The Tip Sheet is also available on Spotify and iTunes!
Impressively, frustratingly, unbelievably, believably…the Parramatta Eels found a way to bottle another game this year with their 30-24 loss to the Brisbane Broncos in a match that saw the Blue & Gold squander a 16-0 lead.
Sixties and Forty20 vent after another game full of effort (albeit with some vexing misdirection) that featured far too many mistimed errors and defensive misplays.
I wish Blaize Talagai all the best for his move to Penrith. I’m far from convinced that he’s any great loss.
So true that no lead ever seems safe with the eels. I watched the game with several others and there was a universal “no” called by us all as Kelma executed that charge down. Such a dumb act/decision in every context. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’d rather Harper at centre than Blaize, There’s just too many points leaked around, through, by him. I really can’t wait for the season to be over. Appreciate your efforts lads in getting the podcasts out.
If you want a layman’s view of the game, my wife watching last night said.. we were going really well until we brought on players I don’t really know.
Depth and speed again contributed big time to the result. The left edge exposed Asi and Talagi again, Sivo made one mistake and it cost big time. The need to reload in areas is obvious, guess if rumours TPA re true we will miss RCG energy but until we are able to get more speed and agility in our backline, we will continue to see big swings in momentum and points. As Barrett mentioned, $5 million dollars of cap not available is difficult to overcome , but inexperience and some really dumb mistakes in kicking and missed tackles hurt big time.
Reasonably confident that Ryles will change some stuff , a big preseason and new coaching staff will bring some long needed changes to areas which appear to have got a little stale. Bring on the revolution.
Just on Ryles coaching staff for N.Y. – not impressed but hope I’m completely wrong
lol at those on here that raved about Talagi. He is the worst defender I have seen in a long time.
I am so happy he is leaving.
I can’t let pass without response. Blaize’s carries show that he is a very brave young man. Like many gifted young ball carriers he has been able to make his way through the grades without developing the full range of defensuve skills. He was cruelly exposed last night by a very professional outfit. In nirmal circumstances he’d be dropped to Cup to work on his defence. It wl be very intetesting to see what happens.
I agree with Noel, Blaize runs
hard and embrace the collision.
His defence is shocking and has been all year but can’t agree with Butters choice of words.
Noel,
Spot on. There is a lot of upside to Blaize. Unfortunately, defence is not part of that at present. But from what I see there is no doubting his commitment on the field.
I’m not going to allow that comment about Blaize Butters. It’s personal in my opinion and not applicable.
Stop the presses, 19yo rookie outside back is a poor defender. What a shock there !!!
The kid is an undeniable talent. He has things to work on, but the talent is there.
We are so shit we can’t drop him. He tries hard, he has talent but He needs time in reserve grade and proper footballing education on the defensive aspects of the game. Unfortunately Parra has not been able to provide that to juniors and with a team so poorly constructed can’t provide that to blaize at the moment either. No wonder he left – Penrith is a much better footballing system for young players looking to make the jump to nrl
It begs the question what is the missing ingredient at the Eels ?
What are we not doing that we need to ?
It can’t just be down to the board or MON, what are we not doing that we should be doing ?
I hate comparing our guys to other teams guys, but compare Blaize to Casey McLean or Jack Howarth. They seem so physically mature in comparison.
I dunno. I don’t think anybody really knows.
What I would do to get Gus at our club.
Truly, it’s pretty silly to think that the only person in the world who understands the development of young footballers is Phil Gould. We have such people in their scores if not hundreds in our junior leagues. They simply get on with their lives, it doesn’t occur to them to organise a ticket to stand for the Eels board. Maybe that’s what’s needed, an organising force to recruit a board nomination ticket based on knowledge both of rugby l eague and financial management, not just business contacts and a desire to look important.
Noel, no one knows the game better than Gus. He’s been a player, coach, executive, player agent, hell, he’s even been a touchie for a night.
Of course there are other people who know the game, but Gus’ record for putting in place the necessary infrastructure is unimpeachable.
Secondly, you’ve clearly been living under a rock since 2017. The constitutional reforms ensured that tickets can’t be formed to overthrow the board. At best, only 2 of the board seats can change hands at any given time. That was put in place specifically to avoid the biennial clown show that were Eels board elections. Furthermore, potential candidates have to be vetted and must fill an existing gap on the boards skills matrix to be able to even be in the ballot.
