It’s Friday night, it’s 6 o’clock, cold, wet and it’s 17th versus 14th. Get excited people, it’s the Eels and the Knights! The resistable force against the moveable object, the worst defence in the league against its worst attack. Who will prevail in this race to the bottom?

I’d say the Knights will be smarting after giving up a 20 point lead, at home, to the other worst team in the competition in the Titans, but it feels like a capitulation of that magnitude isn’t something you bounce back from. Making matters worse for them, it was their third miserable home loss in a row. Hopefully even the novocastrian faithful know a losing cause when they see it and don’t get out in numbers to see if they can make it four.

On the other hand, if you were ever going to get your season back on track, the Eels are the team to do it against. Meek in defence, absent of any attacking polish and severely lacking in forward pack firepower, there really is no excuse for Newcastle here. For Parramatta, the time to start winning to salvage this season was two weeks ago, sadly now it is about racking up enough upsets to be out of the spoon conversation in the closing rounds. Newcastle here represents their best chance for the next month to spring one of those upsets, so they better show up with game faces on. Let’s dig in!

Game Info

Date: Friday, May 16, 2025
Venue: McDonald Jones Stadium, Newcastle
Kick-off: 6:00PM AEST
Referee: Todd Smith
Bunker: Kasey Badger
Weather: Cool, potentially wet
Broadcast: Fox League, Kayo

Sixties Speculates (Odds quoted are NSW TAB)

Though the Knights are slight favourites, this is close to an even money bet in the head to head markets, which is no surprise given the respective form of both teams.

Given the weather, I’m reluctant to tip anything involving the points scored. I’m also unwilling to punt on Parra in an even money contest. There’s just no value.

Looking elsewhere, I am tempted to opt for the any time try scorer market. I reckon one of our centres might score this week. So in honour of Sean Russell playing his 50th game, I’ll take him to score a try at $3.50.

But as always, keep it fun.

Happy, responsible punting everyone.

Sixties

Teams

Parramatta Eels

1. Isaiah Iongi 2. Zac Lomax 3. Will Penisini 4. Sean Russell 5. Josh Addo-Carr 6. Dylan Brown 7. Mitchell Moses 8. Jack Williams 9. Ryley Smith 10. Junior Paulo 11. Matt Doorey 12. Gideon Kautoga 13. J’maine Hopgood. 14. Dylan Walker 15. Luca Moretti 16. Jordan Samrani 17. Toni Mataele 18. Joash Papalii 19. Ryan Matterson.

The Eels backline is cursed to never play at full strength, with Bailey Simonsson out for an extended period with what has become the Eels go to ailment: a foot injury. Zac Lomax has recovered from his own foot issues to combine with Mitchell Moses for the first time this year, only eleven rounds into the competition. Maybe the bombs rain down tries.

In the pack Matt Doorey is provisionally replacing Charlie Guymer in the back row, though a late reshuffle could bring Ryan Matterson into the team for his second game of the year. No word on who would drop out in that case, but it would be especially cruel for it to be Toni Mataele, who has taken the long road to his first grade debut after being the next big thing for a few years.

Newcastle Knights

1. Kalyn Ponga 2. James Schiller 3. Dane Gagai 4. Bradman Best 5. Fletcher Hunt 6. Fletcher Sharpe 19 Tyson Gamble 8. Jacob Saifiti 9. Phoenix Crossland 10. Tyson Frizell 11. Dylan Lucas 12. Kai Pearce-Paul 13. Adam Elliott. 14. Jayden Brailey 15. Mat Croker 16. Thomas Cant 17. Brodie Jones.

Former Eels stadium turnstile Greg Marzhew is out injured, replaced by Fletcher Hunt, while Tyson Gamble makes his second appearance of the year in the halves, shuffled on the decks for Jack Cogger. In the pack, Leo Thompson is a big loss for the Knights, though their starting pack still looks fairly strong.

In what is a sure sign he did a good job last week, referee Wyatt Raymond has swapped the whistle for a flag this week, running the touchlines in Newcastle. Maybe from the sideline he can actually see a forward pass.

Popguns

Welcome back Zac!

While the Knights have improved in the last two weeks, there was a long stretch this year where they hadn’t scored a try with the game in a competitive state for several weeks. This was driven by a high error rate and thus low completions, which denied decent attacking position to the few weapons they had. Still, a team with Kalyn Ponga and Bradman Best in it should be able to cross for a couple of tries a match on sheer physical talent, so it is very impressive the Knights couldn’t even get that done.

