And so it truly begins.
Today was day one of the preseason for the full Eels NRL squad, and they took to the training track alongside the younger players who had started their journey last week.
I didn’t operate off a check list, but as I followed the work of what is now a squad of more than 30, it looked as though the only missing players were Mitch Moses, Zac Lomax, and Isaiah Iongi. I also couldn’t confirm whether J’Maine Hopgood was out on the field.
The backs and forwards were separated for day one with the forwards starting about thirty minutes before the backs. It consequently meant a thirty minute difference in their finishing times.
Commencing with fitness testing, the forwards then launched into much of the skills work that formed the basis of last week’s sessions.
Catch and pass technique continued to be drilled, and the emphasis of being able to execute correct technique at pace is a feature of every session.
Where possible, a competitive element is introduced. It turns what could be a repetitive drill into a game, and if there’s something that adds fun to training, it’s players getting one up on their mates in games.
Forwards go through their paces
The NRL group also received their first input about defence from Ryles. The drills were similar to last week – extricating themselves from the tackled player, marker positioning and movement, speed and agility in the line etc.
It was interesting to watch Ryles correct and adjust the positioning of some of the players.
A noticeable change today, and it was probably as attributable to this now being a large group in addition to it being experienced players, was the talk lifted during the drills – or was at the very least louder.
Richie Penisini
When the backs started their session, they also undertook fitness testing. Running “Broncos” was part of this, and it’s fairly standard practice in rugby league conditioning.
In my last post, I responded to a question about who I thought would be the standard setter in fitness. I suggested that Arthur Miller-Stephen was undertaking his first NRL preseason and could be one to watch.
Today, he led the backs home. Please note that Dylan Brown, Will Penisini and Bailey Simonsson are still involved in rehab from well publicised injuries.
Charlie Guymer
From there, much of their session mirrored that of the forwards.
As this was the first day for the majority of the squad, there were no clues about whether any decisions have been made about positions, and given the absences, the answer may be some time coming.
When the session wrapped up, new Eels Head of Athletic Performance, Blair Mills, introduced himself and chatted about what we are likely to see with the team’s conditioning. He was also kind enough to answer some questions about his move from rugby union.
No spoilers at this stage about what we should see. Instead, I look forward to describing it in future reports.
Eels forever!
Sixties
Tks sixties,look forward to your write-ups as the plot thickens. Just a random thought (or random ignorance), would Richard Penisini know if his knee is in good condition or is it still to be stress tested, I don’t know the medical technology and process available to him to monitor and assess, but I’d reckon it would be pretty impressive.
He’s in full training so I imagine it’s had the tick of approval for him.
Is anyone else feeling a little nervous that we let Gutho leave without ensuring we had a player of his stature lined up as a replacement?
Doesn’t seem like smart business.
Are there any birds out there chirping something reassuring?
I really Gutho was there for this coming year Kenny, but he wanted that extra two years. So Parra could have stood their ground and forced him to play. But any significant signing from here on would t have been possible without the Dragons signing the King.
Sixties I’m not sure that’s accurate that the clubcould not make a top level signing without Gutho leaving. Rcg , sivo and gutho would give them approximately $2 million in cap space even allowing for a contribution for sivo to move on,we have made a few signings but reasonably insignificant bar lomax who was approved on the cap earlier in the year , we have a lot of cap space but not sure we have intelligent people to use it
Ivan, I went through some of this cap and roster stuff in a post a few months ago. Gutherson moving on is significant for the cap and roster.
Isaiah Iongi is going to be really good for us. He’s different to Gutho, but probably better suited to the current game, plus he’s nearly ten years younger and 205 games less wear and tear on his body. Replacing Gutho isn’t our biggest issue, replacing Reed Mahoney & Marata Niukore remain our biggest roster issues.