There is no overthrowing the board anymore.
Spot on with your takes boys!
No team has given their opponents more tries through errors than Parra and also 13 times this year Parra have let back to back tries in and in the Dolphins and Storm case it was even back to back to back tries! Not defending the next set after a try has killed us this year.
I thought Lane and Sivo had some of their best games in a long time. Reg, Joe, Gutho and Dylan tireless as usual. For the most part everyone else was solid, except Daejarn and Blaixe.
It must be soul crushing being in this team and every week watching the left edge fall apart like a dry sand castle.
DJ – game management was horrible, and his defence is just awful.
Blaize – I get he’s young, but his defence to me looks like a kid who has too much natural talent and never actually worked on it. His reads look like he’s lost at sea, and his technique and effort poor. That lazy arm grab that led to I think the first try was unforgivable. The stuff up with Penisini was Blaize clocking off and not expecting the ball.
I would not lose any sleep if for the next 3 years Panthers get the same as we’ve had to cop this season. It would feel like poetic justice for all the dud calls we’ve had against them.
Kelmas charge down was mind bogglingly stupid, but I can forgive it. He’s been playing well and at that point individuals were trying to swing momentum back in our favour in lieu of an effective left edge defence.
Sorry Mick but I completely disagree with your assertion about Sivo. His defensive issues were glaringly obvious and he looks ponderous. Lane however is regaining his confidence at last. All is not lost for him. The first ten minutes were fun to watch and then 2024 reality set in. Come on the pre-season.
The officiating overall is a real problem. And the bunker is the main cause. How does Critchon stay on the field? And that was just the most obvious eg of a multitude of inept decisions. Time for a change in the head of referees and the complete debunking of the bunker. It has to go. The rationale of having the bunker overturn erroneous decisions is not happening. I am finding the NRL hard to watch. And let’s not even mention six agains. What a lottery.
I agree his defence wasnt and never has been elite but my comment was relative. He’s been out of form for a long time, so credit where due – he ran harder than he usually does, and had a couple of very good moments in defence including a cracking try saved ….. plus as a player who has never been a great defender, he is outside possibly two of the worst defensive backs I’ve seen so that’s never going to make him look like a star.
Agree re Crichton. That was a comically bad decision, especially after 2 of the 3 Manly bins the night before. All deserved the 10 mins.
The club has been sabotaged from within.
This is the club that thought having Jordan Rankin captain coach in NSW cup was a great idea.
If you want to develop players you do it in every grade. You spend money on all grades. Look at Storm and Roosters they only pick the best junior players to join their teams. They prefer quality over
quantity. We’ve focused on being the biggest and others focus on being the best.
I don’t blame the players. I blame the coaches and the decision makers.
We’ve had light weight amateurs running the place.
We were always playing for the spoon. Just look at the draw.
It definitely seems like it.. if you had to take a grand final winning team and had a goal to try force it into a wooden spoon inside 2 years.
Even then if you did everything you could intentionally to make that happen, you would probably fail to make the side fall that low in such a short space of time.
This is what gives us a indication of how badly the teams been trained for todays game and how shocking the rosters been managed with most of the long term contracted players being around 30 while our younger (still good) players are over playing great for other clubs.
If you were to take a side with a roster like had and actually tried to make it fail, it almost like this is the result you could expect.
Just clear Incompetence and lack of accountability from the ceo to the board, which the mediocrity dribbled down into the head of football, coaching staff & trainers they’ve hired.
We went from a grand final to the unfittest side in the NRL in 2 years.
More people than just BA or MON have a lot to answer for. This is systemic failure in all levels for allowing this to happen so badly. If we had legitimately Good football minds in the admin & board, they would of saw this coming sooner…
Solution?
Now they’ve got Ryles, Go after Gus within 2-3 years.
Once bulldogs taste success and finals 2 times they’ll get comfortable in the front office and believe Gus is no longer needed especially if he wears thin on some board members or coaching staff.. as he’s known to do.
Then get gus in to help Ryles turn the place upside down and switch it from a chitty bang bang slow moving retirement home of a club, into a fast moving forward thinking power house to recruit & develop premiership winning teams across all the grades.
