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The Eels fell painfully short of the finals in the NRLW but it was still a massively successful season. The Tip Sheet looks at the mega strides made under Steve Georgallis as Sixties and Forty20 break down their season.
It is a quiet week in Parradise in general but incoming star back Zac Lomax has earned selection in the NRLPA Team Of The Year while he is tipped to be joined by Mitchell Moses in the upcoming Kangaroos squad.
The show reviews the week of games that was and then casts an eye ahead to the NRL and NRLW Grand Final Qualifiers as they tip who is set for a date in the big dance. Josh Addo-Carr is looking at a 4-game suspension for his antics while Kalyn Ponga is copping it from the press for choosing to prioritise the Knights over the Roos – is he wrong though?
Awesome to see Ryles & co have ensured locking up Guymer, Pryke, Richie Peninsni on longer deals.
Nice to see they are solidifying our developing players futures. I know we lost Blaize and Matt Arthur, but these players offer better first grade potential in my opinion for what we are looking for over the next 2 years.
I think Guymer & Luca Moretti will carry the torch so to speak and be forwards who hopefully help us offset the loss of RCG and the decline from Jnr from recent years as he has aged.
Luca & Guymer have made visible impact when they come on the field off the bench. Really looking forward to 2025 after these boys get a new & different looking off season. đź’Ş
We still need tuivati locked in and then to focus on athletic young backrower (some of which we have in juniors). But this is a great start.
true Ron, some believe Guymer could become a good back rower. I thought he looked great coming off the bench in the middle though. I think sixities said he used to be a centre. Is that’s the case, he probably has an advantage to develop defensively as a back rower. He seems to have fast moving legs and intensity. Seems faster than Tualagi. Might be a good defensive forward in a couple of seasons. We have to think long term. If Ryles is to make a great team during his contract, he will need to bet & stick to some younger players who he thinks he can mould into proper high level defensive players. My feeling is he will see Pryke, Guymer, morettti as his potentially best forwards in a couple of years and bet heavily on developing them. Our ageing forward pack will only look worst over next 2 seasons if paulo, lane, carty, matto can’t wind back the clock to turn up consistently or ship them off. Paulo & lane have significantly declined over last two seasons. We really need these young forwards to lift and fill their roles or we will really struggle to break into it & remain in the top 8. The only older forwards I have faith in defensively is matto & Joe o’. Those men and our younger pathways Boys, and hopgood are the only forwards we’ve got who I think can keep up with the speed of todays game in defence. Our defence is why we stink, and ageing power forwards is a large part of it. You look at penriths “nobody” young forwards and bench players. They have young legs, can run & tackle all night. We severely lack this. Guymer looks like a potential Liam Martin type player. Really hoping he can stay injury free. My feeling is him and Luca will be our near best forwards (or there abouts) for us inside of 2 years.
I’m not as high on moretti as you are – he is decent but he’s not anything more than a bench option. Tuivati is important to plan for post junior – still need a power in middle. And we still need athletic backrower (hamoule, keon, Eli katoa etc types that are younger). Fortunately we have some good backrowers in juniors.
As to hooker, zaidus mataguia just left dogs for manly. I don’t understand how we let him go to dogs in first place as I always rated him. Shame manly have picked him up. We need to snag a gun your hooker from another club asap.
Ron we’ve had limited punch off the bench compared to other teams where you can see this significantly impacts the game.
Even for NSW, Leniu isn’t a starting prop or an elite prop. What he does come on is give intense hard running minutes which created a visible effect on the game. Luca and Charlie Guymer are probably the only young impact bench forwards we have. Both come on, and you can see the intensity and impact.
You might not “be high” on him, but consider not all our props need to be Jnr paulo (who’s on $900k +) or RCG (who was allegedly on 700k +). Luca is probably on one of the smallest salaries on our squad, and you could argue this year offered more intensity off the bench than paulo did who’s on almost a million which is ridiculous as you know.
I’m not high on Luca as a possibly new prime RCG or paulo, he makes a visible clear impact off the bench. High effort, young fast moving legs, and takes up minimal cap space compared to most of our ageing forwards.
Guymer also came on remember and offered nice leg speed & intensity off the bench. Other good teams have young no name type young forwards who they can utilise for impact or depth in the forwards. Look how many of Riff’s no name young forwards run like bulls for them, not world beaters or origin players, just fast moving legs and youthful impact, with low cost 💲 contracts.
