It’s been a little while since our last Corner Post, so let’s catch up on some talking points.
There are players confirmed to be on the move, another player speculated to be on the move, and a high profile star who’s allegedly in the naughty corner.
Meanwhile, the NRL continues to spread its impact far and wide with spectators competing for seats in New Zealand and the USA.
Talagi and Arthur
The Eels have shocked fans in re ent weeks, announcing two bombshell exits from the club with Matt Arthur and Blaize Talagi departing at the end of the 2024 season.
Arthur was granted a compassionate release, with the rising hooker still impacted by the shock dismissal of his father. Despite this being an almost expected outcome, it will have detracted from the club’s future planning in the critical dummy half role. The Newcastle Knights have now firmed as Arthur’s destination.
The loss of Talagi has been more of a bitter pill for Eels fans, with the club unable to retain his services despite offering a rich deal for him to stay.
How about a backflip Blaize?
Blaize and his brother Ryda Talagi appear to be leaving as a “package deal”, with the two of them set to be announced by the Penrith Panthers once the cooling off period ends. (Come on Blaize, change your mind and stay).
The Talagi and Arthur exits come on top of Ethan Sanders 2025 move to the Raiders. These key players from the Eels 2023 SG Ball Premiership-winning team would have been earmarked as central to the Eels future, yet their combination has now been dismantled.
Parra desperately need to stem the flow of pathways talent out of the club. With every departure the optics become poorer and the job of “selling” the club as a destination for quality recruits, becomes tougher and tougher.
Papenhuyzen’s Stocks Are Rising
Rumours now suggest that Melbourne Storm superstar Ryan Papenhuyzen is the target in the Eels recruitment sights. Whilst Ryles has a one year no-poaching clause in his coaching release, Papenhuyzen will hit the free market later in 2025 and be available for purchase for the 2026 season.
With the rise of young gun Sua Fa’alogo, and his commitment to a long term deal in Melbourne, some say that it’s inevitable that Papenhuyzen will be squeezed out.
Papenhuyzen
Were it to eventuate, it would be a game changer for the Eels, especially combining his talents and pace alongside the strike power of Zac Lomax.
This is, of course, way down the track, and there must be other priority signings for the Eels before they even get to the stage of negotiating with Papenhuyzen.
Stefano Utoikamanu
On Friday afternoon, the Melbourne Storm confirmed the signing of the in-demand Stefano Utoikamanu.
After a period of time testing the open market, the former Eels and current Tigers prop has ultimately decided to take his services down south for the next three seasons.
Stefano
It was previously rumoured that Stefano was deep into contract talks with the Bulldogs, who have been searching to strengthen their forward pack, and particularly their stock of middles. But the lure of a stint in Melbourne was too great for Utoikamanu to resist.
Bellamy and the Storm have a history of taking players to another level and it will be exciting to see what he can do under the Melbourne system.
Utoikamanu joins a pack that currently includes Nelson Asofa Solomona, Christian Welch and Tui Kamikamica, so it remains to be seen whether he’ll be utilised as a starter or off the interchange.
Selwyn Cobbo
This week, Brisbane winger Selwyn Cobbo made headlines, after it was reported he was taken in police custody on Monday night following calls regarding an alleged Domestic Violence incident.
Cobbo
The NRL integrity unit have been made aware of the situation, and Cobbo has been dropped for Corey Oates in preparation for the Broncos clash with the Titans this Saturday.
NRLW Off To A Cracking Start
The NRLW couldn’t have hoped for a better kick off for the 2024 season, with Round 1 delivering a collection of exciting contests.
Whilst the premiership heavyweights flexed their muscles, a couple of surprise results suggested that it might be hard to select the 2024 title winner.
The Eels took the cake for the biggest upset. In true underdog fashion, they dominated a flat Broncos side in front of 18,000 spectators at Suncorp Stadium.
