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What range do the boys see the Eels finishing this year? How well does their recruitment stack up against the competition? The Tip Sheet tackles these questions and more as Sixties and Forty20 are joined by their good friend Ham on a week where the Parramatta Eels are at camp in Lennox Head.
The NRL and NRLW squads have been bolstered by re-signings. Rueben and Kennedy Cherrington have both recommitted to the Eels while Luca Moretti has also extended his stay with the club. Big changes are coming to the Junior Representatives as the competitions move to a Top 8 finals system. Sixties also breaks down the results from their final trials held against the Penrith Panthers.
Vegas is just around the corner and the itinerary is loaded to the brim, what stands out for the boys in year two of the NRL’s bold venture into the States? Beyond that there is truly a bizarre slate of NRL news this week from Anthony Seibold having a gunshot accidentally discharged into his garage by a neighbour to the Bulldogs suddenly parting ways with their NRLW coach.
Cannot believe Ocean and Carter didn’t make the Ball team.
It surprises me too, but perhaps that’s indicative of the strength of the squad?
Could Ocean be part of Jersey flag team instead?
Don’t think so. He would only be in first year of Ball.
Vegas is a very divisive subject among NRL followers. It has been talked up by Valandys as a vehicle to get Americans betting on the NRL. Certainly that would be true but it is also about getting media attention locally in Australia. It was announced this week that they have sold 35,000 seats at the game already. Would I go to Vegas to watch the Eels. I would if the planets aligned.
Am I correct in saying that Kennedy Cherington was the first NRLW Eel to give an interview on TCT?
The Eels aspiration would always be to make the eight. As I have said before with a little luck we’ll do better than that. I love Ham’s optimism of top 4.
Talking of Tigers recruitment, Jerome Luai is a great get for them. He played a number of games for Panthers at 7 in his early days. But has been forced to play behind Cleary since. He will have a good year for the Tigers.
John, Kennedy was the first and only NRLW player. We had Gail Broughton lined up but then she left for the Broncos.
I am of the belief that finals footy must always be the goal.
As I said in the pod, I thought Luai matured as a player in 2024.
The intro music should include Sterlos commentary of Paul Cariage. “That’s the dumbest 5 minutes football you will ever see”. Or the sigh when Pollamounter launches that field goal. A bit of humour never goes astray and we need to own our past.
Perhaps you could do an intro that cycles through snippets of commentary in chronological order.
Good nominations.
Nice podcast. Really enjoyed the thoughts around the big focus around defence at training and how the team are moving with the times at having a more agility especially in the middle.
Also wouldn’t say no to Molo. Can get a team on the front foot with his runs.
I suspect there’s something going on with Molo that he needs to sort out.
Good start to the day, tks for that. How do you blokes fit life in? I’ve got this mental image of you guys driving around all day to football events. How does someone like Ham accrue such RL detail? I note that he’s not the only TCT follower with deeply detailed knowledge. These days I do most of my limited fact finding from the lounge and relying on memory from over 60 years of supporting RL and Parra, but I think you’ve also got to get out into the world to be like a library of information.
Ham is an encyclopaedia when it comes to pathways. He always comes through with a compilation of all grades of Parra draws – that way we can work out how many games can be juggled each weekend.
Great listen! I like what sixties suggested with a possible 6-12 finish as being realistic. We would need absolutely no injuries to our core key players (Moses, brown, Lomax, Fox, hopgood, hands, joffa, now even Iongi). We need literally everything to go our way or as some could suggest to have “luck” really go our way this season. If all lucks goes our way? Then obviously top 4 is 100% possible!
