exit the ship.
I hope you aren’t right Ron, but I get a feeling blaize and co might leave.
Ethan Sanders and these young players must not be happy with our club if they all end up leaving.
What do you believe the issue is causing them all to want to leave Ron?
It must be something..
Thanks Sixties,
A sobering read that highlights issues surrounding managing the salary cap and player roster. It is disappointing in the extreme that we have got ourselves into this spot of bother.
I hope Ryles gets an early release from the Storm so he can focus on the roster and other issues without the need to coach the team at the same time. But as you and Forty have said on quite a few occasions there is a significant lack of balance vis a vis forwards/backs/spine as well as pay scales of the players. We can argue until the cows come home over who is the most responsible for this situation, but the questions that should continue to be asked, and are far more important, what person/people and what recruitment team structure are best to sort the issues out and minimise the risk of the imbalance occurring again. Get that sorted and we might start down the path of getting a few things right on those fronts.
I hear what you are saying Sixties. At the moment the maths just doesn’t add up. We will be paying for players who aren’t with the club in 2025, but this should come back in 2026. For mine, the only player who is a must keep is Moses. All other players could be feasibly replaced. I think the club will look at those on big money who could be attractive to other clubs – think Gutho, Paulo and RCG. Matto is almost certainly on the way out, as is Lane. I would be reluctant to release Brown, but Ryles would need to be able to extract the best out of him next year which we have not seen consistently.
The problem is that we don’t have readymade replacements for all those guys. All we’d do is spend their money, probably more, on players of similar talent.
Our pathways aren’t producing the replacements.
Yep it’s going to be an issue next year. We still need to fit in Lomax and other upgrades, so the club certainly has something in mind with how they are going to fund that. I’m thinking 2026 is when we see bigger changes.
We will have to pay freight for a few players to play elsewhere – Penrith did the same and managed to win premierships whilst doing it.
Lane, Paulo, Sivo and Matto probably need to be moved on to free up some cash. Lussick needs to head to Super League. Cartwright may be past his best too. If Gutho has a positional switch then his contract will need to be reviewed accordingly, if he’s not open to that then he also might have to go.
We can’t wait out contracts in a lot of those circumstances, so we’ll likely have to play with a reduced cap for a few years. Again, top teams have done this and still remained top teams – it’s not an excuse for poor results.
Time for our HoF and CEO to show what they’re made of at the negotiating table!
Yes but those teams, you mentioned the Panthers in particular, have far better pathways systems than us. They get far more out of the bottom end of their cap than we do.
That’s what needs to improve.
Not sure putting our current HOF at any negotiation table will do anything as that seems to be a big part of the reason we are looking at such an unbalanced and overpaid roster.
If we are to achieve any success in that area, changes need to be made and pretty quickly. Surely Ryles has contacts with people who could step up into that role with good relations with player managers and a better than average management philosophy of managing the cap and pathways.
For me to get some quality in we need to offload deadwood or at least a player that we can get some freight paid.
Junior
Gutho
Matto
Sivo
Ofa
Are my top to offload if we can get rid of 3 of those we can start the rebuild straight away.
Players with ambitious of having some achievements at Club level soon will no re sign with us so Brown Penisini could leave.
Moses may look for a release aswell he is getting older and won’t win a comp by staying here if that is something he wants then he will look on.
Rules won’t see much success over the next 2 years he has walked into a bigger mess then he realises
Part of my rationale in writing this post is to point out the realities for anyone who think releasing a player or two will free up cap space. Furthermore, I wanted to explain why some players that fans want to see moved on might end up staying. It’s going to be a significant task.
I think you are talking to the brick wall my friend! Personally I’d rather spend any $$ left on retaining some young backs for 2026.
60’s when clubs like panthers let go of players and paid for part of their contracts, did they succeed after it only due to their pathway’s success more or less to cover it?
I’m just wondering because it looks like some clubs clean them out and pay part of it to move them on and still succeed.
I do believe the bulldogs have done this too a few times in recent years?
I’m wondering if the eels will be better off to bite the bullet, or there just isn’t enough options they can get as replacements?
I understand the player market is tight at the moment, and we don’t have many back up NRL forwards who are ready to back up playing weekly.
Interested to see what you think is best possibly in this situation.
I’m of the view the panthers when they’ve done it obviously have so much depth it wouldn’t matter to them so much.
But then again… I’m just thinking the bulldogs have had multiple clean outs in just the last few years.
I wonder how they’ve managed to do it.
I obviously have no idea how they did it or if they had most the roster on shorter contracts
Good blog Sixties.
Typical of comments to your statement of reality is that most club supporters want to solve a problem that they don’t understand.