Abbi Church
Though written off in 2024 following their 2023 wooden spoon, the Eels have come out firing under new coach Steve Georgallis and new skippers Mahalia Murphy and Abbi Church.
An 89% competion rate against the Broncos, not to mention 41 tackle breaks and 300 more run metres, demonstrated that the Eels have come to play in 2024.
Vegas
There are stunning early statistics surrounding the ticket sales for the NRL’s 2025 expedition to Las Vegas. It’s been revealed that over 30% of ticket sales thus far have gone to New Zealand Warriors fans.
Penrith follow with a total of 25%, Raiders with 22% and finally Cronulla with 21%.
In a huge vote of confidence for their team, Warriors fans have also now snapped up all tickets for their 2024 season, making them the first NRL club and first New Zealand sporting franchise to sell out all home games for the season.
Winners
As this column goes to “print” the Eels have spoilt the Round 22 party at Go Media Stadium, giving the Blue and Golds their first away win of 2024.
It was a stunning victory in the context of the ladder positions of both teams, and the importance of the game to the Warriors. But the Eels were once more high on the effort scale, and in this game their executions got them across the line.
This goes close to finishing the Warriors hopes for this season, as they will need results to go their way to play finals football.
Nat
Sua won’t wait around until 2026 for a start.
The clause only relates to players that are wanted by the Storm and obviously not those that are either off contract or they want to move on.
I believe if Papa requests a compassionate move, it would be granted as it frees up some salary cap room and brings Sua straight in.
There is lots happening behind the scenes.
If it happens Spark it will be a much needed success. I’m not sure how it can currently happen cap wise. I believe it would be dependent upon player movement to free up big coin.
Sixties isn’t sivo meant to be moving on which would free up some space? Also with blaize going the funds which would have been used for him would become available to use elsewhere? My only concern is that Ryan is injury prone and isn’t a long term solution to replace our king gutho. Pap may only have 2-4 years left of being an elite fullback. Maybe the eels can see someone else in ball or cup they believe will fill become good enough within 3 years. If they decide to go after pap on a 3 year deal. Interested to hear if there’s anyone coming through the club might believe us good enough to become a potential eels fullback from within post gutho or Ryan pap if he did end up coming to parra. Some folks have mentioned Josh Lynn as having élite potential to play possibly a range of different positions.
Paps is not injury prone Muzz, both his injuries were impact caused, he had an unlucky run. The board would redeem a lot of their sins if they could make it happen.
It would be a Spanian moment “redeemed!”
Yeah I understand what you mean mate. I guess I’m saying a lot of things keep happening to him. I do think he is a good signing obviously if we can get the chance.
Ryan Pap would likely get a lot of interest from other clubs. Unless Blaize leaving and possibly sivo, I don’t see how the eels could outbid for him unless there’s less clubs interested than we could expect. Him being prone to injury in recent times might also scare away some clubs. Ryan if he stays healthy probably has 2-4 years left of being a top level NRL player. The storm would probably try to keep him Incase Sua gets injured. I like the pap idea but this is still a very risky move, pap could be like turbo and spends a large portion of each season injured. I would rather see the Eels go after the dolphins back up fullback for much less money and a longer term potentially great player with many years left of improvement. Ryan pap would be a good signing though, I agree.
The salary caps stuffed till 2026 but the big picture is who would want to come here while ever the current administration is in charge , actually the only thing happening behind the scenes here is absolute chaos and sheer panic , this is wishful thinking at its best, i suppose we will have to wait till issac moses tells the board who we have to have .
The idea of Papenhuyzen is an appealing prospect. I’d love to see us add him, then pick up someone like a Kurt Morrin from the Dogs, move on Sivo, Lane and Paulo, and start looking for some solid outside backs to provide depth. I think if we could do that our team will be much more balanced and a real prospect of contending in the next couple of years. Wishful thinking most likely, but you can only hope.