I still think people maybe even need to cut Jason some slack in advance. He still has several players who even last year, or the year before, you could say it was evident their best years were probably past them. And Some of them still take up a significant chunk of our roster. The NRL is extremely competitive, you can’t have 1.5 – 2 million of your roster allocated in players who are no longer your starting players. Thats just the reality of the game. I think about 1 million is just in paulo alone, yes he is good.. but that’s giant $. That’s almost Mitchel Moses money. And Sitting potentially on the bench? Or Lane who’s on rumoured 600 or more, and may not be in the regular starting 17. Matto can be solid but has become a bench forward. I think he is also on around 600 – 700 like Sean Lane (apparently). You need your 700k – $1m forwards all being starters and ideally at that money almost being origin level, or not far off it. I do think Matto will be good this year though. I was impressed with him last season after Ryles said he could leave, Matto suddenly played even better. He is still solid.
Ciro at bulldogs copped lots of flak at bulldogs, but as soon as he was able to sign the exact type of players he wanted, and remove the unnecessary ones, things did a complete 180. Now obviously we have better starting roster than he was first dealt. But we can’t overlook the fact several of our high paid players take up significant chunks of our salary cap, and some could argue their best years were 2-3 seasons ago, and they are still on big money.
Whilst I 100% believe in our starting roster and coaches. I still think we need to consider that potentially the following season we could have that extra 1-1.5 million of cap space reinvested into starting players which are either in their prime or coming into it. You could sign 2 current origin level backs or 1 origin level forward and 1 more rep level outside back for that coin, which could totally transform our team’s performance.
You can’t have 7 figures locked up in players potentially coming to the end of their careers as starters. I suspect we will see a giant leap forward once our roster and salary cap & roster is completely balanced again. Jason has shown us evidence so far that he is not afraid to make the hard decisions, even when it’s unpopular. I predict we will see another huge roster shake up by next season. This is man who is seemingly relentless, and Jason has been taught by the two most ruthless clubs in the whole comp. The roosters & Storm
I was looking at Storm and panthers rosters. They typically let go of their (even great players) just before their sticks truly start to decline. They absolutely know how to time it well!
My assumption is Jason may start to do this at our club. He would have learned all the tricks & tips from his mentor Craig. Jason is apparently just as competitive as Bellamy is, just in a more quiet way. Former players have mentioned Ryles is very competitive and very hard working. I think he will do good at parra!
I think that’s exactly what we will see Muz.
Thanks for another entertaining listen.
As for the trials, if the Tigers do intend to the treat the trial against Parra as “revenge” or to “make a statement” it is a sign of how far the club has fallen. Apart from a a key player sustaining severe injury, the trials have no bearing on the season (remember when Parra flogged the Panthers in a trial a few seasons ago?). And yes, I am still scared from 2018. I would expect Ryles will use them to test combinations etc without giving away too much.
I expect the Eels to be top eight with a good crack at top four. They will be quite a different team from the BA and as Ryles has talked about it being a reset for the players it will be the same for us supporters. As for the recruitment of the other teams, I’m not that fussed. Though I will comment (at the risk of being wrong which is very likely) that the Bennett return to Souths will not be overall a happy reunion.
Go Parra!
Shaun I also think south’s may struggle. It’s definitely not the same strength roster it was a few years ago, especially some of their main players are older, have had injuries, etc.
Muz, it’s bizarre how the arrival of Bennett has the “experts” rushing to place them in the finals. Let’s not forget that they finished below Parra last year.
Yeah exactly. South’s will need to have a miracle year to finish in the 8. They need probably more luck than parramatta in the injury prevention department. They only need to lose Cam Murray or Latrell and the side looks close to a cup team than a finals team in terms of performance.
I’m loathe to underestimate Bennett but I just don’t see Souths being contenders. His return is almost an admission of failure by the club and not addressing other issues.
Shaun I think Bennet will get them playing much better. It’s just hard to see them being in the finals I think
Agreed Shaun.
Cheers Shaun, it’s been interesting to learn more over the years about how coaches see trials. The fact that they usually only play round one starters in just the second trial proves that they don’t need two trials, and secondly they have minimal interest in the results.
An interesting observation. Maybe we supporters can learn from this when the trials are upon us.