My prediction is this would not be allowed to happen tho.. the eels would rather wait & see Ryles possibly fail, until they realise they need better football brains in the joint to support the head coach. The eels are reactive and not proactive. But I’m hopeful this years fall from grace might change their approach..
Agreed Muz,
The fundamentals are lacking. Basic positioning in defence is lacking.
It’s just a poorly coached team. It has been evident since last year. We were the only team still rolling off the tackled player. Our markers go there to rest. The list goes on…
We don’t like defending. We basically have an attacking team. That’s why we do well with 90% completions. The longer we hold the ball the less time we
defend. As soon as completions drop below 85% we are only competitive and below 80% we are screwed.
The absolute hypocrits that would not allow Flanagan because of his needles program at Sharks. Yet we had Trent Elkin employed as strength and conditioning? Look how a good coach can turn an average squad around in less than12 months.
I’m already impressed by Ryles and he doesn’t have his feet under the desk yet. It’s clear he won’t take the BS that previous coaches allowed. There will be no days off training or Maccas privileges. Basic club discipline will be the cornerstone of the Ryles era.
Yeah I think you are right we are prepared and trained like an attacking first mindset team. To be fair, we do score points against any side even when we’ve got loads of reserve graders in the side and even a reserve grade #7.
We are simply a bash & attack type of squad but you are right defensively we are the worst in the nrl. The fact we can score so easily too might be because teams are seemingly starting slower on us.
Have you noticed it looks like teams are asleep against us during first 15 mins?
They are being coached to weather the storm from us early and wait until we tire out to go 100% on us after the 50-65th minute and throw every ounce of attack & energy at us and we will fold.
I don’t think it’s only a fitness issue but a strategic one. Maybe our boys fitness programs & body compositions don’t enable them to perform later on the game in that cost on energy.
But at the moment we are being told to start fast and we clearly are like fat men sprinting. We can run people over who get in our way metaphorically, but run out of breath in less than 100 metres.
The boys are being told to start strong and it might be something to do with the size & body weight of them that our coaches have determined our best chance is to start fast, blow the gas early and try to hurt them and gain a lead, then try hold on for a win.
The teams playing us know this is coming because we’ve been unfit and gassed all year just past half time..
I agree Jason Ryles will need to make this a fitness & defence first off season or will risk another wooden spoon battle next year between tigers.
We have lost lost at least 5 games individually on that left edge simply by having Blaize or Sivo defending over there for us.
Between those two players, I’m certain their defence over there has costed us a MINIMUM of 4-5 games. Unless my memory is exaggerating.
Jason’s already got the best NSW cup fullback signed (has footwork, big work load, and speed), he is apparently after bulldogs Wilson who’s fast & agile, then Lomax & Simmson signed.
If Jason Ryles can sign Wilson then my back 5 line up is:
1). Iogni
2). Wilson
3). Bailey S or Zac Lomax
4: Zac Lomax or Bailey S (or gutho).
5). Gutho
Some will say putting gutho on the wing is a bad idea but here is what I believe it could work:
We lose most games because of our piss weak defence over on our left edge near the try line.
Gutho out on that edge immediately stops 20-40% or tries being scored because he can defend & read plays 200x better than Sivo or Blaize.
Now obviously the centre position on that edge would suit him too with his good hands and ability to set up tries for his winger, and gutho tackles as good or better than both Lomax & Simmonson.
I’m also considering gutho as a potential good asset at wing because he and Iongi can switch spots when waiting back for kids and gutho can swap into fullback to catch bombs or take pressure off the rookie on those situations + gutho at the back is a pair of safe steady hands to stop 40/20 attempts and catches the ball with minimal errors.
I personally cannot see our team being much more successful next year of Ryles chooses to keep playing gutho at fullback, Will P at centre, and Sean russel as a walk up start.
In my view there’s not enough speed in any of those 3 players to make our parramatta backs competitive with other teams. Gutho could still pull off being fullback but he needs fast centres and wingers around him. Will P & Sean russel are now playing & especially defending like NSW cup players.
It’s my view Ryles is looking to snap up Wilson because he will be our new #2 if he accepts a deal. And that Ryles will want speed & acceleration, X factor closer to the ball. Hence I believe Simmonson & Lomax will be our centres. Iongi also cannot go to waste on the wing, Ryles will need to develop him. Because gutho is supposedly going after next year, and let’s face if his body & speed will severely decline by 2026. It’s in the Eels best long term interest to work Iongi & Lomax sometimes into back up fullback roles if Gutho and Iongi are injured during the season. Currently we do not even have a fullback (who can play it remotely close to NRL level standards), if gutho goes down.
