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They might have gone down by 18pts to the Melbourne Storm but it was easily the best energy and effort we have seen from the Eels for weeks. if not months. Sadly, they let themselves down in execution and their own playcalling to let slip a golden chance to stun the presumptive minor premiers.
Sixties and Forty20 discuss the Round 21 result and how the Eels rallied in spite of a gulf in available talent between the two teams. As expected, Clint Gutherson stood tall in his 200th game as a Parramatta Eel but who else stood out alongside him?
The boys were joined by an icon of the code in the Pregame Show as Sixties and Forty20 welcomed Steven Edge to The Tip Sheet. Captain of Parramatta’s historic 3-peat (and a couple more at the Dragons!) and a foundational player in State of Origin, Edge is very much a living legend and he shares a wealth of knowledge and insight with the boys.
As a fan, was a bit surprised and certainly appreciated the effort.
Unlucky to concede two tries basically from turnovers and then the third while down to 12. Otherwise, first 60mins were good.
Defence was actually good – apart from a window just after RCG came off
Penisini’s best game
Browns best effort.
But
It’s the most minutes Moretti has played which was good, but he offers very little.
Greig had a purple patch for 3or 4 games last year… haven’t seen anything either side of that
5th tackle options were awful. Legitimately awful.
Talagi wasted in the centres. Wing or fullback
I don’t care where they are playing next year, Sanders has to play ahead of Asi who is not a first grader.
If we were in finals contention Arthur and possibly Sanders would be playing. So if they are not playing, that says we are not trying to win, which is a pretty poor message to the remaining players
I think that’s pretty harsh on Moretti. He goes 100% in attack and defence. Made a break through the middle, cleaned up a lot of tackles behind the ruck and helped drive Melbourne back in goal off the kick off.
Agree. And Brett, just saying coz you’re usually on the mark,a few weeks back you got Hopgood in your sights as a ‘turnstile’, a guy who was trying to hold our middle together while others were having their meltdowns. The management of Moretti’s development has been poor, he was sound last night against the standard setters, he needs time on the NRL park to bring his strengths to the fore.
Agree he had a good game
💯%IF SANDERS PLAYS LAST NIGHT WE WIN ASI IS NOT UP TO IT
I’ve been critical of Dyls class with ball in hand. His effort in defence is always there but he absolutely had his best game of the year tonight. Ran heaps and you could see he was doing his absolute best to win us that game.
Tonight gave me some hope with a full squad (even half full) and a coach we might not be as close to the spoon next year as we are this year. We have a team littered with park footballers but everyone was putting in tonight what they had.
I will note, playing lane and Bryce 80 was definitely a choice.
Hopefully a 10-12 place finish next year and a turn over of some players we could right the ship.
Brown was excellent.
Penisini whilst he tried hard, he is carrying far too much weight, I’ve never seen a player slip and slide as much as he does. He’s like a giraffe on ice.
I think Asis problem is that he is just so bloody slow. In today’s game the halfback just has to have a little bit of speed.
We can’t attack the effort as it was definitely there.
Spark, just digressing a touch. A few of the NWRL No 7’s need to spend some time with Roger Fabri. When the person who touches the ball so often is a bit slow, it sticks out like dogs. Running and thinking seem to end up in sync. Asi could join the class, but maybe what you’ve got is what you’ve got.
Yeah perhaps he would benefit but I would say he lacks the fast twitch muscles that you require.
A bit like putting lipstick on a pig.
Asi CAN play. He seems to know the game and has a good tactical boot but the NRL is reserved for the elite and Asi unfortunately just isn’t the quality required.
💯%IF SANDERS PLAYS LAST NIGHT WE WIN ASI IS NOT UP TO IT
10 -12 Next year is totally unacceptable……4 to 6 is not unrealistic, if we can get the right side on the field.
Love the optimism mate I think we would all love to see that
It was just all too predictable in the end.
Gutherson in his 200th game for the club decided to attend the press conference in his jersey and budgie smugglers. This demonstrates to me where the club is at in terms of discipline and professionalism. The Ryles era cannot come soon enough.
Gutho truly embarrassed himself and the club doing that last night. Fuck him off
Yeah I agree. It was an absolute terrible look and I took it as a big F you to the club by Gutho.
I think he’s a terrific warrior but that stunt well and truly encapsulated everything that is wrong with the culture at the moment.
And he’s the club captain??