That’s funny Brett, it took me near 2 years but I ended up at the same place…Mahoney and Niukore. With Mahoney we just didn’t find a No 9 with the DNA of an organising dummy half (Hands worked hard, improved and is worth a place in the roster), and with Niukore I watched a lot of Warriors games to learn that Marata served an apprenticeship with us but became an expert tradesman at the Warriors. Also, agree on Ionghi, his pedigree is good, and I like these young blokes who were good enough to be selected for Qld U/19’s(Hopgood came via that school)
The current game now rewards players like Niukore who can play multiple roles. He can play centre, edge forward, middle forward, as a starter or off the bench, as a workhorse or as a shock weapon, he hits hard in defence, runs great lines. A guy like him basically extends your roster to 31 or 32 players. If you have 4 of 5 of them, then you effectively have 35 or 36 players. They are worth their weight in gold, which is what the Warriors are paying him.
Brett, Cash Mahoney is overrated. Someone better will come and besides I like young Hands. He is a tryer. Jack Williams is the new Maranta
So what you’re saying is that Jason Ryles and Nathan Brown aren’t intelligent enough to know what future signings are in the club’s best interests.
I think it’s a little premature to be saying that.
Chiefly based on recruitment over the last few years I’m entitled to say we have been underwhelming in recruiting players, we deserve better than mediocre players
Ivan so far the young players we have signed are more or less far superior in their preferred positions than the young players which we have in those positions, we also had not signed any young backs with speed and legit NRL potential in many years.
We may not have signed the top name type NRL ready established players. But what we truly need for longevity and to succeed long term is young X factor players who have speed and not just short term rejects.
I’d actually argue we have signed more quality young backs this last few months than we had over the last few years combined.
And backs depth, speed, youth, and quality has been our Achilles heel.
We obviously need another experienced NRL Ready Versatile back, a hooker, another experienced forward.
But for years we didn’t sign any young backs who were elite in lower grades and had legit speed & NRL potential. This has been achieved. Our club needed this more than just 1 or 2 premier name NRL players.
If you look at Penrith or storm its roster is constantly adding in young talent and blooding them, they are fast, young, fit. We at the eels had become a retirement home.
Hopefully we can sign a few more experienced players. But don’t overlook the importance of the young players we have already signed.
These are blue chip young guns which parramatta has unfortunately not been able to develop themselves in recent times. Our club needed to think longer term, stop signing too many players who are already past their NRL peak + require huge pay cheques.
True Muz
Looking at Storm they fill the junior ranks with talent. Then they get competition and are used to fighting for a spots. We have been paper thin minimum number of players per position no depth etc etc etc
That’s how Strom or Panthers always have a production line. Whereas, we put all our hopes on developing a gun junior player Blaize, Stefano..only for them to sign elsewhere for more money. Is it too much pressure being the gun junior at Parra.
Sure we still need some elite signings but it takes time to turn the ship around. The focus on youth, depth and speed is transformational to the roster.
Yeah you would hate being a rookie at parra before, you are expected to go from rookie to saviour inside of 1 season by the fans because we never have any quality depth, then they would get put into the nrl squad too early and cop significant flak from the fans. Then destroys their confidence.
Now we have Richie P, Ams, plus the other new young backs with us who are talented (iongi, papali’i, etc) , there won’t be all the Eels fans pressure applied to one player.
Plus it will give us a choice to pick between them, who’s most in from, healthy, etc, or maybe who’s most physically ready.
I agree too it takes time to turn the ship. I’m glad we are not just throwing big money at old players for a quick fix too btw.
The last thing we need is to get all our money tied up in older players that we he club is not 100% on because we are chasing short term success, while potentially sabotaging ourselves long term.
One example I’m still 1/2 1/2 on is Ryan pap. Amazing player, but rumoured to want around 1 million on the open market. If he stays healthy? Amazing signing for us.
If he gets injured? He has a track record of only playing in about 33% of games over 3-5 years from memory.
This is a consistent record of missing more than half of the season on average.
At parra we can’t afford to have 1 million in any individual who possibly misses 70% of games. At Melbourne you can do that and they still win.
I don’t believe we have the depth and squad to keep winning whilst missing a million dollar player.
So in this sense I actually have think long term it would benefit us to do something more like bulldogs have done.
They have shifted their roster balance over into a versatile roster that doesn’t collapse if one player gets injured. And many players can play several positions.
I think for us to consistently win games and be competitive even during injury crisis’s, if we went this route we might be better off.
I look at Ryan pap & Brailey as great players. But the catch? If both got injured and we have 1.5M of cap space out into them, we could be stuck down near the bottom of the ladder again if they both got injured. This is where in 50/50 on this.