We don’t understand because we don’t know the facts and how not only the people who are suggested leave but what of the one’s retained.
i.e. who wants to stay and who wants to go…..makes decisions a lot easier!
The HOF question has been raised and not addressed. I personally think Mark O’Neill needs to go, not because he may personally have done something wrong judgmentally but because he presided over this failure and the buck stops with him.
So all the conjecture is wasted until his position is resolved. The executive management has to make a statement to the effect of the board are fully supportive of the current structure and are looking forward on this basis. The silence at the moment in this area is hardly golden,
Too much subjectivity at present and your summation correct in pointing this out rather than solving it at this point sixties.
PS I have a reputation of being a waffler, but can we advise Muz that if he cuts his posts to about a 3rd of their size. People may actually finish reading what he starts to say. His heart is in the right place and his points good, but shit it is a hard read,
Poppa, Muz’s style is usually called stream of consciousness, loves his football, he just lets it out, he goes where his mind takes him. And for the record, your waffle is good quality.
Thanks for that, I don’t get many positive comments LOL
I like Muz’s input into the site. I find his post interesting and useful.
If you don’t like reading them…then don’t.
Everyone has their own opinions and views. Nobody is right or wrong it’s just their opinion. This site allows all views no matter how big or small. That’s what makes it so good.
Sixties the club / coach etc need to draw lines in the sand.
Don’t allow managers to dictate. We saw Gutho / Brown etc in the past have long drawn out contracts for example and now Talagai. There’s a pattern here.
We need players who want to play for Parra.
We have also paid players or some overs and now we’re seeing the results.
Our pathways seems to be messed up and this is a club who were a developmental club as Bernie G said.
We need a HOF who leads and gets the job the done and CEO etc from board.
Coach – well that will be another story.
Player managers dictate to us because they know we don’t have any bargaining power. They can’t dictate to the Panthers because the Panthers can say no and just bring in the next young talent off their production line. We are simply not in that position. Awfully hard for any club to dictate terms when they are holding a pair of two’s and the player manager knows it.
Brett I take your point but I don’t think we had this issue nearly as much when Bernie Gurr was here.
We didn’t have the talent that we do now, and that’s the point. Virtually every player recruited post 2016 wanted to come here for opportunity. Gutho, Lane came cheap, Moses always wanted to come home but was still a largely unfulfilled talent, Junior the same, same applied to Matterson, Dylan was one of our few recent pathways success stories, the Panthers paid a big chunk of RCG’s deal, Waqa’s too. Papa, Sivo & Carty came cheap. Hopgood was looking for a chance.
But you make a GF and everyone’s price goes up, which is extremely hard when you’re already basically paying the cap.
Bernie Gurr never had to face that problem. It’s also worth noting that our last spoon came under Bernie.
Brett mate Bernie came in following the salary cap saga. From memory he had us back financially within a few yrs. We also had a new stadium too in abt 2019. But yes 2018 was poor…but each to their own Brett
Milo you hear a lot players saying, “I will leave it up to my manager “. No, the manger works for the player. The player needs to make all the decisions.
This was a good read, Sixties.
There was not one forward besides Hopgood that I’d be sad about leaving. Problem is none of them will be taken at full freight by other clubs meaning our cap relief would be moderate at best. A point that you raised well. Sadly I think Simonsson will be squeezed out which is unfortunate because he is possibly one of our fastest outside backs. Surely Sivo would be attractive for many clubs and someone like the Cowboys could be a suitable destination for him.
If Sivo and Matterson left I’d be going for Taylan May (assuming he is not stood down) and Jack Hetherington. Hetherington reminds me a little of Nathan Brown from the earlier days. If Talagi was to leave I’d be going all out for Sualauvi Faalogo who I’ve heard has a get out clause if Papenhuyzen re-signs.
True. And Faalogo possibly has a better ceiling than Blaize too if we are being honest. We don’t know how injury prone or well blaize will perform playing nrl every week in say a fullback position. You are spot on too regarding hopgood, he is one of the only forwards we have left who is both young + turns up EVERY single week which our other forwards simply do not. Hopefully Guymer can follow in hopgoods steps and be a big work rate player for us in 25’. Otherwise I have very little faith most of our other forwards will improve next year being another year older, a few of them may decline even further. Paulo & Lane are shadows of their former selves, matto & paulo were playing origin 2 season ago. Times have changed dramatically for our team.
I disagree with all of you.
Compare the Storm and The Eels. First and equal last.
Look at them player on player.
The differences aren’t huge but the way they work as a team is chalk and cheese.
That’s Ryles’ job to fix.
Man on man in the forwards, I’ll take the Parramatta pack any day, with the exception of hooker.
Our backs have plenty of talent but just don’t know how to play football.