Mick it sounds good. Our new coach & staff won’t be as obsessed with forwards either so we may see a trend over the coming years, where we start to see actual high quality backs get signed. Not just throwing big money at forwards. Lomax and a few more others (Say Ryan pap), would see us instantly a beautifully balanced team. Obviously a few more mobile forwards too and we are suddenly a dangerous side. Our halves are very good. Hands is also coming along. 🔥
Do we really need another forward? I have watched Morrin – no thanks. We have a couple of forwards coming through. Guymer, Kier and another one or two. We have a need for speed and I don’t mean the car game. If Paps still has that speed then just maybe he is worth the investment. He is a very good experienced fullback although we have a very good fullback. If Gutherson were to retire in 2026 the club should open a coaching path for him.. Let’s focus on some faster backs. Sivo can be very fast but there is a mental block with him. I just wonder whether he has developed a conscience in hurting others with his full blooded charges. We know he is quick – I think playing for Figi he was clocked at plus 35kph.
Zero, Sivo is a mystery to all of us.
Sivo has a stunt double I’m sure, the real Sivo comes on when we are attacking the line or is it his stunt double scoring all the tries?
Why are we letting RCG go? It’s all over NRL news now RCG is latest to be told he can look elsewhere…
Am I missing something?
I’d take him ANY DAY over our $950k bench prop paulo. (No offence) 🫣
Muz, agreed here. I can only assume that RCG could be more happy to leave than Jnr. Also maybe the problem of carrying Jnr’s cap may hurt more?
Joseph just said it’s due to rcg’s contract being shorter. Honestly it’s heart breaking. RCG is a legit parra favourite, I think all of us love him. It’s going to be a sad day.
I’m with you.
Reg is not our main problem.
It probably has more to do with Regs agent being able to deal with MON. Juniors agent is Ayoub who is terrible to deal with. So it’s probably easier for MON to take the easy option.
Jnr is a huge let down. And apparently he has a few years left hence they won’t dare try move him yet maybe, as the freight would be huge.. who would honestly want him? How bad does that sound, but I’m honestly having trouble thinking of a club who would pay him over 600k, no clubs would be probably interested even at that. Maybe tigers or St George lol
Yeah Pete people are saying it’s because Reg’s contract is shorter so it’s faster money they can access. I’m not sure if it’s a good move unless Jason has his eyes on upcoming players he sees can fill that fold sufficiently for less.
I don’t wanna sound like a bully because it’s not his fault it is the clubs. How Jnr is signed on that much money, for that long, as his age, is absolutely insane. It’s like the club did not anticipate him ageing, props especially large ones severely reduce their mind & effective workload around 30, it’s like they just paid him whatever to ensure they kept him during his peak, without realising how badly we would need that cap in 2 years once he slows down & reduces his work load immensely which seemingly has happened.
I know we keep in saying it but the Eels contracts are so stupid. If it’s not stupid clauses, it’s forwards on massive money, who are legitimately too old or too big to keep up with the elite pace of the game.
You look at Melbourne. They are looking to move on NAS, they moved on Justin Olam as his 30 and slowed down, they took captaincy from Welch as he slowed down a little. Penrith has let go of some of there’s just before too late, or when players about to decline.
They let go of James Fisher Harris who’s 28. You watch, in 1-3 years he will be a shadow of himself at the panthers, they are smart… us Eels would have had him locked in on OVERs until he was 32 and wondered why we get dominated in the middle every week.
Hopefully Jason Ryles can install some common sense in the place. Maybe they will listen to him since he’s a reputable man and former rep player. Hopefully they listen to him on such issues, and more common sense will prevail for the club moving forward as he advises them to a certain extent you would imagine.
Agree Muz,
Did you see how Bellamy wouldn’t let NOS play 1st grade until he dropped to a certain weight. With the 6 again and the ball in play longer which is killing the big boppers. Jason Ryles would have been all over that.
Juniors Contract was way too long and expensive.