Where’s Melbourne would not use their cap on players like this on that much, unless they had heaps of quality depth in those positions. And we do not. But it’s improving.
Ivan I think what Ryles is doing with building from our jnr base looks promising. Lomax and Williams are very good additions,
We need to be patient as it looks like Ryles wants a substantial roster,
Thanks Sixties,
Glad everyone is back on deck!
Is Junior still injured? Is he in rehab?
Junior is training
Great we might see a slimmed down version in 2025.
Has Reg signed at the right time? Now the kick off will be changed his main job has changed and all props values just dropped…
Interesting point RE reg and the game rule changing. I love reg but I have a feeling we got the best obviously from gutho and reg, and we may witness a steep drop from them this season or the next most likely and probably think we dogged at bullet.
I hope the best for them, but i wonder.. how will they both look in faster teams? The titans and dragons are must faster teams. Gutho may look like a slug over there playing near Sloan, RCG don’t be as effective with kick off changing. We may witness them struggling for a position maybe not in 2025 but possibly in 2026.
Sounds like Ryles has a plan which is great.
BA was throwing darts and most the time they missed. He got lucky with 3 or 4 signings and he rode that wave. The development of juniors during his time was nothing short of embarrassing along with having two of our greatest ever players in Hayne and Semi walk out under his watchfully eye.
Let’s hope Ryles does better and help erase the last 11yrs.
Sorry I think that’s just wrong. Brad was very good at developing many forwards. He also did well in ensuring the development of Mose, brown, Mahoney, semi, gutho and penisini. But development can only take you so far. You need to complement that with going to market to get quality sometimes. And That’s where we failed big time.
Brad no doubt had some shortcomings (as most coaches do) but it wasn’t for lack of effort and interest in development. In my opinion the biggest knock is on brad, the GM and CEO was not recognising the shifts in the way the game was being played post 6 again era (smaller faster agile players) and not adapting quick enough (either cause they had too much money tied up in forwards based on pre 6 again rules and couldn’t or brad simply didn’t value backs in same way or both).
Help erase the last 11 years? Another BA hater enters the fray (or possibly an old one using a different alias?) Do you remember the many lean years prior to the last 11 at all including a couple of spoons in a row? You didn’t like becoming consistent finalists and making a GF with BA, you didn’t enjoy that ride at all? As Ron has said, BA developed many players, both juniors and signings with a very large majority becoming far better players after BA was involved with them. Unfortunately, in some cases they got better offers than the Eels could compete with. As for the ridiculous comment about Hayne and Semi walking, that’s just absolute stupidity – Hayne was off to the NFL and Semi left after the incorrect allegations from his ex missus. Not even Belllamy could have prevented either of those 2 blokes leaving the club, but yeah, it’s all on BA. I just can’t get over the ignorance of some people to facts.
We can obviously always have different opinions or disagree on some selections our coaches make, but no doubt Brad did a great job for us, especially helping take us out of the dark ages. Got players who often struggled at other places to become elite players in their positions, even helping them become rep or Daly M players. Very respectable tenure. We have been a consistently solid team up until this year really. And stubby as you said, no clubs keep every elite player. Even at storm & panthers, roosters, top players exit the roster regularly. Impossible to keep all of them when there’s larger financial incentives elsewhere.
And in all those 5 x final series bar our win against the Cowboys did we beat a side that finished higher then 7th or 8th?
Even in the 2022 final series we got smacked twice 13+ by the premiers.
And that’s with a brilliant spine and at the time the two origin props.
In BA we blew a premiership window Hardly a great coach.
That’s funny, you do realise when you say BA (who was apparently “hardly a great coach”) blew a Premiership window you’re effectively saying BA created a Premiership window, right? You understand what hypocrite means?
No mention of the ’21 semi final loss to the Panthers? You know, when the NRL admitted they got it wrong when Moses didn’t get a penalty for being impeded after a break late in the game, or when the ref was wrong to stop play for an injured Panthers player in back play when the Eels had a 5 man overlap out wide and were certain to score and take the lead in the dying minutes? Doesn’t suit the narrative does it, mate!