Last night Queensland kept NSW out for the entire first half despite multiple sets of six on their line.
They had defensive structure and they worked it.
Parramatta has developed a useless defensive structure in the backline that costs us two tries a game. It’s Arthur’s structure.
If Ryles fixes it and keeps the outside backs in formation under siege we are back in the top 4 next year.
Even with the bulk of the same roster.
What we need is a hooker, one more worker in the forwards, a centre and a winger and we can come back to finals football next year.
I’m not as confident as you but I do hope you are right. Did you watch the game last night? Our forwards wouldn’t have lasted 5 minutes last night on the field with the fitness and leg speed in defence they’ve got around the ruck.
I don’t think it as big as that.
No team has a fully Origin pack.
Hopgood would match it with the best of them.
I think RCG would hold his own with Haas or Yeo.
By next year Guymer will be starting to fit the mold.
I’m hoping we see some improved play before the end of the year, although I doubt Ryles will get involved in the on-field stuff before the mad Monday hangovers need to be run off.
Yeah I think RCG is still a top forward when he wants to be we saw that last game, it just doesn’t happen as consistently now.
I still think RCG is a top forward if a coach could get him playing like that almost every week.
I also think Joe O’ has been decent & solidly putting in efforts.
I agree too about Guymer, if he can work himself into being a player who can turn up on a weekly basis like hopgood then I think we have some good improvements.
There’s also a chance our players have been coached badly defensively compared to other clubs and maybe even conditioning incorrectly to suit the fast playing 6 again game of play style the games been shifting towards.
Jason Ryles will have the information from Melbourne on what is working for them and what we need to work on.
I’m confident as you said Guymer and hopgood, even Joe o’ can fit the mould of forwards that can help us next year.
What I am worried about is Lane, paulo, matto, sivo, makatoa, greig, Sean russel, lussick, matto.
Unless the new coach can somehow influence a 180 on some of these men’s form.
It would be hard to imagine a hugely improved campaign in 25’ if they are all mostly still in our roster.
I’m sure he can lift a few players fitness and maybe even form.
I’ll just be interested to see if he can turn some of them around so to speak.
And With old forwards it’s rare they get older around 30 and improve.
It’s usually a steep decline from around 29-30 for players who are outside the halves as you know.
Hopefully Ryles can Lead them back into better form.
He was a rep level forward and rep player himself.
He probably knows how to get a lot more out of forwards and improve their effectiveness in defence.
Realistically we should be looking to re-load for 2026. There’s 2 reasons for this:
1. The well written analysis of our current cap restrictions outlined here.
2. Another 12 months development of some key pathways players to have them step into starting roles in our best 17.
Value in your cap comes from pathways players who are on lower contracts at the start of their career. The panthers are the obvious recent example – a lot of their grand final winning players who have since left were on their first NRL deal (Burton, Leniu, Chrichton etc) allowing premium contracts to be spent on blue chip players (Cleary, Yeo, JFH etc).
Not an exact science but we should be looking for many of the following to be starters/top 30 for 2026: Talagi, Guymer, Pryke, Brazel, Ethyn Martin, Richie Penisini, AMS, Arthur, Tuivaiti, Latu, Funa Iuta, Alameddine, Farrugia.
Easier said than done and not every junior prospect will make the step up to NRL but if we believe we are a development club now is the time to back it.
I am also firmly of the belief you can only win a comp with a rep class 7 – we know we have one so we have to build a team capable of competing while Moses is in his prime.
Interesting last night where NSW scored 2 tries where 2 Qld players stopped ‘moving their feet’ , Slater’s way of describing an 80 minute mentality of concentration, teamwork and energy, Nanai in first try, then The Hammer in the 2nd, 2 moments of clocking off for a split second. Nanai was the next defender also in the 2nd try but it was the Hammer who caused the momentary opening for Moses. The problem is for the Eels is we have plenty of split second moments, and if I was Ryles I’d focus on weeding out the main offenders, plus fix our defence.
Slater saying this about players stopping moving their feet probably also describes what he himself sees when parramatta plays, we get players all over the place standing or walking because we don’t have the fitness or stamina to keep moving. Is that a roster issue with players too big? Badly coached or lack fitness compared to other players? Lazy culture, or age setting in?
Interested to hear Billy say that. It just shows one moment of laziness in defence and a try gets scored.
We’re on a losing streak for several reasons (as we all know), but I believe concentration, desire, and mentality are significant factors in the current situation of the Eels. The key for Ryles is to address and reverse this trend initially.
