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“You fell victim to one of the classic blunders – the most famous of which is ‘never get involved in a land war in Asia’ – but only slightly less well-known is this: ‘Never go in against the Eels when death is on the line’!”.
The Wire in the title, The Princess Bride in the body – we are crossing all the streams today.
Yes sir, yes ma’am! The Parramatta Eels are finally on the board in 2025 and typically it comes in the most pulsating, dramatic and damn story-book fashion as Zac Lomax drilled the game-winning field goal in golden point. On a day where Clinton Gutherson made it his mission to sink the Eels even deeper into misery, players all over the park stood up to be counted.
Sixties and Forty20 come to you live to share their thoughts and emotions on a breakthrough win for Jason Ryles.
Pulsating game. From omg what is that to cheering a Parra try. Iongi and Smith are among the many of our young players to enjoy in the present and future. I havnt enjoyed a game this much for a long, long time. So pleased for Ryles who will deliver great things when he eventually gets the team he wants. Next up Raiders in Darwin. Very winnable.
Loved what I saw from Twiddle in the Cup game.
You know how good the game is when you start yelling at the ref or the bunker or alternate from head in the hands to leaping from your seat. What a game.
I’m loving that Jason Ryles has rejuvenated Jnr Paulos career – he has not looked like this in literally years.
Hats off to the big fella. Jnr paulo is playing awesome both sides of the ball + big minutes.
Many good efforts but brown + paulo + Iongi playing like that will give us opportunities to actually win games.
Agreed Muz. Throw in Walker and the return of Moses too.
Greatest win in a long time , bunch of kids who have bought in to what ryles wants , when Moses comes back we will be vastly different than today , most pleasing aspect was they played for the jersey, things will change and a few players moved on and replaced with rules style players and the green shoots will flourish , tough year this year but things are changing for the better #weareparramatta
Ivan, I truly believed they would win this one. They were ready.
Junior 20 runs? That tackle on Klemmer was vintage 2020/21. This is precisely the type of game we’ve been crying out for.
Lane did 40 tackles? I can’t re-call when he made 40 tackles.
Penisini was better on right side and Russell (the hog) was better on left. As soon as JAC got early ball we looked dangerous down that edge. We need to use his speed more.
Brown much better involvement. Still room to improve
I hate Gutherson!!
A few dumb errors and penalties.
That almost Sloan try was a disgrace!! An obvious forward pass. We got across to put him in touch. Obvious forward.
6 agains are just randomly applied
Lommax saved the day.
So glad for the players who finally dug in and so glad for Ryles.
Did you see gutho being a grub string up russel and pushing and shoving each other? 😂 what was that
Yeah Muz, Gutho being a grub as usual. He was antagonising Russell. Showed his true colours.
We won without Gutho!
We Showed fight and scraped to get the win.
What a great win and vs him = even better. Yes, he was being a grub to Sean at half time in particular. Love lost between some men and gutho since he left it seems haha.
Gutho is a grub…?!
Righto. If Gutho is a grub, we need 17 grubs!
You realise he will one day be in the Parramatta Hall of Fame?
Not while he’s wearing a Dragons jersey!
He probably will be in the Hall of Fame and deservedly so. But for now he is the foe. From this point I’ll applaud him when his career is over and I reflect back on his contributions. I have a track record of long recognising his efforts in the Parra jersey so I’m comfortable with that call.
Good call mate
You know Muz, Gutho is super smart, he picked on Russell because he knew not to pick on Junior.
Haha. Fair call don. Gutho actually probably picked on one of the nicest kids in the wide. You would not dare try that on jnr or Tuivaiti. 😂
You know we avoided talking about the officials Pete, because the number of head scratching moments just never stopped. They deserved the win.
I understand the feelings around Gutho, but i do want to call out something i saw. Just as Lomax was lining up the penalty to bring us back level, clearly a tense moment in the match, Gutho was behind the posts, he turned around and saw Junior’s son, who’s a ballboy, he smiled and gave him a fist bump before he put his game face back on. He maybe the enemy now but he’s still a good bloke.
