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It didn’t take long for the injury curse to settle onto the NRLW with the Eels losing both Rueben Cherrington and Boss Kapua for the season. The Tip Sheet breaks down how this impacts the squad moving forwards and what options Steve Georgallis has to replace them both.
Sixties, Forty20 and Clint run down Team List Tuesday and the weekend wrap for the Eels as the NRLW opened season 2024 in outstanding fashion against the Broncos.
The rumour engine went into overdrive on Tuesday following Danny Weidler breaking a story that Brian To’o wants a new deal. While the Panthers were quick to try and snuff the rumour out it seems to have some real traction. To’o is already contracted to the end of 2027…so how much is he really worth? In fact, how much is he on right now? The show looks at the answers to these and more.
More injuries have struck the code with Alex Johnston headlining another swathe of entrants to the casualty ward. The show closes out with a call on the grading of the Nu’uauala hip drop tackle and punch. Was it too lenient? What sort of scalar or gradient is needed for charges in the NRLW?
Blaize is going!
Sanders going!
MA going !
Stefano and others Gone!
We continue to develop for other clubs! We are a breeding ground but not a place to build a career.
Management only concerned with the price of chips and drinks on game day. We lack strategic planning, direction and management.
This just shows Sarantinos and MON are clearly out of their depth. They have training wheels on and trying to mix it with the adults of NRL. They have been outplayed once again with ease. The Front office is run by George Costanza.
If Sean McElduf cannot see the constant failure he needs to be removed too. Where does the buck stop?
PS I don’t blame the players from leaving. They have been shown the opposition and liked what they saw.
I assume that means blaizes gun younger brother is also going to Penrith. So we have lost sanders, stefano, Arthur, blaize, zaidus mataguia, metcalfe, Myles Martin and ryda talagi (off to ye top of my head) all in the space of a few years all while having a rapidly aging squad.
As someone said on Instagram – a paper bag deadset retains water better than the eels retain young talent. We are a feeder club for others and a laughing stock. I doubt have much never get at the moment to fight that perception. It’s well deserved.
The HOF and mcedluff need to be turfed asap. There have been Year on year catastrophic failures and reactionary recruitment/retention. These juniors should have been retained last year BEFORE getting to grade but all that the hof ceo and BA cared about was handing out stupidly long extensions to older fowards and the “power game” even after the major warning signs from last year. Do they have any statisticians or football heads to analyse where the game is going? Do they do anything but try Band-Aid things retrospectively?
So we go into next year with no fullback cover, no halfback cover, putrid older dummy half options, no recognised utility for Bench, an aging/slow forward pack and an overall shortage of outside backs (many of which are coming off acls). At least tigers have hope next year. We have stuff all to look forward to.
We are not only a feeder club. We are a bottom feeder club!
We have the
1. Worst Chairman
2. Worst CEO
3. Worst HOF
4. Worst defence
5. Worst club values and identity
6. Worst recruitment and retention
This club is dying from the inside out. It’s killing its fans death by a thousand cuts.
And true Pete, lol. It’s sad but it looks like we have unfortunately got the worst of everything.
I have faith he can help us improve in some areas. But Ryles is coming into a literal circus and is going to have his hands full.
I hope it doesn’t happen. But once you get stuck down the bottom it’s almost impossibly hard to climb back up again. The club needs to be careful here, if you come last or close to it for 1-3 years in a row suddenly you need to pay 40% overs for players. Not to mention nobody wants to play with you.
If we were still a top 8 club you could bet Blaize and co probably would not have left our club, Boods Arthur and Blaize probably would not have been wanting to leave even if they were getting no first grade football this season.
The clubs being ran by idiots. There’s no other reason to explain the situation we are in overall.
Well put Ron. We have no back up players for crucial positions. Everyone knows a team can’t win anything without depth, due to injuries to every team in every season. Yet here we are. We barely have 1 NRL quality back up half, no backup fullback, no back up hooker who’s NRL standard, 1 fast back in the 30 man roster and is injured & off contract, and a forward pack who’s mostly all around 30 years old who no other clubs would take due to the over inflated ridiculous contracts that are on.
How can they speak to the media and say we have a premiership winning roster, when we don’t even have a back up NRL standard halfback or fullback. The roster is built like a house of cards hoping there’s never a gust of wind.
Well run clubs don’t struggle to sign their own players. We have to pay overs to retain.
No backups. No career progression. No planning. One failure after another.
This club is now at a crossroads. Not because of Blaize. He was the straw that broke the Carmels back. Fans are now deciding if they can bother investing money in the club next year.