One example I’ll give is look at the storm, they have about 3-7 blokes in the tram who can play fullback sufficiently. Paps, Faalogo, Nick Meanie, Cam Munster, I believe even Jerome Hughs was a fullback…
Our clubs got gutho and no other blokes who can even play fullback and not look out of place. Iongi and Lomax are severely needed.
I don’t want to make another bash the club post or bag MON or BA. But it shows how badly our teams been managed. Even clubs like the tigers have back up fullbacks who look NRL standard. All our old coach & co cares about was signing forwards and for a decade have neglected backs & speeds as a signing priority. You watch Jason Ryles will sign us more of them + better speed backs in 2 years than we have seen during the last 10. That’s just simply poor coaching and roster management from the eels, who have been clueless on how to win games without relying solely on having giant sums of money in forwards to win the collision or lose the game. Sad but true. Cooper Cronk said it in the grand final, winning the collision wasn’t working and we had no plan B, because we have had no speed and no defence on our try line. If winning the collision fails we have had no other strength (like try line defence) to win us games.
Thanks fellas. Over a long period of time now Parramatta seems to lose games after racing to a lead in the first ten minutes or so. When we got to 16-0 I turned to my son and said we are going to lose this one. I have seen this scenario often. And so it was.
Worse still, it was the Broncos, and living in Brisbane all I’ll hear about is this win and how the Broncos will now make the finals.
I recall reading something from Sixties, maybe in the pre-season, that BT wouldn’t be ready for 1st grade this year. Spot on. I don’t want to be too harsh on a 19 year old but his defence is atrocious. Every team knows there is a potential turnstile in our centres. Go there often enough and there will be an easy passage. Anyone remember his arm grab against the Tigers? That cost the Eels that game. Similar with Sailor in this game. Very disappointing for all those players who slugged away making yardage and doing the hard stuff. He’s leaving. Why is he still being picked?
Not much else to add – our mental side / and defence seem to be the issue as we looked like a
Million $$$ early on.
Are we not fit??
Look I’m not going make any comment abt a young player – I never played any junior reps. Was not good enough tbh – Blaize will be a good player. No doubt from me.
I just hope our club is better in two to three yrs time.
We have more issues than a 19 yr old. Good luck to him he’s off to the opposite side of the west.
We as a club need to be smarter and have higher expectations let alone fix the front office asap.
He will probably become a good first grader in a few years time with hard work and development. Blaize just probably isn’t fast enough to be a top class modern back, but he could become a good X factor 6 possibly. He is just too young and green to be a weekly first grade centre. The hardest position to defend is probably centre and he is probably a few years away from defending there like a seasoned first grader. Just looks like Blaize has been thrown into the deep end early at eels due to our injury crisis. Blaize probably made a good decision going to the Riff. He isn’t ready to be the eels fullback, even after another pre season.
Muz, he made the best call for him I feel and when you look at it – our coach was sacked / he was playing in three positions and we seem a rabble.
He will be a good player just not in our system.
Yeah I agree mate, I wish good luck to him. He will probably become a decent first grader in time. Especially at the riff who’s a defensive systems & fitness first mentality club. We are at rock bottom right now and cannot wait for years for him to learn how to defend or catch a bomb (lol). With any luck he comes a good player over there who can tackle, and comes back over or is in a few years time.
Appreciate all the work you guys put in I really don’t know how you find the mental fortitude to do it at times. The current crop of players are so broken mentally it’s not funny. There is no trust as a group and opposition teams are fully aware of this.
When opposition teams don’t rollover and submit to us we start to believe we’re not good enough and hit the panic button. Even our most senior players are guilty of doing this. The team needs some obvious player and tactic adjustments to it there is no doubt but until we fix the mental side of the game we will never be a true threat in this comp. The biggest fear is this mental fragility is so ingrained in some of these players it will never change. If there’s one change Trent has to make for the rest of the year it’s Blaize. I’m not going to bash on the kid but he has been dismantled the last few weeks and is generally struggling. I think he has a bright future but unfortunately it’s not at parramatta so it’s time to move on. We have tago who has just signed an extension at the club and needs to come into the team and get some experience for next year.