Unfortunately for the Eels, they are near worst in the NRL at forcing errors from their opponents. They concede the most metres to their opposition of any side, though a lot of that comes from all the runaway tries they concede. While Newcastle are the worst in the NRL at conceding offloads, Parramatta left the offload at Brad Arthur’s house after the breakup, and just like your Color and the Shape CD and Chicago Bulls jersey, you’ll never see it again. For the first time in a decade the side sits mid pack in terms of offloads thrown.

There will be some hope from the Knights that replacing Cogger with Gamble will ignite the attack, though history suggests the best they can expect is to improve from a dead pilot light to a small spark from a soggy pack of matches. Phoenix Crossland’s permanent move to the hooker role has completely blunted his attacking effectiveness, while Ponga hasn’t crossed the stripe this year and in the most scientific measure we have, has lost over $250,000 for his Supercoach owners. Not bitter here, no way.

It all goes to say that the Knights don’t have much with the ball in hand. Strong defence has kept them in their wins, but even that seems to be disappearing in recent weeks, Magic Round excluded. One interesting number is that the Knights opponents make the most passes of any side in the NRL, indicating the best way through the Knights is around them. Parramatta tried plenty of that with mixed success against the Dolphins, and while some of that Newcastle number can be attributed to second phase play after conceding offloads, perhaps the ill-advised horizontal gameplan of last week was simply a week too early in its execution.

Fire Up

That offload last week bought you some goodwill.

While I’m tempted to serve up a few more bakes after the pleasant result of last week’s grill of Kitione Kautoga, the sad truth is that the rest of the Eels pack has largely been unimpressively mediocre rather than bake-worthy bad. It’s more a lack of elite talent in the middle that holds us back rather than individual let downs. Junior Paulo could wind back the clock and deliver a special, but even if players like Williams, Doorey and Hopgood play their best games in Blue and Gold colours, are they difference makers?

The hope is that they can compete with the opposition most weeks, and create a platform for the stars in the backline to shine. Moses, Addo-Carr and Lomax together should be worth plenty of points, as long as a better strategy than “pass across the line to Addo-Carr then let him run” is implemented. The side will improve their execution on attacking opportunities with confidence and combinations, and with five raw rookies in the side in Iongi, Samrani, Smith, Mataele and Kautoga, it is expected you’ll have some rough patches.

In the meantime, it might be tough to watch. Iongi bombing the open line last week was brutal, as was Kautoga not shifting to Addo-Carr the one time he had space to use. Dylan Brown and Addo-Carr zigging when the other wanted them to zag the whole way down the field on the last roll of the dice (then dropping the ball) showed a side that is putting too much pressure on themselves to ice the few chances they get. We’ll get more of that, no doubt, but hopefully there are enough chances being created, and the defence can improve to mediocre by the end of the year, that the wins will come.

The Game

Congratulations on the debut, Toni Mataele!

Bless all the Eels fans that knock off early and make the trip up the M1 for this game, you are braver than I am. At least parking at the stadium might not be as bad this week as surely Knights fans are sick of turning up to watch their team be trounced each week. The crowd at CommBank last Thursday certainly suggests Eels fans are done with it.

I slightly favour the resistable force over the moveable object in this one. The Eels defence is just so bad, so prone to lapses in both mid field and at the line. Kai Pearce-Paul feels a certainty to cross, given every strike back rower we’ve played in recent weeks from Lemuelu to Nikora to Young has managed to score through our paper thin edge. There is a hope that the Knights just drop their way to another loss, but Parramatta is hardly the kind of hard hitting defence that forces errors. Last week in the cold and damp the Dolphins were basically perfect in completions.

Newcastle defend well enough that Parramatta will need to work for opportunities, so execution needs to be better. The middle needs to provide a platform; Lomax returning should help ease the yardage burden out of our own half, but we need him for attack as well and the poor guy is coming back from injury and probably can’t be expected to crack out his usual workload straight away. If there was a time for Moretti and Doorey (if he plays) to get more minutes and show their value, this is it.

I’m still depressed from the last two weeks, and given how gloomy it is this morning it only feels fitting I tip the Knights. This is our best chance of a win for the next month (the Panthers, Bulldogs and Sea Eagles are all coming up, only Manly at home), and given we’re already coming last if we don’t win here the season could be over by the time Origin is finished. That’s a lot of pressure on a side that has forgotten how to win a close game of footy.

I’ll be hoping I’m wrong the whole way. Go you Eels!

Prediction: Knights 22 d Eels 16

Man of the Match: Tyson Gamble

Gol

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