That’s great to hear mate
Smiley you are 100% right. However, we cannot make Gutho comfortable and think he’s getting a home game at CommBank – he’s smart enough to know to how to keep Eels fans on-side and that will make his job easier at putting us to the sword. Don’t be suckered. I did see a few of our fans standing up to applaud his tries. He’s a competitor and don’t think he hasn’t thought about using the crowd.
Gutho was good etc. But that’s history now. We need to be ruthless like he’s being.
Finally we got a glimpse of the Ryles Revolution. Junior was massive. And switch with Lomax and Russell worked well. It was nice to see the Fox with some space to show his pace. Obviously there is still improvement but nice to enjoy a win.
I did see comments re Parra should never have let him go but with Iongi showing more each game Gutho offers more for the Dragons. And note Iongi was very Gutho with pulling off a try saving tackle (on Gutho) then making sure he was in position on the next play to defend a kick in goal.
Great point Shaun. I was there and noticed this too abt Iongi Well said
Yep. Iongi is very early in his first grade career but showing he has what it takes.
That was the highlight of the game for me.
Iongi has been patchy at best in defence, to date but he stood up when it counted and showed us he has earned his spot.
Gutho almost won the game on his own. No doubt he is the in form fullback in the comp (again).
So many other good things.
Huge commitment from the forwards, Brown and Lane working together again, Smith looking every bit the replacement for Reed Mahoney with potential to be even more, Huge metres from Junior and a hint of a stable backline under pressure.
We even look like we can score points.
The bad.
The referee was terrible. Enough said.
Discipline is still not good enough.
3 tries down because of penalties and we don’t come back.
Raiders, Tigers and bye before Moses is back.
We could be knocking on the door of the eight if we continue to improve.
Good points 57. Hope so mate.
Well noted Shaun
I was there today and would’ve missed some things but let me say, look at our spine today compared to them. We showed real guys to come back from 20-8; and then again to get to golden point. A v good and tough win, and to me this win eluding have happened last season.
Iongi was superb along with Lomax and good to see Junior leading from the front as we want and need from him.
Brown was better and Lane too.
Smith, Iongi, and Hawkins all had strong games for me and this is a testament to the coaches and squad.
Was thrilled to see us beat them…And for Lomax to as he copped a lot from the Saints fans.
Iongi’s tackle on Gutho was superb and then he backs up for the kick…that’s superb and he has the making of a good one
Milo, that effort from Iongi was indicative of the effort on effort plays that brought the win. There were mistakes but they put errors behind them and kept fighting.
Milo I was impressed with Hawkins. As Sixties says he is calm which you need in a seven.
The other things that stuck out to me was his work in defence and his kicking game. He really gets in and looks for work.
I think he will prove to be a good purchase over the long term covering for Mitch.
Huge knock from some of the players – especially junior, Riley smith, iongi, lomax, brown hopgood and Walker. Still so many basic things to improve but it’s a start. A win next week and the season can be well and truly said to have started for parra.
Yes far from perfect, but that win will go a long way to building their confidence and faith in the systems. A cracking effort.
It was great to finally get a win but to crash the party, we desperately need a decent centre.
Penisini is basically a lock playing out in the backline and now we are trying to fashion Russell as our centre.
That’s all well and good but Russell like Penisini WILL NOT PASS THE BALL !
A couple of times today, JAC had a rails run down the touchline but Russell wouldn’t pass the ball.
A decent centre and a couple of edge forwards should be top of our recruitment next year.
Jordan Samrani is an edge forward masquerading as a centre.
I really rate Apa Twiddle so I wonder if he can be that centre ?
All in all, it was great to finally see us win a game.
what about Joash Papilii – can he play centre?
Probably too small to defend there. A lot of centres are huge & powerful. Probably not his best position.
Agreed spark – backrow, centres and props. All need big time improvement – surely we can get koula out of manly
That would be nice. Good player.