I was watching it at a dinner with a couple of AFL people and they just couldn’t believe that the NRL haven’t come down on the club like a ton of bricks.
I suppose if your club is in ashes – what’s left ?
Both he and Barrett should be sanctioned or at least be given a warning notice. They are our supposed leaders at this time. Gutherson demonstrated why there is talk of the captaincy being taken from him.
Some people are taking it as a F you to the club (like someone mentioned here) on comments section..
There’s a high possibility that this is the case, and he might be feeling like he’s being pushed out / pushed aside with Ryles coming who is obviously coming in with the aim to re-set the culture and team.
Clint and baz are kind of like employees who feel like their time might be up and may have lost a bit of care factor.
I don’t mean Gutho has in a sense of game effort – but he probably is filthy on the club and doesn’t give a F anymore about the people running the joint.
Regardless, at least gutho came out and worked his tail off.
It could have been a lot worst.
There’s rumours the clubs looking to move him and will not offer him another contract after last year or severely low ball him because Ryles wants to start fresh and build his own squad.
I personally believe Clint could offer us good value for longer than one year, with reduced work load, and possibly changing positions in attack.
Yes Gutho has been a talisman of the club. He’s a hard worker that sets the standards in many ways. The problem is the same standards don’t work anymore. We need higher standards. Gutho is the fittest and almost the fastest. But that’s not good enough now. We need to be better much better.
Gutho was also probably too close to BA? I’m just thinking. It could be an issue moving forward ? I hope not.
All the leaks coming from Guthos manager I suspect. Just like his previous contact negotiations playing out in the media. He is probably angling for certainty over his future and putting pressure on the club to make a decision early.
Effort was certainly there, and that has to be applauded. Tactically we were obvious, given the lack of speed in our backline, seems the team reverted to muscle memory and played with the same structures as became standard previously.
Until we have players that demand attention inside our own half when attacking, we will continue to push hard in the middle and go wide almost exclusively in the opposition 20.
Not sure there are the recruits we need available, given we have failed in that area for far too long under the current regime, let’s see if a new era changes how we look at adding to the roster, and somehow ensure we have at least 28 players signed and available in 2025.
Gutho embarrassed himself and the club at the presser , he certainly looked as if we would rather be elsewhere and guess getting beat constantly does that even to our best warrior, but such a bad look from a professional club.
What a great chat with The Edge. Thanks gents.
As for the game no significant observations other than if the execution matched the effort then a good chance of a win. I really liked how Barrett had them attacking early on but lack of execution and pace meant some of the opportunities did not develop. Yes I thought this was going to be a possible 50 point game but they did try.
And why Ryles will make changes with Lomax, a few speedsters and a more forgiving injury toll Parra can challenge for the eight next year. Looks like Parra will need to win 9-10 of their remaining 6 games to have a chance this year.
I turned it off at half time.
I was very happy how the boys played for Gutho. Really showed glimpses of a football team.
A few customary dumb errors and a sin bin. But first half was great.
When I checked this morning. I wasn’t surprised looks like another disappointing second half.
Yeah I agree they played good for the most part especially first half
We can’t expect a team who isn’t fit enough to compete for 80 minute games to suddenly change their fitness & conditioning levels over night
We go sideways too much near the try line and teams have easily figured us out hence we get a million set plays in their 20 and can’t score
We could list on the issues for days but at least the team actually tried to win last night and fought for it
Some players as you would of noticed are now seemingly playing for their futures
I expected a lift in efforts with Ryles Named coach and it’s not been enough to make them start winning
But you can see more desperation in some of the players now for longer periods
The current coaching and fitness staff are working for their future careers.
Hopefully we get a new strength and conditioning team. It’s sorely needed.
I said this before;
1. we should have Roger Fabri on a retainer. Sprint and agility training. This is an investment that would pay dividends.
2. We should allow University of Sydney or Western Sydney to set up high performance labs in our Kellyville centre. It could be a student training centre for sports medicine, physio and exercise physiology departments. This would allow cutting edge research to be implemented. We could be leaders in this…
Anyway probably just will concentrate on the price of chips in the bistro..
On Gutho, he’s a legend. All this talk about questions on his future and captaincy is nonsense. He needs to be part of our squad going forward. I could see a role for him at 5/8 or centre in attack and playing defensively at full back. As you gents said, the only part of his game that is lacking is speed, and I think we can manage around that.