The only positive is hopefully everyone leaving will be gone before the off-season starts and Jason can start with people that want to be there.
Yeah well said they can’t even sign their own players.
These kids aren’t idiots either, they probably see how many old players are in the team on contract meaning me most likely won’t be very good next year either.
To be fair for the critics, the kid isn’t a super speedster or anything so he might not even be a gun fullback.
He might be aiming to be a 5/8 and Penrith might be giving him the option to build into that over there. Luai leaving next year, etc.
Still though it’s a horrible vibe for the whole clubs moral and culture.
No good young players want to stay there, and we now realistically have a old roster and no young players who are ready to play NRL from number 1-7 who can fill in roles or potentially lift the team or compete for positions.
I thought the club had turned a corner, but it’s still ran like absolute garbage, full of incompetency & excuses just like the old days.
Look at how swift Gus & Ciro have turned the dogs around after years of being stuck at the bottom?
They’ve made more changes & improvements in the last 12 months than we have over 5 seasons.
All we can hope is that Ryles has some true rookie luck as a first year coach and gains some significant momentum with a fresh start next year!
Lomax, Bailey, gutho, will P, Dyl B, Moses, B hands.
These are some pretty solid backs & Spine players to work with when everyone’s healthy.
Our depth is shit but when I’m from and focused.
I’m confident in those players delivering Ryles a good few victory’s.
It’s the forwards & depth players I’m not confident in.
Ryles cannot make turn old forwards into young ones. Our best hope is that they just were not prepared properly and he can revitalise them fitness wise so they can compete longer in defence in the middle in 25’
Muz, add Hopgood to the 7 you name as a core group. I also think one, maybe two, of our forwards might shape up in a fitter group with a couple more mobile workers, that gets us to 10. Geez, we re dreaming! Richard Penisini and Arthur M-S, wonder howthey will go?
You can see I’m grabbing at straws and incapable of offering anything sensible right now. Same as my football club.
Bdon I totally agree RE hopgood
I was mostly just mentioning our backs and spine but I 1000% agree hopgood is fantastic, i would be happy to see him as a future co captain of our eels. Joe O’ also has been decent compared to others in defence.
Arthur M & Richie P might be good, but it might take them 2 years to be playing at their best with injuries that bad, but you never know. Both young so might bounce back sooner…
How is it managements fault. No way Sanders was staying with Moses blocking his path. Stefano left for the money, MA because of BA, Talagi because he gets the opportunity to play in his natural position next to Cleary. There is no loyalty across the game any more.
Exactly
Get ready for the club to be the headline subject on 360 tonight, Blaize Talagi has informed the club he’s leaving.
Since the club lost the 6/7 players in 2021, the recruitment team have basically failed the club. Harper the only back signed, Tualagi in the forwards, both Cup players at Manly. Already losing players from the winning Ball team, couldn’t make this stuff up, how can the club justify keeping the HOF and his mate in those positions.
The nonsense from the Chairman about how good the team is, is a smokescreen for the inability in R&R . Changes need to be rung across the club, hopefully Ryles is just the start.
Good luck in getting membership renewals to their current levels.
This is not just about Blaize moving on, it’s been the slow disintegration we have seen under their watch.
Something seriously wrong at the club. Questions don’t get answered how can they continually say we have a strong roster?Things just seems to be getting worse. I just hope there’s a plan that we don’t know about but not hold my breath. Parramatta could and should be an elite organisation
That’s the issue Tanky. The clubs leadership are delusional and possibly not competent for their positions.
Numerous times they’ve gas lit us all via the media about how we have a premiership winning roster.
They’ve boasted to buz & co on 360 how their head of football is some type of top performing head of football and endorsing him to them.
Obviously we have a club ran by idiots. I thought our days of being Eels fans who were ashamed of how badly our club was ran was over, but here we are. The laughing stock again, and ran by imbeciles.
B&G, to all those that were saying just sack BA and everything will be better – well here you go, the problems were always (and to some very obviously) far greater. BA was just the tip of the iceberg and clearly a scapegoat for a failing organisation. Ryles may improve the ladder position slightly with a bit of luck, but for all those that laid the blame for everything at BA’s feet they’re going to be yet again proven wrong – the problem goes far, far deeper and Ryles will still be set up for failure as long as the current powers that be remain in power.
True Stubby, as long as the same people who are incompetent are destroying the joint…
They will be more or less setting up Jason Ryles for failure.