The issues within the R&R department are well-documented, and what we’re witnessing now is the result of years of roster mismanagement. It’s painful to see other clubs signing players and managing their rosters with (apparent) ease, while ours seems stuck and continually loses emerging talent. Moving players on and making space in the salary cap is challenging, as noted in the article. Most fans agree that we need changes at the top end of the roster before we can make progress. The debate is about who should be moved, and which other teams will take them with their current salary packages. It’s not the best bargaining position, but that’s our reality and sports is a cutthroat business whether we like it or not!
With the new coach coming in, it’s a chance for current players to reinvigorate themselves and develop a new playing style, especially in defence. Additionally, we should broaden our recruitment efforts beyond the NRL and consider some of the better players in the Super League, in my opinion (full disclaimer, I’m English). While it can be challenging to get them to move over, other clubs manage it, and it can be cost-effective too! For instance, look at Mikey Lewis (23) from Hull KR, who can play as a hooker, half-back, five-eighth, or fullback. Another example is Jack Welsby (23) from St. Helens, primarily a fullback but also capable of covering centres and wings. With these two, it might be NRL fantasy stuff, but the point is to try and steal a march on our rivals and look at doing things differently without losing a load of A-grade talent in the process.
It’s never as bad as it seems, and with a few changes in personnel next year, a bit of luck with injuries and a refreshed attitude (which is crucial), I believe we’ll be back in the top 8 sooner rather than later.
I’d take Welsby in a heartbeat
Thank you for this considered response Bobby. Not sure if you hear or in England. I’d say Welsby has been on the radar but as noted, any recruitment will be dependent upon moving players on. Therein lies the challenge and should that happen, the debate. What I don’t want to see is young players being moved on.
“Mitchell Moses set to miss the rest of the season with a biceps injury”
Icing on the cake.
I would have Brown at #7 Gutherson at #6 and Talagi at #1.
The season’s a write off anyway. Could do some good.
Thanks for the post 60s. Insightful stuff.
I’m not so fussed about moving players on and carrying a bit of their cost in our cap. 2025 is going to be rebuilding so rather than paying for what we know to be deficient, taking some well calculated gambles on players who are more suited to the way the game is played in 2024/25 is worth the risk. Eg offload a few high salary big slow forwards and spend the net of what we don’t collect on some faster more agile worker bees. We know our current roster doesn’t work, so why persist with it. My only caveat to this, is don’t put 2026+ at risk with potentially dumb longer term deals for unproven players.
We are an unenviable mess. For a club that has some much naturally working in its favour, it’s really quite mind boggling.
We have some of that agility in emerging players. I think 2025 will end up the proverbial “rebuilding” year
Moses is the only player that we can’t lose. The rest are fair game. They either have shit / lazy attitudes, declining form or are reserve grade quality.
That’s throwing the baby out with the bath water Butters. It requires are far more thoughtful approach than that
Let’s hope Ryles realizes that Hopgood is our version of Liam Martin but with more ball skills. He’d kill it on the edge. Arthur had no idea and just flogged the bloke to death. He is our captain if his skill set is used right.
He’s nothing like Liam Martin. He’s more like Isaiah Yeo, but not as good a defender. The closest thing we have to Liam Martin is Charlie Guymer. Hopgood is not an edge forward, he simply doesn’t have the lateral quickness.
Sorry Mr Allen but your knowledge of football and perception of a players ability is at best, limited.
Yeah, ok, good luck with your “insight”
For what it’s worth I agree 100% with you, Brett. Hopgood is a ball playing lock and is best suited in the middle. Edge backrowers are hole runners with good lateral defensive techniques, which Hopgood just isn’t. Mr Prometheus, by virtue of his comments alone, had limited knowledge, not you!!!
Your are correct Brett – he is a very good forward but, I don’t think he is quicker than RCG actually I believe he is slow as and edge forward.
Everyone is chewing up about long term signings etc but seem to have forgotten the Dolphins had to make up a team and this created a bidding war with a number of clubs. Munster is an example big dollars were thrown at him but, he put the storm first and took less. Some of our players could have done the same. Gutherson, Moses, Paulo, Matterson enriched themselves because they were in high demand. The fans would have rioted outside the club had they not been signed. And this was the GF year. We are stuck with some of them and they have given good service but bellyaching now over what they wanted before is crying over spilled milk.
Some our fans have really short memories. Better days are ahead we just need the patience to get over this big bump in the road. I have seen it before many times it is the DNA. structure of this club and always will be.
There’s a lot of basic coaching plus strength and conditioning which will improve the current squad.
Recruitment and retention needs a narrow focus. It’s speculation as to who will be tapped or not. If anyone. But the roster is unbalanced with plenty of vacancies. Can we afford to wait 1-2 years for contracts to expire? No. It would be good to tap Now so as to start preseason with players 100% committed.