I think a forward pack that includes Guymer, Morretti, Doorey, Carty, Matto, RCG, Ofahengue, Hopgood bolstered by replacements for Lane and Paulo with some more “modern” workers is worth a roll of the dice for 2025. Not sure how feasible this is with contracts, but it’s the direction I’d go and it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
It’s frustrating to watch the Storm play. They’ve had similar challenges with long-term injuries to key players and are a team jam packed full of nobodies. Yet we are contending for the spoon and they are likely to be minor premiers and a genuine title chance. Makes you wonder how the Eels get things so wrong.
That’s a very good point Mick that a lot of people just gloss over. The Storm do have some excellent players but there are a fair few nobodys in the team that’s for sure.
They are just an excellent program. They base thier whole existence on maintaining standards.
A win isn’t enough for them, they are continually pushing for more.
Most teams win by 20 odd points would be popping the champagne corks but Bellamy has given them a roasting.
Again, we hear more and more stories of players going to the Storm and saying that their pre season is completely off the chart in terms of pure fitness and accountability.
It’s no wonder they continue to lead the way in the NRL.
I desperately hope that Ryles imports some of those standards.
Agree Spark. The aim should be to be the grittiest, fittest and best defensive side for 2025. You don’t need to have naturally footy talent to achieve that. Anything over this goal is a bonus with a roster that is likely to be a mess for the next few years.
Talking about Gutho, he has lost a fair bit of speed but I’d wager he’s still faster than our wonderkid.
I’m still waiting to see what all the fuss is about with Blaize. Cool name,maybe that’s it ?
But better judges ….
Good things tend to happen around him, and he has a natural ability to make people miss, a lot. It’s interesting to note Baz has a different view to BA on his best position. Baz feels he might make a good 13.
That’s interesting but as I said, better judges…
Can’t see how he’s worth 500k. Personally, I’d be willing to lose him if we can get away from dealing with that snake Issac Moses.
Negotiations have gone long enough. It’s clear his manager is happy to leave Blaize on display just waiting for more interest. His manager is taking the piss out of our club and other equally desperate clubs he’s been linked to.
I’d like to see Blaize remain at the club but this holding pattern needs to end. The club is holding onto cap money in the hope Blaize signs. We can’t make a move in the market while we wait for Blaize to make a decision.
I’d be ok if the club gives his grub of a manager a dead line. We need to move on with business.
Image pulling that shit on the Roosters or Melbourne.
It’s not about worth, it’s about can we replace him with someone as good or better for the same or less ?
Maybe, maybe not.
As for Isaac Moses, he represents half the teenagers living west of Ashfield, we better get used to dealing with him.
Joseph, he can stuff us around because he has all the leverage. He knows the club is, and frankly has to be, desperate to keep Blaize, so Isaac strings us along. He knows full well we simply can’t say no. If we lose Talagi it’s all over the knows 24/7, so he screws his us for every dime.
A lot of people are upset about us losing last night.
We should just be at least grateful our players turned up for their captains 200th eels game and actually tried to win.
Most folks predicted a 50 + flogging before the game, our boys stood toe to toe with them, even with a heap of reserve graders in our team.
We don’t celebrate loses but trust me – our players left it all out there last night.
And rightly so, for our loyal & selfless Clint guthersons 200th.
Going out and playing for our team with honour & respect for the Jersey goes a long way.
Fans do not feel ashamed or angry when our boys truely turn up and give it their all.
We can’t be too negative on them – the team at least played with heart and fought.
“But trust me, our players left it all out there”. – true
While disappointed we lost I am not upset by it I thought the team tried hard last night as a whoile.
Our fitness levels and lack of talent/depth and defensive structures are sadly going to remain with us all season.
The storm are brilliantly coached and obviously fitter.
The club has been left in a sorry state by Arthur and the board. Hopefully ryles can bring good structures and fitness levels and accountability to teh club and we can turn things around similar to what the dogs have done by prioritising those things.
Winning the stats but not the game is a great testament to the problems with this team.
Credit to Barrett for a No tries scored from bad wing plays, except the one when the winger was in the bin. I was behind the goal line and from there it’s obvious that Lane’s position in defence away from the ruck needs a faster player, especially in the second half when his legs were gone.
A lot of the promising attacking options fell flat because of poor passing. More than not. No point setting a back line 30 metres deep then overrunning the ball.
This seems to be lacking on field organisation setting up the set plays and players drilling the right positions to take a pass but, as an example , RCG was constantly pulling them down from over his head, taking away any opportunity to build up speed before the defence arrived.