The first time in my life I’m done with this club. The news today with Blaize is a breaking point. I can’t put anymore emotion into this club. They don’t care for their fans or the players. Iv canceled my membership and packing the gear away. Take care fellas I loved all the content over the years
I heard this from rumours coming out of the club over a week ago that Blaize was leaving and had commented here that he already was leaving. It’s unfortunate.
Here’s the issue:
There’s rumours are that all the parra players think the people running the club are idiots, there’s apparently a divide between all players and everyone who runs the club.
Only a few years ago, remember BA was said to have tried to offer MON out for a fight?
Now a week ago Buz & co on 360 questioned the club on MON and they boasted that he was some type of a gun player recruiting dynamo, the alleged situation here (I have stayed before)…
Allegedly MON works like a puppet for the ceo and the Board and basically he works on behalf of them, most of the rubbish decisions we see and penny pinching is him making them happy.
Now people doubted me on this and said MON needs to go, which I agree.
But then it came out weeks later on 360 that the eels exces have been boasting to them about how good MON / HOF is which confirms what I was constantly saying.
They strongly approve of him because he has been making THEIR decisions, as in they more or less control him, if THEY didn’t agree with his stupid decisions…
The proof would be that HE would have already been gone before BA, but instead our leaders doubled down on how our head of football was some type of genius.
I know some fans will think it’s no big loss losing blaize and co (now), but we need to think bigger picture here.
The clubs just lost basically all the best players from their grand final winning SG ball team. It’s a huge loss and an extremely bad look for our club.
The club might be doing into a dark path (don’t want to sound doom & gloom), but if players are SEVERELY under performing, players wanting to leave, younger players showing Zero loyalty.
Jason Ryles is going to have his hands full in this mess. I wonder if the eels club (leaders) have considered yet they are possibly the issue, not just BA who they threw under the bus.
If MON, Mcelduf, the ceo, and all Board members keep their jobs, it’s a sign the clubs ran by clueless idiots and the players all think the same.
All I hear it we should have kept him, sack the board. He can’t tackle and is guaranteed to drop a bomb a game and has not lived up to the hype. How much should we have paid him? If others are willing to pay more than that, good luck to them.
I don’t blame Blaize.
Blaize is just emblematic of the failure of the club. It’s to recognise potential issues until its too late.
We are a bumbling organisation. Bumbling from one bad decision to another. We are amateurs trying to play in the big leagues. With failure after failure.
Too many failures from this board. The board needs to be tapped on the shoulders.
The AGM cannot come soon enough.
Our footy club has jumped out of the plane and forgot the parachute, it’s called free fall. Jason Ryles has one hell of a job on his hands here.
Prometheus that’s a great analogy. Blaize, is emblematic of the clubs failure.
Blaize offered the golden toilet and still crapped on the floor in Eels front office. I don’t blame him.
Fred, he is a kid who only played finals in the SG ball season due to injury, and hasn’t even completed one year yet of reserve grade. Dylan edwards was a nervous ball dropper and average player too many years ago. The kid is ultra green and probably 4 years away from being a star NRL player. The issue is him being shot up into our nrl side before he is ready, as 60’s has mentioned. Most players don’t look like they are proper NRL players until they have had 2-4 NRL pre season. The kid hasn’t even played a full season of football in his current and previous grade, it’s a huge loss for the club. People said the same about stefano, Reed, and Kefusi leaving us as well and they were a lot older. Now they are better players than most of the ones we have in similar positions only a few years later, we will regret him leaving in years to come when he is flogging us from another club.
One positive from todays event with Blaize officially announcing leaving:
Buz & co on 360 are going to absolutely HAMMER the club and our head of football.
The heat will be on them. The NRL 360 media are going to have a circus roasting the board & people who are running the circus at our parramatta eels.
I hope they go for mcedluff, chairman and oneil’s throats. Those muppets need to be held accountable and we already know they get nervous under media pressure.
True Ron mate.. I really look forward to it.
They hate the media pressure and from here on our all we can hope is our execs & Clubs leadership gets cooked by them.
What a mess, they are all lining up outside MON office to be tapped on the shoulder and players they want to keep tapping them on the shoulder, must of added a few extra chairs in the waiting room, you don’t blame blaize, going to Penrith, who wouldn’t want to go there, now a guaranteed spoon to finish the year
The club bent over backwards for Talagi , even offering him rediculous money for what he had achieved.
They did the very best they could for him but at the end of the day, he decided to move.
You can’t blame the club or Ryles for his decision.
He obviously thinks he is a start to play at 5/8 over at the Panthers and that’s where he wants to be.