We need to build a new generation of Eels that align with Eels DNA. Build the club around Moses as Captain. Lomax fullback. This needs to be the draw card of the club. Two origin winners and leaders on the field. Lomax goal kicker will take pressure off Moses to allow him to concentrate on controlling the game. Like what was done in Origin.
Blaize needs to be given a deadline and asked will he join us in the building of this club? If not bye bye.
Sam Ayoub players must be squeezed financially.
Isaac Moses needs to be limited from presenting his players like a 3 ringed circus. It’s embarrassing for the club.
Is Ryles given the same power as BA? Is a key question.
Pete, I admire your enthusiasm, but we have to operate within the confines of reality, not what we would like reality to be.
1) Lomax has already been tried at fullback and it wasn’t exactly a raging success. His best spot is clearly on the wing.
2) We are in no position to be giving ultimatums, we have no leverage. It’s why we are in the position we are in. Players & their management know this, Blaize Talagi is no different.
3) Getting confrontational with player managers achieves nothing, especially Isaac Moses, his tentacles are in every rugby league pie west of Ashfield, especially in the junior pathways. We don’t have to cowtow to him but we don’t want to puss him off.
The only way out of this is to get our pathways fixed and productive.
Brett some suggest our pathways don’t have the potential of say panthers and that most jnrs view our club as historically a bad path to nrl (we favour old big power players as we’ve seen now)
And historically only promote young players under forced conditions (injuries etc)
I’ve spoken to a nsw cup player who’s been part of multiple different clubs
He told me that he hasn’t played for parra but him and the other younger players he knows mostly think of parra as a bad club to join or try make it to nrl with
In his words “low ballers and apparently difficult to deal with and they don’t value young talent as much as old established first graders”
Something along those lines. He also mentioned none of them are interested unless desperate because it’s viewed there’s no chance of winning competition or even making a nrl squad.
Obviously the club needs to fix this reputation and habit of operating like this.
Because if this young bloke who’s played in between 3 clubs inc roosters, tigers, and i believe manly told me this.
Then it’s no wonder our pathways players who are good all end up leaving more or less.
I can’t see pathways being our strength to rely on rescuing our NRL team if we have a bad reputation like this, until they fix this aspect of the club.
All the young players talk and aren’t stupid,
Apparently Young Matt Arthur is also rumoured to want to leave us potentially as well.
Sanders also didn’t waste much time, blaize might do the same.
I’m not sure I care for the opinion of a guy who’s burned through three clubs and hasn’t yet played NRL footy. I think he might be the problem.
People keep saying Matt Arthur wants out, and given that we just dumped his dad that shouldn’t surprise anyone. I suspect he’ll stick around till 2027 when his dad takes over the new Perth club.
Sanders left because he wants to play NRL footy yesterday, and there just isn’t a pathway for him here.
All of this can be fixed if we fix our pathways.
Sanders may walk into a blind alley at the Raiders. He may be no better off there than at the Eels
Raiders have just extended their halfback into the sweet spot of his career. Sanders is no doubt behind him right now.
To be honest he may well have been better staying at the Eels. Dyl is only on a short term contract.
Think it’s obvious that there are issues not so much around the players, but more around retention. Under the current recruitment and retention team it appears most of the cap has been used by older forwards , and then it starts to be difficult to reward the up and comers.
The apparent inability to sell pathways and the future by the current admin has seen numerous talented juniors from our district playing everywhere from Manly, to Bulldogs to Roosters and even Souths. Really need the new coach to sort that out as a priority .
The junior rep talent scouts have done a decent job in the last couple of years, not matched by those in the NRL seat . Should not lose any more from the Ball and Flegg if the job is done correctly
B&G you are pretty much right however I further believe that one of the most important issues are contracts containing PO’s.
How can you plan your roster and cap long term when a player has an option taking him through to 2031 but the cub only has an option to 2025.
The club is liable for the entirety of that contract amount but the player is not and free to pick up a better option at an opportunity of his choosing.
Clearly it works for the player. He waves the long term contract under the nose of the bank manager and gets his million dollar loan.
The club on the other hand can’t commit to a replacement for the out of form player because they know they are liable for the contract amount.
The Eels have more PO’s than any other NRL club.
Muz, Moses could have signed with any other club, he made it clear even throughout his negotiation phase that he wanted to stay. I have no doubt his goal is to win a premiership with the Eels. I highly doubt winning a premiership with any other club would mean as much to him.
As for Blaize, no one really knows, you could argue that if he wanted to stay, he would’ve signed by now, you could equally argue the same if wanted to leave.
His manager is a grub of the highest order, I predict there will be a day when clubs will refuse to negotiate with players and coaches that are managed by this grub.
Ultimately, the decision will be up to Blaize and his family.