For those that say they weren’t too disappointed because it was Melbourne, until game 1 last year we expected to beat them. If Moses has taken the 2 points we would have.
One liners.
Russell is a much better wing than centre.
Penisini needs to learn to pass the ball. Maybe watching some videos of Mick Cronin might help.
Lane is not an 80 minute player. He also needs to be nearer the ruck in defence.
Gutherson should come into the backline for attacking plays, not play as an extra centre. He needs to be there in cover to compensate for the inevitable line breaks that come from dropped balls after bad passes.
I thought our forwards were great, especially considering that Melbourne were given unlimited time to lay on the player. Cheats.
I heard someone call out “if you lay on him any longer, you’ll need to buy him a ring”
Ryles has a lot to do.
Wishart re-arranged our player on the deck after forward momentum stopped. He actually looked at the ref expecting the whistle, but no, play on. The Storm do this line ball stuff in the ruck all night. They only adjust if the ref blows 2 or 3 penalties, which happens rarely.
Can’t disagree with these observations 56.
Spot on 56 years an Eel. Really good observations.
Melb are always filthy laying all over people and pushing the rules & ref to its limits.
You saw QLD do it too in SOO and severely reduce the speed of the game – slayer learnt all of his filthy tricks down there.
Also regarding storm not scoring much around our edges – Craig B would it told them to attack us in the middle through the ruck.
You can see all night as we got tired the ball runners kept on attacking in around the ruck and then Ryan Pap snooping waiting for an opportunity or offload to appear.
This to me is the difference between the storm and parramatta – we can’t actually actors going through teams or burst through gaps with speed to slam points on the board like them.
There’s always hindsight and blame that’s easy to throw around when we have a crappy year.
But you can see it’s evidently clear our players as a whole have not been conditioned correctly during the last two seasons to account for the increase in game speed and consistent 6 agains which we see every game.
When you train in boxing or any martial arts you have to imitate the round length during training and make sure you prepare differently for let’s say, a 6 round and a 12 round bout.
The Eels in terms of our body weight & body composition, and cardio, all look like we have been prepared to play & win 40 minute matches.
We genuinely look good in almost every single game for the most part 40 minutes.
BA was saying we are part time footballers and all of this stuff – but coming from a backround in extensive physical training for both sports and martial arts.
You see this all the time in any gym, wrestling, boxing, MMA, or even competitive running.
You have to train how to compete – you can’t expect to win marathons training like a sprinter, or you can’t expect to win 12 rd fights if you have been conditioned for a 3 or 6 round bout.
The eels roster for the most part are not conditioned to keep tracking and getting back on side for 80 minutes.
It’s like we only focuses on how damaging we were at running & attacking – completely overlooking that defence & fitness is more important.
The evidence of this is that for two years our defence has been bottom of the table – this also coincided with the game speed increasing, players ageing, and you could argue many of the players actually getting bigger AND slower, whilst the competition did the opposite.
This isn’t only on Brad Arthur but whoever runs the strength & conditioning, and diets for the players.
Did BA encourage them to slim down & get faster? Or did he not adjust his approach for the faster game?
We can only speculate – but this is a much bigger issue.
The fitness of the Eels in 2025 is possibly the worst in the NRL, and that MUST be addressed, it’s absolutely Paramount the club gets them smaller and fitter for next year or we get completely steam rolled again in the 2nd half of games again next year.
Ryles is apparently cleaning out all coaching & preparation staff members – THIS hopefully leads us to a fitter squad in 25’ or we are screwed 🤞
Spot on Muz,
The archetypal middle is Pat Carrigan or Cotter. Fast and agile. 30 tackles and 20 hit ups and fast play the balls.
Carrigan 106kg
Cotter 95kg
Junior 123kg
Reg 118kg
Our guys 10 hit ups and 20 tackles.
Haas is about the dame size as Reg but has a motor that’s unmatched.
We have not adapted to the speed of the game and are stuck back in 2021 for strategy and fitness. If you stay the same you get left behind and we’ve been left well behind.
We use Junior’s 123kg frame as the world’s largest 5/8 in most cases. When he should be bending the line on every carry. Would they allow Carrigan to play like that? No way.
Yeah man I agree I didn’t know how much weight difference our props had compared to them you mentioned but it makes sense and it’s huge difference in weight + fitness too obviously
The other issue I’ll add to that is like you mentioned paulo is say 120k plus?