Stubbyholder, I’ve got a pretty good idea who this is. He’s banned from here. Won’t take much more to confirm his identity.
Japanese Raven, I think this comment is completely wrong and unfair. I was a big fan of BA and will remain so. Let’s just keep the commentary on what’s happening now, not throwing those darts at the past.
A new era begins. Perhaps I was harsh on BA as he did some good things.
I’ve always maintained that to win a comp you need strong juniors and a strike 2nd rower. We’ve lacked one since Manu Mau. Lane did have one good season in 2022 and it helped Dylan’s game.
I don’t see a strike 2nd rower in the squad so am hoping a guy from NSW CUP can suprise. W.Latu might be that suprise.
JAC will be an eel I am certain. This will add some speed and help Moses game. We have holes in the squad but with every hole it presents opportunities.
Exciting times.
Thanks Sixties,
Hard to tell with the images, is that a leaner Wiremu Greig in the yellow boots in the top image?
Yeah, I’m taking photos from a distance on the phone so it’s not a sharp image. I’m fairly confident that you’re right, but I can’t confirm that he was wearing those boots. Woody was actually quite lean in the 2024 preseason too.
Great stuff Sixties, good to see some of our forgotten youngsters back from injury and into full training.
Absolutely Joseph.
Thanks Sixties,
A good read. Interesting that you mentioned Ryles doing some instruction around defensive positioning. I think you previously mentioned some work with the young players around marker defence as well. So I’m really interested in seeing how any defensive changes work come game day.
Thanks again.
It’s such an obvious focus area in these early sessions. It will be interesting to watch it as they hit full opposed work
Gents media is reporting the fox is likely to be announced signing with us within days.. hope so!
Tyrell may is reportedly also in talks with the eels and the bulldogs – the cheese mentioned it on the podcast after speaking to May over the phone.
If we could: Get Fox + May for 2025.
All the sudden without injuries, this would be squad capable of beating any team once we build combinations.
May running off moses would absolutely thrive.
Fox running after grubber kicks from moses & brown would add absolutely massive value to our attacking arsenal out wide!
If we are lucky enough to get these two players signed. Our luck / chances for a successful 2025 suddenly sky rockets.
May was good enough in 2024 to easily be a NSW bench forward. This is the type of player whose motor & intensity would significantly bolster our roster and help fill the void of RCG. May is actually better than RCG now at this stage of his career.
We obviously NEED an extra hooked. But these two players would finally freshen up both our middle + wing with legitimate fast legged, premium quality NRL players which we severely lack in the middle and on the wing compared to the elite clubs.
Let’s hope we get lucky and get both. I don’t care if May gets hot & cold mentally wanting to play. ALL athletes go through this at different times, but they just don’t say it out loud like him.
Sounds like a done deal!
I heard 2yrs around 450k. If true JAC was on 550k so we got a good deal.
We are going from one of the slowest back 5 to be up with the fastest. We will now have kick sprints to add to Moses kicks 2025! Something we have struggled with in the past.
Sounds like the Fox is coming, good news to have some speed out wide.
Just discussed this on the latest podcast. Will be landing tomorrow morning.
Despite all his baggage. He’s the perfect age and experience to mentor our young outside backs (on the field).
I’m sure there will be strict conditions written into his contract as well as cut price deal.
..a lazy “instant sugar hit” recruitment decision. So we snap up a player that Gus and the Bulldogs considered didn’t meet their criteria of strength of character, honesty and integrity. The guy needed to be taught a lesson – not lauded for his actions by every desperate club falling over themselves to sign him….a sad day for our club.
Glad you have never made a mistake in your life Marty.
8 years of playing in the nrl and 4 years at the storm with only one real issue says he should be fine with us.
The guy can play and will have a point to prove, bring on the fox.
Marty, I hear what you say.
He was sacked and looks like got a around $100k pay cut. Plus a 4 game suspension.
Not sure what police have punished him with. Suspended from driving monetary fine?
We got a good player on a cheap deal with tight restrictions. It will be 1 strike out and not paid out.
He’s not perfect but there is a chance of redemption.
The big thing I like about Fox is he can score a try but also is very good defensively and knows how to stay on his winger and trust his centre.
He will save a lot of the try’s that Sivo let in.