Walker to 5/8 and DBrown to centres. Problem solved. Brown to me has always been a centre playing 5/8. Walker sets up the play much better than Brown
I actually think Penisini is a winger. I think he can be our answer to Brian To’o. He’s built low to the ground, is our best yardage back out of the back field, and on the wing won’t have to make as many decisions as he does as a centre. Unless his brother can show otherwise, I think Bailey Simonsen is our best centre, which is a concern.
Spark, as I said in the podcast, we have spent so much time breaking downs what’s going wrong or what needs to improve. I’ll leave that for another day and just enjoy a win.
I could see we were competing well but couldn’t sustain any momentum in that first half. We then threatened to self destruct in the 2nd stanza, the fact we managed to claw back into it and win was a reward for the underlying effort. Hopefully this gives us some positive vibe and confidence to improve further. Brown was noticeably better and even got his scramble defence mojo working. Welcome back Junior. Sloan’s foot was poetic justice for a forward pass I couldn’t believe was let go. I
BDon, isn’t it incredible that match officials can find line balls as forward (see our disallowed tries vs Manly) and then we see passes like the Latrell Mitchell farce and yesterdays pass muster. Mind boggling,
Iongi just out played the comps in form fullback.
Paulo just played his best footy since 2022.
Dylan brown just turned the clock back to 2022.
Ryley smith might be the game’s best rookie this season.
Walker just made a huge difference and our attack will be much better with him in the team.
Jason Ryles officially has turned this 50-60 min performing team last year into a full 80 minute performing fit team.
I know we have miles to go yet because we’ve got one of the mod inexperienced teams. But I’m confident with Walker in our team we should be able to score more points now.
Add in Moses into this team if they can play close to this, and we definitely can avoid the wooden spoon.
Dragons (like us before) look to be too reliant on Clint gutherson – if he wasn’t there today we’d have flogged that team, if gutho gets injured and misses a lot of games this season, that side will be screwed.
From the outside looking in now I can see how gutherson was able to hold us hostage over contracts but also played in a way where we could barely win without him – his leadership style is all about him being involved in every try almost, and if he wasn’t there dragons would of been absolutely flogged. Their team pretty much every game relies on gutherson. They offer nothing without him. He is playing good this season, but he is literally carrying that dragons teams attack even more than he did for us at parra.
I don’t know if his body will last the next few years but I reckon Gutho is still the smartest footballer in the game.
The Saints will be fine, they just have to pull the curtain on young Lachlan Illias and get young Glover into the side and they will be a lot better.
How good will Iongi and Ryley Smith be with 50 games under their belt ?
Ryles has a little bit of rebuilding in a couple of positions but the project is on course .
his creativity and smarts has always been there. He played good but iongi just out played him with under 10 nrl games. hopefully the kid iongi can get some confidence out of that. He is only 21, gutho is 31.
Gutho is smart but physically lacking in so many areas – his kick returns are terrible. His acceleration is non existent. He has no real lateral agility to step past a player. Great hands and footy brain + fitness though and that will hold up for another year. Glad we got iongi in this year as there are too many deficiencies in guthos game to move forward with
Spot on Ron, Gutho was always coming out of the blocks strong. Straight line running is great. But cannot change direction quickly. He is the most competitive personality and is thriving without dominant halves he can get the ball and most tries are from him. It will be interesting to see how his body holds up. No bandages yet…
Good points Muz
I think that’s a bit harsh on Gutho. The way you describe him sounds selfish. He’s just a competitor. You saw it with that 2nd try, he sees opportunities and just doesn’t hesitate, but I’ve never thought him to be selfish, he just wants to play, compete & win. If that’s selfish, give me 30 selfish guys.
Brett I think he is good. Just saying the way he leads and plays heavily requires him for it to work.
I could be wrong but we haven’t won a nrl game since something like 2017 without him, unless someone else has the date and I’m incorrect.
Just stating that we could not win without him. His off field contract stuff keeping us hostage before finals and always dragging us vis media was selfish. His playing style isn’t, just stating that it’s all around him, they might end up like we were. Absolutely useless the moment he isn’t playing.
Our team isn’t as centralised now. I think as the team grows we will not be dependent on one single player as much. Better for the long term good of the team. No teams ever win a comp reliant on a single player.