It’s not like we have lost a Hayne like player that is scoring 80 metre tries in fact to be honest someone like Trae Fuller at the Dolphins looks three times the player Talagi is.
He might be a good player on the future but then we may look back and realise we dodged a bullet.
We move on.
There’s plenty of talent around, for every player promised a spot in a team there is an up and comer frozen out.
We just have to find them.
If Talagi is dropping balls or missing tackles like he has with us, he will quickly find himself sitting in the reserves wondering how it all went wrong.
I’m still absolutely trusting the Ryles process.
I would love parra to sign Connor votano from knights. Has ponga and Fletcher myers in front at fullback and he should be out long term fullback. Young gun
Good call Ron.
There are players out there.
Well tell us, you seem to be in the know, what did they offer him?
You’d think Jason Ryles must be seriously considering how he can back out of his contract now. The club is in the biggest mess I have ever seen it in and it will take a monumental effort to fix. Next year will be worse than this year and you can bank another spoon to go with it. Players come off contract after 2025, but who seriously would want to sign with Parra then? We are poorly managed, have a culture of individualism and we let players dictate the scene. Fans are already starting to stay away in droves and our brand is very quickly turning sour. All this just 2 years after making a grand final! If management can’t see that they have stuffed this up big time, it’s time for them to be shown the door as well.
The first step to recovery is to admit there is a problem. We are a club in denial! The longer the denial the deeper the suffering and the longer the recovery if it is recoverable.
I wouldn’t blame Ryles or Lomax for reconsidering.
Pete they never take any accountability in fact they told the NRL 360 folk when questioned about our poor R & R that MON the head of football is some type of genius. You would have seen that? Unbelievable. That was almost as ridiculous as the ceo claiming we had a roster who can win a premiership. Insanity
Yeah Muz, unfortunately I did see that. MON is The Frank Ponisi of the West lol. How embarrassing. The denial is culpable.
Jim should stick to pricing the chips and drinks in the bistro. He clearly only knows about that.
Jim and MON should be frog marched off the premises.
That’s hilarious Pete. Made me laugh, maybe he can’t even calculate the profit margins for fish and chips at the bistro. How can our club have SO much money (apparently), yet hire absolute buffoons to run it?
They would probably hire Joe Biden as their new CEO if he retired from U.S politics and moved into a nursing home in castle hill.
Longfin it’s alleged the players all think the people running the show are idiots hence the divide between players and the front office.
If you have ever worked at a place where the employees think their bosses or managers are idiots, soon enough the talk begins and you see everyone leaving.
I have a feeling this is now taking effect on us, the only reason Moses & Brown etc will probably stay is because they are on absolutely Top Dollar. Watch how hard it is for Ryles to recruit next year of 25’ is a flop of a year too similar to 24’ (but I’m hoping Ryles gets some of that Rookie coach first year luck ) 🤞
I agree with all the comments about the people incharge of our club being the most incompetent muppets around . But who is the person to tap them on the shoulder and say leave and don’t let the door hit you on the backside on the way out . It will be very hard to remove them . I’ve been a member for years and found all the elections for places on the board are a dead set joke . Just as our club has now become the joke of the NRL with our administration
The one thing to come out of this is that we should never listen to the media.
According to the media, Saints offers him 600k a year and we matches it plus first shot at fullback.
600k !!!!!!
Talagi is a 5/8 and we have our 5/8.
Hes not a fullback. He hasn’t the speed to be a top line fullback and never will have it.
He obviously looking at the 5/8 role at Penrith.
He may turn out to be a good player even a great player but the word around town is that he believes he’s a lot better than he currently is.
I’d say that comes from people, especially his manager pissing in his pockets since he was about 12.
They have some decent kids out Panthers way who won’t be too pleased with Blaize waltzing in to take their spot and he may just might find the weather a lot colder out there than where he was.
The only player I truly believe we will miss out of the three is Ethan Sanders.
No, I reckon Jason Ryles is loving the opportunity but the first thing he will be promoting is a club first mentality.
Things had to change and change is coming mate.
It’s all good.
True Spark he does think he is better than he is it looks like and probably won’t be liked out there as much especially if he comes in arrogant. The kid may even fail out there the standards & depth is so high then want to leave if he can’t crack constant first grade.
I agree with you as well Sanders is the big loss, specialist high level half backs coming from within are rare as gold where’s athletic backs and decent forwards are much easier to come by.
Jason might also benefit from losing so many players, not instantly but long term. Why? Because like you said he needs to make a club first mentality. I’m of the view it looks like we have a lot of individualism and poor culture compared to other good teams.
Good post mate, you make a lot of sense.