I would hope that Blaize will show loyalty and repay the club for the years of development invested in his career, he is a Parra boy.
Would he sign with the Dragons or Newcastle to progress his career? I would think not, it would be for the money. I agree with you on that point and I would learn to live with his decision.
Would I wish him all the best at another club? Crap no, I don’t wear a halo, he’d be dead to me.
As for Matt Arthur, his circumstances are a little more complex, the club did sack his father but they also secured his family financially. You could forgive him if followed his father to another club. Until then and only then would I accept his decision to leave. Until then, I would expect Matt to be loyal to the Eels.
Brett, Totally agree with you in regard to what you have said in with the pass way comments.
Yes,
Recruitment needs a narrow focus and probably will get some movement. We have vacancies and unbalanced roster.
Lomax didn’t do well last year in centre or fullback. Dragons were getting pumped at the time. Lomax needs many touches as possible. He’d be much better now at fullback because his confidence is better and Dragons are going forward.
Player agents unfortunately are a necessary evil. But telling Blaize the plan and then allowing thinking time to decide is a douable ‘ultimatum’. It’s a gentle ultimatum not a hard ultimatum.
Ratchet clauses go up constantly. Player options all must be squeezed. Turned into mutual options is a much more sensible thing. We just need to grow a set and stand up.
Good points.
And I can’t see why lomax can’t be a fullback either, he would make the kick returns deadly compared to gutho now. Plus can catch a mean high ball.
Lomax imo is too good for our team to sit at centre and see barely any ball, centres do not get as much ball in hand action as say a fullback.
Isaac moses is a grub and promos his players like a Christmas ham at the bowling club to anyone who will enter the raffle – it’s honestly embarrassing.
Blaize also probably should not sign with the club if he isn’t 100% certain.
There’s rumours him and Young Matt Arthur want to leave the club, just like Ethan Sanders did.
I don’t know what’s going on at the club but people want to leave.
I honestly wouldn’t want to spend my first NRL years at a club full of old fat players with no gas tanks either and lazy.
When you work in a low achieving environment with lazy people who are down and out.
It’s almost as contagious as a virus…
On one hand I want blaize & co to stay.
On the other hand, and I hate to say this.
For their own sake & careers.
I would be happy for him and Moses even to leave the club and go join a successful football team where they might win a comp.
or at least get treated to a good organisation that has a serious football team surrounded by winners.
I’m of the belief our clubs being ran by idiots.
And that Ryles is going to have his work SERIOUSLY cut out for him.
Our roster is largely a retirement home and I have got not idea how the clubs signed off on having so many old players around 30 on long term contracts.
Even a 12 year old kid could probably figure out with some simple google searching that most players heavily decline around 30 (besides halfbacks)
I completely agree with you the eels need to make a new DNA
This is why I think they need to pull the trigger and toss out the old players and just start a fresh rebuild.
Who cares if we are paying part of their contracts to move some of them on.
We WILL NOT go forward into the top 4 contention until all of those players are moved on.
The club needs to do what Gus always says and that’s to think long term and stop chasing instant success.
The old dna of our club im sorry to say is plagued with mediocrity and laziness with minimal accountability.
There’s players all through our roster who aren’t even scared they’ll get dropped even if they play worst than a reserve grader on a weekly basis.
This is a sign the clubs standards and player accountability is truly in a crisis.
Like when you work at a job and there’s lazy or bad people working there.
And they don’t really care because they know they won’t get sacked.
That’s the culture that’s plagued our club for years.
Sivo and players like Waqa were done 1-2 seasons before we even considered moving them on.
That’s just two examples.
There’s countless examples.
It’s honestly embarrassing to support our club when you can see how poorly it’s being run.
Imagine if Uncle Nick from the chooks or The CEO of the panthers took over the place?
Within 5 years we would be a NRL powerhouse team.
No if’s or buts – they would certainly make it happen.
Massive impactful changes whole happen at rapid speed.
We unfortunately do not have winners running the place.
All we can hope is Ryles makes them stop making stupid mistakes and installes a new DNA & standard in the place.
I just hope the club doesn’t shaft him or the fans turn on him.
Before he truly gets the roster he wants.
Which might take 2-3 years – if we are being realistic…
The old dna of our club is a soft retirement home with fat slow forwards and the worst edge defence in the comp for years.
If they can change this to make us a solid TRY LINE defending team.
And a fast team.
I don’t care if we aren’t top 8 straight away.
At least we will have pride in our team
Muz, seriously, you would be happy to see our best players leave for the sake of their careers?
What about for the sake of our club?
Do you support player careers or our club?
We need to keep our best players and junior prospects to get out of this mess, we’re not the Salvos.