He is playing well. Just glad we didn’t give him $1m for another 3 years at his age.
Muz – Imagine what Walker might provide once he’s got to know his team and the systems.
agree 60’s, I thought Walker did really well considering it’s a new team and new systems. It made everyone’s job easier especially Dylan brown.
Sixties I thought Dylan had a good first up game for the Eels yesterday. However some of the performances he had with the Warriors. I am excited for what he is capable of doing in this team.
Walker also provides some much needed experience in attack, especially without Moses. Looking forward to see how the team develops from here.
Junior’s best game for a long time, he played as a leader and showed the way, excellent performance.
First game D Brown has played this year, more of that please before he goes.
In cup Twidle looked good – he is a player and could fill a number of roles in NRL in the future. Hope he remains in Cup for an extended period and an NRL debut by end of year.
Matto was good in cup, he can still be an asset to our first grade side and I’d hope to see him selected soon, most likely for Kautoga. Kautoga tried hard but I’m not sold on him – still too many handling errors and defensively questionable.
I see potential in Kitonga, his defence needs work, but I’m gonna hold judgement on him until he’s played few games with Mitch. I suspect Mitch will unlock his attacking potential. I still want to see Tuilagi back in the mix somewhere.
Brett, he was near unstoppable at times during scrimmage work in the preseason. Like you, I think both Moses and Walker will make him a real attacking weapon.
Mitch likes a good Edge forward. He talked up Matterson when he first came to the Eels.
If you go back to SOO II 2025 and look at the Liam Martin try that was outstanding execution by both those players.
2024
Gideon has genuine potential. I agree about the errors and he misses the odd tackle but then he’ll make a tackle where it is an absolute try saver that I think can’t be made. Watching him during the preseason, I thought to myself, “how did we find him” – that’s how certain I was that he’d be a starter for round one. Does he need more time to develop in
Cup or is he a first grader now? I lean towards maintaining the faith.
Wow.
Did we beat Penrith?
Great win. Full credit to the team sticking it out and coming back from 20-8 down.
Full credit to Ryles for trying some things.
Great to see Paulo turn up. Great to see Brown turn up – all be it he checked in and out a few times, but the try saver on Sloane was vintage and what we expect. One good performance doesn’t make up for a year plus of nothing.
For Iongi to play so well with Gutho in the house was exceptional and Ryley Smith gets better and better. Barring injury we should never see Lussick in first grade again.
Now let’s be honest. Outside of Gutho, the Dragons offered nothing. Nada. They defend their line bravely but outside of that you would find it hard to find a single positive about that performance from them.
The bad for the Eels, Lane can run a good line, problem is he almost never runs hard enough to break the line. Russell.. For the 400th weekend in a row a pass goes into touch infront of Sean Russell. I don’t know if Moretti is good bad or indifferent in NSW Cup, but I am still yet to see him offer anything at this level and Katonga… I dunno. He doesn’t come across as a smart footy player and I don’t see him as a long term solution.
I’d love to see us work Hopgood onto an edge. I think Guymer and Walker can offer enough at lock and Paulo can ball play too.
Big step up in class next week against the Raiders who are much faster and unlike the Dragons actually have a kicking game.
Hopefully we see further improvement.
I think the panthers are bottom 4 like us
BA, let us enjoy the win. 😁 There’ll be enough time for the realities of what wasn’t good enough, and goodness knows we’ve had plenty of examples to work through so far this year.
Thanks John and Craig. I love the way you kept on track with positivity.
What a joy to win! And play reasonably well.
Gutho played well, and I wish we still had him. But for money, Dylan Walker is now the man!!!
All of them lifted and played well. The error rate still needs more attention … to get it down.
Perhaps, just perhaps, I will be lifting my thoughts about Jason Ryles up a notch or 2. We’ll see what the next few weeks bring. Darwin will be tough.