We’ve had defensive problems on the edges going back to Ferguson’s time with us. Tom Opacic solved them, on the left edge at least. Reportedly we offered him a one year contract at two hundred grand and he left. Reportedly we offered Blaize over one and a half million dollars over three years and we saw last night the skills he has yet to develop. I’m simple country boy but I have a lot of trouble following the thinking.
Mind boggling
It’s easy to judge decisions in hindsight. Can you imagine the outrage had we paid to keep Opacic and a kid like Talagi left because of a lack of opportunity ?
Fans have been banging on for years about giving some of our kids a chance, and so the club did, but as is depressingly consistent with our fans, they turn on these young fellas the second they’re shown to be less than perfect.
I said this years ago when Tepai Moeroa debuted and everyone got on that particular train, I said wait for when the fans turned on him, and they did. The same thing happened with DB, it’s happening now with Penisini and Talagi. It’s what we do at Parramatta, we eat our young. No wonder they want to leave, I wouldn’t want to play for this fan base either.
Yeah no.
We dont eat our young. The problem with the Eels is that we accept mediocrity too readily.
Considering you mentioned it. Tepai Moeroa was given every chance to shine at the Eels but didn’t establish himself. He went to the Storm as a great white hope and has played what ? 5 games in 4 years there ??
The reason is that he just isnt good enough and the Storm don’t accept mediocrity.
DB and Penisini have been given years and a central stage to show their abilities.
If they fail to get to the required standard , that’s not the Parramatta Eels fault or the fans fault – it’s squarely on those particular players.
Do you honestly believe that if Talagi was giving the kind of output that he is producing at the Storm, that their fans would be more accommodating??
Of course they wouldn’t .
Actually Penisini and maybe DB would have been dropped to the reserves long ago if they were Storm players.
That’s why they are minor premiers again and we are where we are.
We have had years and years of Brad Arthur rewarding sub standard performances because they are good blokes.
Accountability and professionalism is sorely required.
It’s about time some of these players stop worrying about what the fans say and toughen up. If they are so worried and effected by the fans, then perhaps they had better go play something easier.
Agree Spark.
The biggest problem I have is we had coaching staff that had low standards. The players have dropped to that standard.
Players picked week in week out despite missing tackles and costing games.
We had a situation where the players didn’t watch the ’22 GF because they were too upset. We had players flouting discipline on and off-the-field ot being castigated or punished. But walked straight back into first grade. Yes we had no depth – but who’s fault was that?
We had players on alcohol and maccas benders. Players putting on weight during the season…
So it does fall back onto the players as you say. But the joint is way too comfortable because the coaching staff set the standards. The young guys have recognised the favouritism in the junior system and saw it came from
the top down.
Thanks for the podcast gents, this season just can’t finish soon enough.
Joe O can hold his head up high, I thought Russell had a genuine dig, RGC was a close second to Joe O and Lane showed he may just be the mobile front rower we never knew we had.
Harper has to be selected next week, he’s a reasonable defender if nothing else. Blaize is not NRL ready, he’s not our only liability but he does standout as a major defensive liability. We can’t expect to avoid the spoon while we have a poker machine that pays out every time on our left edge.
Joe made far too many dumb errors which negated his really solid game. He invariably does something silly to put us on the back foot. Ill discipline is a big feature of our game.
Strange that the execution of basic skills seems to have declined exponentially over the last three years. Obviously skills development at the junior level seems okay but at a senior level …
60s you attend training sessions regularly can you pinpoint a reason why this has occurred?
Cheers
The last three years includes a grand final so I don’t think it was an issue in 2022. Let me focus on this year and what is going wrong now in relation to skills/execution. There are aspects that I don’t want to get into but it is also a combination of using larger numbers of inexperienced and/or lower grade players in the top grade combined with the effects of a long season which was effectively over as soon as the coach was sacked. Whether people agree with that decision or not, the issue after that call became mindset and focus. It took a little while for effort areas to pick up, and while you can see players having a crack you can see that there are players that can’t stay focussed and it manifests in poor execution and decision making.