No I didn’t know that mate. NAS having to lose a certain amount of weight CONFIRMS what most of us here have suspected. Our forwards have not been conditioned for now the game is played now with 6 agains. That’s obviously why we won the first 40 and lost the last 40 in so many games this year. 😅
Firstly why take any notice of the media, who says RCG is to be released, etc and it really it worries me that comments that Jason Ryles is reputable and a former rep player come through as the criteria for him being the new coach.
I can only assume that he sold himself with a vision and a plan of what he can do with the club’s coaching role.
He hasn’t started yet and I believe in deference to Trent Barrett and the job he has to finish that Ryles will be staying away from any inside involvement. He probably reads this “press” shit and asks WTF is going on here?
No doubt he is organising his own staff, some announcements implied rather than announced and obviously he knows who he would like to recruit but he has to be careful about pre judging the existing players.
As a new coach I could not imagine why he would let someone like RCG go as it only weakens his operations. If someone like him goes you need to make sure you have a replacement, he is a key component of a side that he needs to consolidate.
As a young man I was once told to “hasten slowly” I think that advice has particular aptitude in Parra’s ongoing and hopeful renaissance.
Hi Pops.
I have to agree to your comments re RCG, and the talk regarding him being set aside as an eels player going forward with the team.
RCG, In my humble opinion is very much a lead player for the eels that has been shown with his work load since his move away from Penrith, he has played at a top rate in every match, although there has been a couple of years where he has somewhat dropped, but he has kept his abilities and played strongly for the eels since his move away from the Riff.
There are many players like RCG who show less abilities when compared to RCG, having watched him on many occasions he has showed his abilities without letting the eels teams down. To lose him at the whim of some other players or even with established eels players and not seeing his real attributes/abilities is a real slap in the face to a player who has not shirked his position with the club, rather he plays as a team role player, a worthy player indeed.
I do not see any reason why the so called pro’s in the eels should not need to be watching his back. A player with top attitudes and aptitudes.
I agree Muz, I’d prefer to keep Gillard over Paulo if I had to choose.
I guess Reg is the easier sell and has the shorter contract, the club will only need to pay extra cap money for his remaining year.
Damn that sucks mate. One forward I will be sad to see both from an emotional level as parra fan, and from a perspective of value he STILL has.. is RCG.
I will legit feel like crying when RCG leaves. Whenever or wherever his last eels game is, we all need to be there for him! RCG leaving is a near tear jerker.
Don’t forget that even if the media is correct – which I highly doubt, all it means is that the players concerned have been given permission to look around.
They all have contracts and will either stay or we will have to pay a fair bit of freight to get rid of them.
RCG or Lane may have approached the club looking to go to the Super League for as much as the media knows.
I’m liking what Ryles is doing.
If any team in the NRL requires refreshing , it’s the Eels.
You might be right on the money Spark The teams recent attitude and effort suggests discussions between players and the club have been amicable.
I never considered some players would be willingly open to a new adventure.
Ba would have had lane & Jnr playing in our NRL side still in 15 years time. He was as loyal as that Japanese Dog Hachiko who never left the train station in Japan waiting for his owner to return. Just kidding. But on a serious note, the eels club needs refreshing. Look at the panthers, storm, roosters, even manly.
These teams who are performing nicely have upgraded, or changed their rosters around significantly during the last 4 seasons.
Compare that to us. We have barely changed. And the players we have changed on the roster, we have almost exclusively replaced them with worst players then we let go of.
You can’t keep turning up with basically the same roster that failed us last year and expect this year to be much different. No clubs truly turn it around without consistently re-balancing their rosters.
A new era is dawning, Ryles is not emotionally attached to these guys and will make adjustments to the roster proactively you would suspect, no mates club or extreme loyalty would already be in his head after being mentored by the best coaches.
A fresh restart at parra is massively overdue, we won’t know ourselves in a few years finally having big paid, high quality players, who are also in the back line… not just all the money slashed on forwards and halves like we have seen here for years..