So why does he not inflict any damage running?
You could argue Pat C or Cotter are more damaging whilst running AND over 20 KGS lighter in body weight
The other issue that’s possibly surrounding this is that Paulo might not be running like a bat out of hell at the line – because he can’t
He probably knows he would get too tired and then cannot defend in the middle set after set ….
The parra Eels definitely haven’t evolved the last few years and even during our GF year we actually were already in decline through the regular season compared to years before
We just had you could say a lucky good patch of form in the finals where some players leaving, and some older players played their best ever football you could argue
The good news I’m my view is that it seems like we have some decent quality smaller forwards who are getting debuts now and performing decent in cup
That alongside hopgood, Joe o, and obviously guymer who’s debuted
These smaller forwards bodies seem far more effective at showing up in defence set after set – and may be the forwards holding us together next season
The signs of how poorly our rosters been managed is that our now most important forwards moving forward were recently reserve graders, or previously unwanted by other clubs only a season or two ago
You could count on most of our forward pack not getting sufficient nrl contracts at almost any other club
The tigers are a complete basket case – even they haven’t shown any interest in any our players yet
And this is a club that has literally no go forward in their forward pack besides probably 1 or 2 players
My prediction is that the parra eels will have a good forward pack again in 2 years
One more season of Guymer and hopgood gaining more experience in NRL – ane I feel like within 2 years this will give Jason enough time to offload all our big heavy forwards who clearly aren’t cut out the game defensively anymore
Hopefully we get a new strength and conditioning team. It’s sorely needed.
I said this before;
1. we should have Roger Fabri on a retainer. Sprint and agility training. This is an investment that would pay dividends.
2. We should allow University of Sydney or Western Sydney to set up high performance labs in our Kellyville centre. It could be a student training centre for sports medicine, physio and exercise physiology departments. This would allow cutting edge research to be implemented. We could be leaders in this…
Anyway probably just will concentrate on the price of chips in the bistro..
That would be awesome but too forward thinking for the club at this point you would think.
Maybe someone should shoot this as a email to Jason Ryles, he is intelligent and has a winner’s mentality, it would probably give him ideas.
Jason’s been at the storm where it’s all about DEFENCE, fitness and speed…
I would be surprised if Jason doesn’t just simply shop off some of our big forwards + pay freight, because you can imagine some of them would be even worse / slower next year no matter what you do for them due to some players ages
I doubt he needs or wants ideas from fans, nor do I want him taking them
10 -12 Next year is totally unacceptable……4 to 6 is not unrealistic, if we can get the right side on the field.
Yes, and he (Ryles) is yet to prove he is intelligent, for one thing off loading big forwards is one thing, replacing them with better players is the other. RCG was /has been one of our best all season. there is a balance and a shape for everything.
RCG is still an awesome forward poppa you are right, and he still looks like our best prop mate.
I hope we get to top 4 but top 8 in itself would be a huge achievement compared to what the parra eels have shown us in 2024 even when Moses was in for the most part. Just too slow around the ruck not to mention our edge defence has been worst in league apparently.
Brett, those suggestions are the types of organisational tools top clubs across the world install into their high performance teams to get a cutting edge over the competition. That’s not “from the fans”, it’s literally how teams in the US & Europe become the best in their codes. By using cutting edge splats science alongside leading sprint coaches.
It sounds completely arrogant to suggest this is bad information just because a “fan” mentioned it, it’s actually how billion dollar sports organisations across the world improve their performances yearly.
If you look up global power house sports organisations like Real Madrid, Manchester city, or even in aus the Melbourne storm, it’s said the storm are always 2 years ahead of the competition because they are ahead of everyone else on these aspects of fitness and performance optimisation.
Pete’s bringing up something that all the best sports teams in the world already do to a certain extent. Lol
Yes Muz, it’s nothing new in world sport. But as I said we could be leaders in this.
Some think we can just keep doing the same thing and we will get better. That hasn’t worked for 11 years.
I see Ryles is moving Elkin, reported today. I’m sure theres enough data to suggest we are near the bottom in all positions. Ryles must have a clear plan we are not privy to as yet. Various leaks from player agents will keep happening.
I was hoping to illustrate how stagnant the organisation is. Where we just concentrate on the price of chips in the bistro. Instead of strategic planning. We are a reactive club and not innovators. I hope that can change with Ryles.
We could be the Real Madrid of NRL if we had the right people on the board and a CEO that has credibility.