Gday mate, Sixties I agree it causes a shit storm sacking a coach during the season in many cases but I don’t think we have copped a 50+ flogging since it happened and we have had more reserve graders in the side playing for us than any time I can remember. I think baz & co have done a reasonable job at uniting the team and at least getting blokes to turn up in those effort errors like you mention on the podcasts, the effort is there usually. I do believe Ba could have helped us dial our form back in a little from where it was, but we copped some absolute floggings where many of the fellas literally didn’t turn up. And those team lists were stronger than the ones we’ve had recently due to the endless injuries. I don’t think we would be in a much better position even if the coach wasn’t sacked, the year realistically was already written off. I obviously wish Brad was shown some more respect but it’s a performance business at the end of the day. Our new head coach Ryles being announced earlier has probably given him more opportunity to start building up our roster for 25-27 and doing a much needed clean out. I don’t know if Jason Ryles would of had the keys to the roster like he has now if Brad was still coach. I’m not suggesting the sacking didn’t effect our boys, it clearly did to some of them. But the eels are coming into a 40 year premiership drought and Brad was given 10 years or so which is already a huge show of support from the club to him. Most other clubs do not employ coaches for that long unless that win the comp. The boys were not showing up under Brad while he was still here, I believe he could of helped them more than Baz at coming out of this slump most likely. But we definitely already looked awful before he left. I can imagine you know more than many of us. But we can’t ignore the fact we severely struggled all season even during earlier games unfortunately. The other issue too is the Eels are so unfit this year compared to other teams many former players think we haven’t adjusted with the speed of the game. I don’t know if that’s directly brads responsibility, but we definitely needed some new ideas & fitness preparation in the club. Brad might of been let down by people & fitness trainers around him preparing them during off season. I do not know. It will be interesting to see if our new coaches can help us get fitter in 2025, or if it’s largely due to our ageing roster. I believe a lot of our errors are coming from obviously low confidence, but also a fitness disadvantage compared to other teams. We are not as light or as fit endurance wise, as we fatigue the mistakes flow. Particularly in our second halves. Which often indicates fatigue being a factor.
Jason Ryles first plan of action ….in a long list of actions –
1. Get the team fitter to play for 80 minute
2. Get an understanding of the game and what the team needs at that time – where are we on the field and what is my job at that moment ( see Penisini / Talagi shambles at 18-18 that led to Adam Reynolds scoring )
3. Get basic skills right – catching / passing – again Penisini / Talagi shambles // Sivo totally missing the ball that led to a try / passes that regularly go too low, too high, too wide
4. And coach them that if we can stop giving teams 12-18 points a game through our basic errors, we will actually start to win….just letting ourselves down
And you know it’s been a disappointing season when the one game you now are looking forward to is the last round vs the Tigers to avoid the wooden spoon
Greg, from an outsider get the players connected to the club and wanting to bleed Parra.
We seem to have little or no DNA.
What do we stand for???
I warched Cronulla on tv tonight. Big, very fit young blokes, a very fast, well coached game and, probably, they won’t make the GF, maybe not the preliminary final. Gee we’re a long way off – a LONG way.
Agreed….we need to set some standards around that. All successful clubs have that mentality – this is what we stand for, these are our standards. As an example – the Panthers – how many times do you hear their players in interviews say “we have a next man up” mentality – they dont accept average / rebuilds – if you are in the team, there is an expectation of performance
Agreed on all that. Mind you, if we didn’t get decimated with injuries, no doubt we would be pushing into the top 8 this season. The loss of Moses for nearly the whole season was massive, and we all knew it was clear that we didn’t have a backup plan. Looking forward to a new season next year – just can’t wait until this season is done.
I’d like to see the injury crisis address in the off season. You can say some of these were just plain bad luck, but muscle and ligament injuries are generally the result of improper training techniques. I hope we have someone there who really knows their stuff about biomechanics.
Under 6 stuff really.
This is the first time since 2015 that none of the men’s major teams (20’s/21’s, reserve grade and NRLM) will play in the finals. This is what happens when you hire people from the tigers, you get tigers like results. It’s terrible that only one aspect of the entire football program has been blamed for this monumental collapse, just as success is a club effort so is failure.
Hopefully the board will be held accountable.
Supposedly they have a review every year? North Korea is more transparent.
I heard some talks about an extraordinary general meeting.