I’m of the belief our lack of investing cap into star quality / rep level backs is partially why we had had the worst edge defence in the league for many years too. We’ve had reserve grade or average quality backs for years now, i hope Jason changes this. Our defence would drastically improve. You cannot just invest heavily in forwards and Expect reserve grade level backs to defend sufficiently, that’s got to be partially why we have been a joke in defence on the edges for years in my opinion. Not throwing shade at BA. It might not of been all of his doing, maybe backs were harder to sign.
We are going to see some young kids given their chance.
I’m told we are looking for 2 express wingers.
We may find them in our juniors or elsewhere but the brief is speed.
The off season is the time for Martyn, AMS etc to show their wares.. they are in the box seat to nail down a wing position.
Sivo can run but he will either have to lose a fair bit of weight or find some agility to fit in with the plans moving forward, which I doubt he can do.
Awesome to hear that we are apparently after two fast wingers asap if that’s the case. We need it.
AMS & co definitely have speed and potential, I just hope he isn’t destroyed confidence wise after his big injury, it could take time to reach form. Hopefully 🤞 fingers crossed a lot less injuries next year..
Whats he doing???????
Nothing will be fixed till the board and recruitment are cleaned out , the place is in shambles with stacks more skeletons waiting to fallout of the cupboard, you really need to talk to the right people ,make that the ones telling the truth .
Pap will not come to a club like Parra why would he move from a team Like the storm to a basket case like Parra?
If was to move on he’d want to join a team with potential something we do not have
True. The eels would be hoping he has faith in Jason Ryles. That would help their chances. But reality is we are a basket case atm. IMO there’s better upcoming fullbacks than him who stoll have years of upside. The dolphins back up fullback is one good example, forget his name. And it would be substantially LESS money. He could learn under gutho.
Trai Fuller, Muz, and he’s just re-signed with the Dolphins for another couple of years. And therein lies yet another one (in a long list) of the Eels biggest issues – talent identification. There’s more Trai Fullers out there, but the Eels just don’t seem to have the scouts to find them.
Stubby maybe we just are not aggressive enough. So many good back up fullbacks & fast backs in reserve grade or non permanent first grade players would run rings around our backs. No offence of our guys, but some clubs are stacked for young talent & depth in the back 5. I’ve seen fill in backs for other clubs who look more talented or at a similar level to our backs who can hardly get a run. Hopefully Jason’s Ryles & Co are more intelligent than BA and MON. Ryles has brown coming with him too, these are former NRL players themselves. They’ll have a keener eye for talent than our old coach and place more value on athleticism & speed. Ba I liked him and it did work good for years. But he favoured size & power. He only really cared to sign too forwards. When was the last time we had a back in origin? Our best back & captain in recent years can hardly make the bench. We need this new people running the show to stop this Nonsense and go after legit game breakers who are red hot in cup for other clubs and pay them slight overs and just bet they’ll be stars for us in 12-24 months. You can’t wait until star players hit full steam and have permanent first grade spots at other Clubs… THEN try to poach them, they then want too much or simply won’t want to come with us. So much we could do better. I have faith in Jason Ryles making us up a nice roster over the next few seasons. Much better balanced
Offie, maybe he believes that Jason Ryles will turn the club around, couple of key signings and we will be a very different looking side. That said we do not need a fullback, centres and wingers with pace and class, a hooker forward and an edge with lateral movement.
Going forward “portability” of players is going to be essential. You have the template already from Gould!
True poppa.. and apparently Jason has a good relationship with pap. Only issue is pap is apparently about to start negotiations with melb as that indicated they want him apparently.
Poppa, Guild has done a good job.. a lot we can learn from there.
Also the fact they got Jason Taylor in there helping too. Smart decision making overall and hands roster of players who are position adaptable.
Agree with the sentiment on Reg. Definitely would prefer not to see him leave and others need to go first. However we desperately need a rebalancing of our roster.