How Walker played yesterday is how I imagine Ryles wanted Gutherson to play, unfortunately he didn’t want to do that and found a club that was willing to give him exactly what he wants. Walker brought so much energy and intensity to the team and really opened up everyone, he will be massive for us. Once we get Williams and Doorey back they alongside Hopgood and Moretti will benefit from this style. A fast moving, ball-shifting style around the middle will mean the defence can’t load up on the runner and stop the offload.
Those shifts in the second half were good signs. Iongi got a bit excited with that wayward pass but the intention was early ball spread releasing JACs speed.
Walkers inclusion in the middle was pretty seamless given only a few training sessions together. By the end of the year with players in form….
I like the potential we are building
That was just inexperience from Iongi, I like the fact that he saw it and was willing to try it though. What he does give us is someone with the speed to turn the corner and get going downhill, the one thing Gutho couldn’t give us. I like him more and more every week.
True Brett he’s got great vision, good speed and agility. Imagine by end of the year…
With experience he’ll understand the play was to go through the hands rather than the cut-out pass. He’s now 6 games into his first grade career, how many people wanted Gutho shafted in 2016 when he was a new player?
We are seeing signs of the building blocks. And the shots of the reactions from the sideline said it all.
Good points ham. Walker unlocked us and played in that link role exactly like we hoped / needed.
Ham that is such a good point about the thinking around Gutho. Well noted.
Really loved the intensity and urgency Walker brought to the team. I thought he led by example really well
Hey Brelogail, where we differed this week, was we shifted from how a win would be possible to how the win would happen. I was very confident after watching their preps. Glad they delivered on match day.
Finally, a win! What an emotionally seesawing game. Not sure what happened at half time but the first few minutes of the second half were very ordinary and then something clicked again.
I think I’m going to have to be prepared for that type of game the rest of the season – it is what happens when you have new coaches/systems, roster changes and young inexperienced players coming through.
Really enjoyed watching Iongi, missed Saab last week but puts a great tackle on Gutho and follow up effort this week as has been mentioned. Beautiful pass to The Foxx and then that horrible pass to nobody. Should be fun watching him develop.
Hopgood playing dummy half for a bit seemed to work.
Kautogi, some defensive lapses combined with some good defence and made more runs in the first twenty minutes than the whole Manly game.
Ryley Smith has become one of my favourites. The effort and attitude as I’ve mentioned before impresses. He’s like a Jack Russell standing up to a Bull Mastiff and saying “come on, have a go I’ll take ya”.
Dylan Walker did well first game in and will get better as combinations develop.
Does The Foxx wear the wrong deodorant or something? Why is it so hard to give him the ball?
As others have noted Apa Twidle did well in the Reggies. If he plays firsts perhaps we don’t let him do the kick offs though.
Wasn’t going to but I can’t help myself: officiating was terrible. Ref and touchy are both lucky the foot went into touch after that forward pass otherwise they’d be in the seconds next week. Enough said.
I really enjoyed the game yesterday and it wasn’t perfect but it was won by a team who were playing for each other. The speed that is now present in the team was very exciting. I really enjoyed Juniors performance yesterday, it is a long time since I have seen him that good in defence.
I was sitting next to a very dedicated Eels supporter yesterday and he and I were having a conversation about the Eels chances whilst being down at 8-20. My discussion was the Dragons were looking gassed.
He then profoundly said that the Eels will score two tries and Lomax will kick a Golden point field goal for the win.
He wasn’t perfect in his prediction but pretty close.
So happy for the team, coaching staff and supporters.
Looking down the barrel of five straight losses, that win lifted a gorilla off the team’s backs.
One win doesn’t make a season but another loss would’ve ended it.
Watched Moses interview yesterday, he hinted he could return earlier than magic round, I hope he’s good to go against the Tigers.
My highlight yesterday was Junior reshaping Klemmer.
I doubt Ryles would change a winning team but I would be more confident having Simonsson at centre in place of Russell against Canberra. Not that Russell had a bad game, I think Simonsson’s extra pace off the mark will help our edge attack and defence. Iongi, Simonsson and Foxx could prove lethal in attack and we know Canberra Canberra will try get around us inside their 30.