I think you would probably agree after what we saw this year and last, if we had less of the ageing forwards on big bucks and younger faster better bang for buck forwards in our top 30 all the sudden we are not so susceptible to injuries to one or two key forwards derailing our season.
I would rather a mix of 5 Charlie Guymers, Luca Morettis, than 1 or 2 Sean lanes or Jnr Paulos. And in terms of cap space – it would cost a similar amount of money in terms of cap space.
I do agree Tuivati might end up becoming a top prop in future. But it could be 5+ years away. Guymer & Morreti are between 20 and 24. Sam is 19 I think?
I still feel like Guymer & Morreti are closer to being regular first grade options and realistically our eels need to have solid seasons 25’-26’ to help Ryles recruit post Gutho, Paulo, etc error.
If we have two shit seasons good marquee players won’t want to come to us for reasonable money. And we should have significantly more cap space opening up over coming seasons as gutho + paulo either leave or have contracts significantly reduced.
I also agree regarding hooker options. I wondered if Knights Brailey could be a good starting hooker with hands playing 14. Hands played had a significant impact on our games when he was playing with Josh Hodgson starting.
I think Ryles will play a possible 2 hooker strategy like roosters & Melbourne often like to do it. I do believe our club will recruit another good young hooker for the cup squad anyhow with Matt Arthur leaving.
Just Saw Broncos “have parted ways” with Walters.
Good time to do it in the middle of finals before off-season starts. So as to avoid a lame-duck coach under pressure all year before being sacked by round 10.
they are showing parra how it’s supposed not to be done, not wait until later when seasons already in the toilet. Interesting if Baz ends up head coach at broncos for a while (lol), the fans will be mad. Wonder if his Nepo son will follow him. It’s a similar situation to ba & parra, many fans believe the sons have gotten a leg up because father being coach and that he is blocking other better talented players. Interesting to see if it’s speculation or reality. Baz won’t leave Walters in if he takes over I believe.
It was handled extremely well. Walters given the option step down. On the eve on finals.
Gives an off-season for the new coach. I think this will be the blueprint of how to sack a coach going forward. The round 10 sacking almost kills off two years at once.
They must have someone planned.
Imagine Bennet comes out of the blue and backflips on Rabbits lol.
I feel sorry for Barrett who will most likely get punted by the incoming coach as they usually choose their own staff.
Yeah maybe the signing of baz was to use him as a possible stop gap for them until they can seal a new head coachs signing for the future. Bris msy have seen baz actually did well for parra considering the circumstances, I think our win rate improved under baz, with much more reserve graders in the starting 17. Also I think we didn’t cop as many blow our losses by as big of a margin? Maybe bris saw this as a sign Baz could possibly fill in at Bris successfully and thing’s probably wouldn’t get much worse. Sucks for bad if he gets used up and spay out like this though.
What’s interesting at bris is there is clear nepotism going on. Some argued this was happening at parts, some disagreed. But what’s interesting is that Bris probably has two legitimate nrl level hookers who are flat out getting a game. This might of came into consideration for Brisbanes decision making process.
I still believe something strange was happening under ba. Like Walters he seemed to have personal favourites like Walters and gave people favoured game time that it’s clear was not always the right decision. And statistics wise also was obvious.
Walters son is no offence not a good proper starting first grade player for a supposedly elite club. He would be lucky to get first choice game time at any other club. Much like ba’s kids. I’m not suggesting they won’t “get there” in future, but it’s been sometimes questionable when you see coaches kids getting strong preference when there’s countless other players who are stuck in reserve grade for other clubs who are far superior to them and can’t get a run.
Another strange one for us was the return of lussick and blocking of Brendan Hands. There was clear personal favouritism or something going on there. Hands has been a better hooker in every game he had played for us and was overlooked for lussick.
The same thing happens up at Brisbane and it’s not only with Walters son. Players are apparently divided and unhappy because many of them believe they’ve been treated unfairly or the coach has had no idea in terms of team selections. Coach Walters would be hard pressed to ever get a first grade gig ever again you would expect… and it will be interesting to see what happens with Billy.
You could near guarantee Baz won’t pick him as first choice if he becomes coach. Baz (even if he isn’t the best coach), does usually pick the best teams. He doesn’t get stuck on blind loyalty like some coaches such as Walters seemed to do.