The other issue is who do we replace them with if RCG, matto, etc, leave? We haven’t had a good track record of replacing existing players with better ones.. let’s hope Jason Ryles has something up his sleeve.
Fair question / point Muz. Have to think out approach to recruitment needs to change. But we need a change in roster one way or another. We show up for 2025 with the same basic roster as 2023/24 and we are fighting to avoid the spoon again.
For sure and maybe he is even considering using some of it to invest into immediate fixes on the backs. We have endless supplies of over paid forwards snd seemingly very little in terms of backs. You can buy one decent upcoming/young utility or forward and a fast upcoming winger for around the same price as one of our poor performing forwards are costing us. 600-750 would get you two upcoming high quality players if you swoop in on other clubs talents that are being blocked in their own clubs by older players. There’s literally backs at other clubs who can hardly get a run, who are better than all of our backs besides gutho & simmonson.
Honestly why on earth would you move Reg on .as has been said where has this come from as the new coach has not taken up residence yet . My own humble opinion is their is a lot of other players that I consider as dead wood in the ranks that should be moved on before you would look at Reg . Is it all another media build against the eels who the stuff knows.all we can hope for is things turn out for the better and that J Ryles will be a successful addition to our club .on another thing can someone tell me if its true that Sam Moa has been added to our coaching staff is true or false as im hearing conflicting reports on this .I for one hope its in the affirmative that it’s true as there has been very good reports on his ability as a Defence coach
Nothing to do with anything, but I’ve been watching Bronson Xerri at the Bulldogs. He is very composed and competent. On the weekend he could have pushed any number of passes trying to set up Addo Carr but he protects possession and doesn’t flirt with the sideline, then the first time the pass was on, he nailed it. Ciraldo has some interesting cattle, Jacob Preston very good.
Bdon they are trained well too. No rushing and trying to score a million points. They value possession & discipline. They are really playing like a team. Defence second in the league. It’s a Pretty impressive turn around if we are being honest. Hope Jason can do something similar for us.
Anyone watch 360 tonight? Hoops keeps banging on that moses is going to leave the eels.
Does he realise how many eels fans he upsets when he makes up these stories about us weekly. About losing our best player?
Surely moses isn’t stupid enough to go around telling people he is considering leaving.
Regardless, Hoops is a fool. Imagine how many kids and die hard eels feel heart broken when they hear his rumours.
Do you think he might end up going or it’s just BS.
Rule # 1 – Never listen to Hooper.
Rule # 2 – if in doubt , see Rule # 1.
Lol, Hooper is a bottom feeder that feeds off bottom feeders.
Doing Issac’s work
That’s exactly why he does it. Parra generate media interest, and especially so when it is negative. We would all do better ignoring such rubbish (club, players and fans alike). Hooper would become irrelevant pretty quickly.
Yeah Muz,
He’s been trying to destabilise Tigers board for years and he has succeeded. Now he’s trying the same tactics on the Eels.
I did hear McElduf’s 9yr term ends next year. Hooper will claim that as “I told you so.”
The question is who will replace McElduf? Can it be someone who knows RL? Or just someone elevated from the board?
Looking at existing board members I don’t hold a lot of hope in getting a replacement who actually knows the game. I doubt the constitution would allow for parachuting in a chairman from outside – generally they are elected from board members. Not sure where this leaves leadership from a rugby league perspective. Is that then left to the Head Coach? He has a lot or responsibilities as it is.
True Longfin Eel, I cannot see anyone better on the current board. Unless I’m missing something.
Bring back Bernie Gurr or someone like a Brian Smith or a left field John Quayle who is currently on Venues NSW board and is a RL and Eels legend still working at age 77….
Yeah he’s definitely got something against us at parra he just keeps going after them and always making it sound as bad as possible Pete. He did the same on the tigers too didn’t he.
We could get an even more clueless Chairman than Mcelduf. That’s the worry with our club. We don’t have much confidence in any of their decision making.
Why do you think he says them ?
Nothing sells like outrage.