I’m not confident that anything up top will change.
New appointments official
Nathan Brown assistant
Sam MOA defence
Scott Wisemantel attack
Nathan Cayless
Blair Mills – this guy has the hardest job. Strength and conditioning. Looks good. Background with Chiefs Rugby. Normally Rugby has 5 weeks preseason. So he’ll have a bit more time.
Just saw this that it’s been made official. Justin Horo have props to Nathan & Sam in the eels IG comments section stating they are some of the most detailed people he has played with.
Somebody just posted (HamS) above saying…
“This is the first time since 2015 that none of the men’s major teams (20’s/21’s, reserve grade and NRLM) will play in the finals”
It will be interesting to see having actually skilled coaches and former high level first grade players as our coach staff at NRL level will lift us at all levels due to the new defensive & fitness coaching that will be emulated throughout the club.
The fact a powerhouse club (financially & supporter base) can’t make the finals in any important grades is a giant red flag the place has been a systematic failure.
Defence and leg fitness (work rate & hunger) is so low compared to the panthers & co it almost looks like our players are stuck in the mud compared to them with line speed, and kick chase efforts.
It will be interesting to see if one off season can reverse the now partially sunken ship of the mighty parramatta eels.
It’s a massive ask to think 1 off season can make a big impact. But even a 10-15% improvement in defence will see us win loads more games across all grades.
I’m still convinced our previous coaching staff had no answers with edge defence, it’s been torn to shreds for years like a warm knife through butter whenever a good team gets 1 set play to attack our try line.
(If the new coaches & assistants are successful)…
I also don’t want to hear people only saying it’s the few new players that’s made the difference.
We’ve literally been smashed by 50+ this year with a full strength squad and mitchel moses playing on the team.
If the new coaches can make our defence improve out of site. Then the board & CEO have made the right decisions with who they employed.
Agree Muz,
Brown – he knows Parra and the failings in the junior system.
Wisemantel is a backs skills coach – we lack basic skills. Catch and pass, positional play all lacking.
Blair Mills – he’s concentrating on speed and power. His work with All Blacks 7s is explosive speed and explosive power. He talks of effort on effort, Something we lack.
I can see why Cayless was kept. He at least knows the players and there’s no point having two big jobs when one will do. The Cup coach can be decided for 2026 at a much later stage. Ryles doesn’t need that fight now.
Muz
You say several times we have been smashed by 50 points and MM played in those games.
No doubt we have had our worst season since 2018. There is very little positive to come out of 2024 other than possibly MM’s SOO form.
However just a couple of things. Firstly no team in 2024 smashed us by a margin of 50+ points.
Secondly no team scored 50 points against us. In Rd 11 the Storm got us 48-16, in Rd 7 Dolphins got us 44-16, in Rd 12 Bunnies got us 42-16 and in Rd 4 Raiders got us 41-8 in Canberra beating us by 33 points which was the biggest of all those losses.
Thirdly there is nothing in what I have just said to make us proud in fact it is agonising reading. But furthermore you said MM played in all of those big losses. Well my research shows he didn’t play in any of those big losses.
Something else you didn’t get right.
Hi mate Sorry John for not putting exact scores. They were just under 50, from memory around 48 scored against us..
I did say moses was there during some games we got flogged which is true. It doesn’t make it much better, I was probably throwing the 50 out there as a rounded up number because I’m another heart broken eels fan. I do know from memory we got beaten I believe by high 40’s and even 50+ scored agains us last last season. Sorry for not being clear but you are right. 💙💛🙏 thx mate. But yes ifs still sad to read all this with the talent & potential we have at our beloved club.
Whatever the exact scores it can never be acceptable that a club with our history, district and resources should have one of those “we give up” thrashings never mind several in close succession. Time to draw a line under all that; the Brad Arthur years were intetesting, generally successful and now they’ve run their course and he’s moved on. Soon the last of his coaching staff will have taken up positions with other organizations, bit by bit many of the key figures in the playing squads will have departed – and good luck to them, we wish them well – and we’ll enjoy hearing about the methods of our new leadership. My great hope is that they’ll understand the demands of the new faster game and give an appropriate regard for excellene in defence.
I believe when they sacked BA they said it was his 50th blow out loss at the club. Not sure what the score range is for the blow-out. But we’ve had way too many.