Such a great win. As has been said, yes Saints have got issues, but let’s enjoy the big W!!
Junior Paulo rolled the clock back to 2021. He was outstanding!
Walker looked great already.
Iongi could be anything
Lomax was the Iceman
AND Ryley Smith is an absolute little champion!
How good is Ryley Smith… He’s like Reed minus the speed bump. His tackles stick and service is on point a good hype man and communicator.
I was surprised how good Hopgoods service was. He has a good pass. This gives a bit of flexibility to the rotation. Good sign indeed.
He looks better than Reed did early on. Interesting to compare their stats now. By the eyes Ryley looks better.
Yes you are right. Especially defensively he seems to take on the big guys and seems to stick.
Pete his setting fitness records meeting guthersons on his first NRL pre season …
And gutho is one of the fittest parramatta eels possibly of all time
Ryley was the NSW u/19’s hooker AND Australian rep cricket player
To say the kid is a freak athlete is an understatement
Pete,
As I’ve said, the young fella is quickly becoming my favourite. There is effort, talent and intelligence there.
Sean Lane must go.
Lane had a good game. Tackled well and made a lot of metres. Check the stats.
40 tackles and ran for 90 metres. Good effort from SHAUN Lane.
Simply no idea. Mediocrity is completely acceptable with so many fans.
You think he outperforms opposite numbers? He is no longer first grade standard. I think you’re forgetting we are still likely to get the spoon.
Irrespective – Keep going Jason Ryles. Doing an awesome job with the inherited roster.
If the team had a better player than Sean Lane, he’d be in the team. But those statistics look like a player who did his part and that’s what a team wants – a player and not a hero. As 60’s has noted SL had no pre season so maybe he’s getting better each week too.
I’ll personally trust the coach to put the best 17 out each week and support whoever is in the jersey!
Go Parra!
The people who constantly go on about Kautoga and lane – can you remember how atrocious our defence was prior to their inclusions?
We haven’t been absolutely torn to bits since they came in basically.
Even may yesterday who had a poor game looked like scoring against the comps best team in my view the Storm.
We held our own against the 1st place bulldogs, we didn’t let manly absolutely flog us – they scored 26 on us and 24 on storm yesterday. We held on with the bulldogs, with Walker in the team we possibly would have beat them.
We have actually improved every week basically 3 weeks in a row since lane & Kautoga plugged the edge forward positions.
Kautoga is only 22 and has very little NRL experience. The thing eels fans must understand is lane has a limited preseason with injuries. He looked a lot better last game.
I’m also liking the fact lane isn’t being overly used or made to do huge runs where he coughs the ball up. They are slowly building his confidence up how they are currently using him.
The only player I can see which offers defence to a similar level is Matto who I’m not sure has been training at edge during off season. Matto is gaining match fitness in cup after injury. He looked effective in the last NSW cup game – don’t be suprised if Matto is in the 17 or extended squad on Tuesday.
We have gone from being absolutely flogged and looking literally clueless, to holding our own in each game basically very fast.
We now have Walker who’s added a massive boost to our attack and will make Dylan brown a lot more effective.
I don’t think dropping lane, Kautoga or bagging them constantly is the answer to parras issues.
Even our Snr players are starting to play well under Jason Ryles now. They look interested. We have not seen this team quit or gas at 60 mins like we saw regularly happen under the old regime.
I’m confident that positive things will happen. Who would have thought Jnr paulo could play back into form again? Jason has got Jnr playing back like he did in like 2021.
There’s very positive things going on here. Lane probably looked the best he’s looked in years too on an edge. Matt Doorey and Sam Tuivaiti have looked vastly improved as well this season.
I obviously think we need to go to market for back rowers for 26’ but I think the coaches are doing a good job. The changes they’ve made have continually made the team better basically each week. And our attack should improve as Walker builds combos & familiarity with our systems.
Even manly* yesterday who had a poor game looked like scoring every time they attacked Melbourne at times. And they played poorly. I think we did well vs them. Considering we had zero attack at that point without Walker. Even Melbourne gave away plenty of line breaks to them.