We’ve been in worse situations, our roster on the surface isn’t a complete disaster. We may not get out of this situation quickly but the potential is there to do so. Just hang in there mate.
Hey Jo, I agree our club is most important
I guess I just think if players aren’t fully keen to stay with our club and it’s only for money
Meaning if they aren’t 100% confident in the people running the show and don’t believe it’s going to swing the ship around
Then for both there’s and our clubs sake i would be happy with happens to them either way
I agree we need to keep best players and prospects – but my view is that they need to want to be here and not only be in our club for the money
For some players a premiership or being highly competitive Is most important
For others money is most important
What I’m suggesting is that if for some players winning a comp or being in a top 4 team is what’s most important to them
Then I’m happy to see those players do whatever suits them best
What we have now mate (and this is a belief I hold strongly)
Is a roster full of people who have maximised their earning abilities and went soft after getting the biggest contracts of their lives
Clearly many are there to collect a pay packet, many of them only become good before it was time to sign a new deal
This is why I’m of the conviction that if players truly aren’t 100% certain being with us?
Them I’m happy for them to not be here
Moses I’m a big fan of his, I obviously want to see him at parra
But what I’m suggesting is that if he ends up consistently frustrated and unhappy at our club
I would not take offence if he does what’s best for his career in the future
I believe for our club to 100% move forward into a new destiny
We need players proud to put on that jersey and to fight
Not a bunch of players who only play well for contract upgrades like Paulo, Matto, lane, even brown
Then either decline or stagnate afterwards and only turn up to their 100% potential 2/10 games
I’m obviously a eels fan
But I believe part of our culture issue is we have got players who are largely there for money
Or have given up hope because they no longer think we can win a premiership
I think recruiting needs to factor in that if players are not 100% committed of keen on playing for us
Then don’t worry about them
Another example is blaize
If the kid isn’t certain on playing for us
I would not be paying overs trying to convince him to stay
If the loyalty & desire to play FOR US is not truly there
Then I see no reason for us to pay him overs if his heart is not fully in our club or if he is not confident in the leadership of the club
I guess I’m saying we are ran by clowns at the moment
I completely get it if some players want to leave if they want to win a premiership
But I do not agree with our club paying overs for some players who clearly only signing with us for a pay cheque
I understand we aren’t in a position of power
But look at hopgood or Gutho
These are blokes who legitimately want to win, not just make the most amount of money and do the least amount of work
I’m suggesting we need to find people who are hungry to win, not just hungry for a big pay day contract
Our club is full of players who were hungry for big contracts and faded dramatically afterwards
There must be a process they can follow to help filter this
Blaize is also possible to drop off as soon as he gets a pay upgrade
I’m not saying it will happen
But the kids already shopping around to all different clubs
It’s leaving a horrible taste left in our mouths after developing him and giving him NRL debuts
The club is ran like a circus
The kid should be dropped to reserve grade for showing no loyalty
Or better yet – have the kid sign up long term BEFORE his nrl debut
Poppa is correct Muz. Your posts are so long it’s too much to translate. Why the space between each line. And you tend to repeat yourself. I suggest you review what write before posting it. Don’t take it personally, just trying to help. Clearly you are all for the blue and gold but less words can create a better understanding.
Agree Muz,
Everyone knew how bad Waqa was going. It was just embarrassing that he kept getting selected. Our history of outside back development hasn’t been the best. Ferguson went from best winger at Roosters to not so good with us. We hung on too long with stubbornness and misplaced loyalty which ended up costing games and careers.
The Nathan Brown saga took ages. Then he got selected in the GF?
When all your mates are bagging you about the team selections and bench rotations or lack of and it keeps happening it has been embarrassing to support the team at times. The players must feel the same.
hey mate, Pete yeah I know what you mean the bench management has been poor for a long time in the past also that Nathan brown thing too. We have had insane teams (imo), probably missed our window to win it now for a good few years. My feelings are that we have actually had pretty strong rosters but get less out of some of our players. The feeling I get is the club needs a massive clean out to remove the old DNA of the team where you only had to turn up in 100% attack and can put in piss poor efforts in defence compared to other teams, I’m of the belief the club won’t move upwards until they clean out a lot of the roster and completely start fresh. And it will take time – but it can’t get much worst we are equal last I think… The clubs got some of the best players in the NRL, it’s honestly a joke how badly this situation is for them. BA in my opinion was mostly good but didn’t seem to adapt our team to this new faster 6 again playing style that’s really taking place now where fitness & work rate is far more effective than having a squad of too many big boppers. To me this is part of the downfall, no fitness in the forwards to defend in the middle full 80 mins, we lose the Ruck every week, team has to compress in defence to make up for it, then space galore comes out wide. Bulldogs have a small forward pack and look light years better than us this year defensively, just shows you how much we have mismanaged the roster. Nathan brown is actually looking better for manly than our own forwards in the eels are looking at the moment tbh – which is strange to see since he was apparently washed when we let him go. He looks way better than some of our forwards, actually runs with intensity & still has good leg speed. He actually looks like he has more impact than Jnr Paulo now, just shows you how piss poor our team is performing this year. It’s strange. But maybe many of them are done with the game, comfort, old age, and belief they can win the comp has probably dissolved from their consciousness. Anyway, let’s hope Ryles keeps making tough decisions and helps the team improve in the upcoming years.
Excellent article, thank you. It does pour cold water on the idea that a significant revamp of the roster can be achieved for the 2025 season.
Realistically, the addition of one quality outside back would be the best we could hope for.
We have an oversupply of “experienced” forwards, individually, most of our forwards would add value to another squad. So many squads have an oversupply of outside backs, we can hope for a couple of mutually beneficial player swaps in the short term that won’t significantly hurt our salary cap.
It’s clear the plan for the rest of the season is to road test our juniors, I’ve seen so many juniors who have stood out in lower grades and failed on the big stage while others who appeared middle of the road thrive. I’m glad the club is finally willing to find out before they leave to another club.
It’s not all doom and gloom, luck can swing either way quickly, we will have Hopgood, Guymer, Tuilagi and Moretti in our pack next season. Some of experienced forwards could reenergise, some of our junior outside backs could stand up, we have Lomax to look forward to and we could snag a few surprise signings. Who knows, we may even have some luck on the injury front.
Agreed.
It’s never as bad as it seems. It’s bad to be sure, but far from terminal.
Matteson & Sivo if released will add $1.2 m to the cap. Both those should get market value. Another option is a player swap, say Matterson for Khan-Periera. Another worthwhile addition would be Trai Fuller, a cheap addition I’d say, at about $500k and resign Simonsson. Just those 2 as additions would transform our roster with speed to burn and top the roster off with our juniors at around $200k each. Can’t see what the problem is!?
Agreed Glenn, we have options, the club will attempt to trade off some of our players and as Sixties wrote, they may not be the players fans want to see leave but we can’t trade peanuts for cashews.
Glenn, perhaps I’m not fully aware of everything. For example, the club might have spent some of this years cap in forward paying some contracts. But if you think that Sivo and Matto will get full freight elsewhere, you are more hopeful than me. Also, we have recruited Lomax and trying to upgrade Blaize. By my calculations (and I’ll admit I don’t have accurate figures), we aren’t freeing much cap space in the players listed as off contract – not enough to cover Lomax and Talagi and then have money to spend to fill the empty roster spaces.
Article Eels in the news by Yahoo Sports. Talks about Mitch being made captain for 2025. The article comes from Buzz saying that when he spoke to JR he never spoke about the issue but he believes it will happen.
Braith Anasta then goes on to say he thought MM had come of age in SOO 2024 that the boy had come of age and is now a man.
Here is my take on the subject. Firstly, unlike Fittler Madge told MM he was in charge and he was responsible to lead the team. He didn’t make him captain.
Freddy on the other hand wanted the team to play Panther ball and it didn’t work out. It takes a long time for systems to develop in a team before they are successful.
SOO teams do not have that time and as a result, given the skill level in SOO teams, they simply play what is in front of them.
Mitch took charge in game two and the rest is history. Anasta prior to game two said he was concerned about Mitch running the team on such an occasion when he failed in the GF in 2022. Again prior to game three he expressed doubts about Mitch being able to replicate his game two performance. How wrong was he.
Mitch does not have to be captain of the Eels to play his best football. He just needs the team to come with him. All of the skills he showed in the two SOO games this year, he has shown that before. So it is no surprise to Eels fans how good he is and the skills he possesses.
Personally I think Anasta hasn’t gotten over the way Mitch left the West Tigers. If Mitch is made Eels captain in 2025 he will do a good job. Although I don’t see a screaming need for it right now.
John, great post.
I don’t post very often but from my perspective seems that the number of off player groups, especially those who love sticking their old legacies seem to be trying to control as well as take over clubs that they must feel jealous of them, with their mega media tones and expert knowledge that hold them at a distance from the general players who really only want them out of their own little kingdoms that they cannot really handle their no longer abilities when wanting (demanding) control of teams that they really are jealous of their own limited abilities in the wards of the all knowing world that they cannot really get past the concept that they no longer can mix it with the main teams.
Gday John, they always speak down about eels players. Moses has also been underestimated for years by most nrl fans who don’t follow parra as well. NRL 360 and co rarely say something positive about any player unless they play for the roosters or Penrith it seems like.