It was back to business at Kellyville after the week long camp at Lennox Head. We are now counting the number of sleeps until the first of the official trial games, and the season proper is barely a month away, so that business I referred to is getting serious.
The Wednesday session was part of a huge day for the Eels, with James Hardie giving away 1000 footy boots to kids, as well as the Motiv8sports event at the Centre of Excellence. What a way for the youngsters to put the exclamation mark on their school holidays.
From a preseason perspective we also learned that the Tour De Parra shirt winners from Lennox Head were as follows:
Matt Doorey – Yellow
Ryda Talagi – White
Apa Twidle – Green
Charlie Guymer – Spots
The selections by the coaches align with the observations from our Lennox Head correspondent, Lenno Eel, who reported that young stars were impressing during the camp. Ryda and Apa have taken great strides this summer, whilst Charlie constantly reminds the coaches of how he is maturing as a player.
By my reckoning, this was Matt Doorey’s third yellow shirt of the preseason. The powerful forward is pushing strongly for selection in what shapes as a major battle for the pack and interchange.
The Thursday session was all about the footy, and there was little doubt about the coaches’ plans when the players emerged from the sheds in home (NRL) and away (NSW Cup) jerseys.
Across the morning, the players moved through opposed work practising specific plays, to opposed featuring kick transitions, and finally red zone opposed with extended attack and defence.
A flying Foxx? (Image courtesy Eels media)
The contact levelled up throughout the session, starting from grab type defence before culminating in almost NRL level tackling.
It should be noted that a number of NRL players were rested from this session. There has been an assortment of injury rumours floating around over summer, the most recent being Bailey Simonsson this week.
In essence, every preseason will have numerous players sitting out sessions or spending time in rehab groups. Most of the time it’s about loading or taking care of some sort of minor niggle – the type that someone might play through during the season, but there’s no need to push them during the preseason. The goal is to have everyone ready to go for round one.
Whilst I don’t like to get involved with discussing injuries, I’m not aware of any major concerns for round one.
NRL defend their line
My highlights of the morning were:
* Lincoln Fletcher and Joash Papalii in the halves for NRL
* Sean Russell at centre cutting through the defence on a nice line to score
* Charlie Guymer’s impressive ball play
* Gideon Kautoga constantly splitting the defence
* Iongi chiming in to the backline to create space for Will Penisini and Josh Addo-Carr
* Sam Tuivaiti surging into open spaces through the ruck
* Dylan Walker putting Junior Paulo through a hole via his deceptive ball play
* A 40/20 touch finder from Fletcher
* Fletcher stepping to beat the defence before finding Doorey in support for a try
* A massive Will Latu hit on Matt Doorey
* Saxon Pryke bending the line with a big charge through the middle
* J’maine Hopgood breaking tackles in a gallop to the posts
* Fletcher and Papalii combining to send Kautoga through a hole. The timing of the pass from Joash was superb and Gideon ran a sublime line to get through what was a narrow hole.
* Tallyn Da Silva sprinting out of dummy half before linking with Isaiah Iongi for the try.
* Jake Tago scoring off a grubber kick into the in-goal
* Gideon Kautoga offload in contact to Sean Russell before Jordan Samrani took the final pass to score
* Will Penisini bringing the muscle to his defensive work
Grandstand ceremony done – image courtesy Eels media
On another note, the official ceremony to name the Kellyville Grandstand was conducted whilst the squad trained. Named in honour of a man who has made a lifetime contribution to the Parramatta Junior Rugby League, Jack Iori, those in attendance included Eels legends Steve Edge, Peter Wynn, Steve Ella, John Muggleton and Denis Fitzgerald.
Definitely Parra Proud.
There’ll be no training session on Friday, but the Eels have a busy day ahead with the fan day and season launch at CommBank Stadium.
Eels forever!
Sixties
Question – does anyone know? How old is Ryda Taligai?
He is turning 19 this year
Lads has fletcher overtaken Lorenzo? I see him getting plenty of wraps and is obviously still doing pre season?
I may have missed Lorenzo training or why he’s not??
Keep up the good work!
Yep. Fletcher is in front of Lorenzo.
Sgball gonna be scary this year, not sure who the 9 is but Fletcher, bamblett and risati will be a good watch and koina and talagi leading the pack will be scary, still missing a bunch of other people there, hopefully they go well this year.
Jirah-Trey Stewart will play 9. Was HM 9 last year.
Any update on W Penisini contract after he said he is staying till 2028?
Doorey, Tuivaiti, Morreti, Guymer, Kautoga
All gun young forwards that we are truly blessed to have at our club, very rarely do you have so many good forwards who are really young and showing good talent in first grade
I think they will all prove to be key players for the eels and all of them possibly have 5 years or more of first grade up their sleeves
Hope we can keep them all 🤞
Excited to see our young eels have a great season in 26’ 💪
Shout out to Joash, Iongi, Ryley smith, Da Silva too
We have possibly the best “young” spine combinations building in the entire NRL
Try to think of a better young list of NRL spine members who’s better balanced than that
Truly elite young forwards and spine players developing nicely at parramatta
I’ll stand by my initial judgement that eels would just miss top 8 in 25’ (or finish between 8-12th) .. I was correct
My prediction is the same vision I had before 25’ season, in 2026 we likely finish in the top 6, then reach top 4 status in finals by 2027
Before people reach for comments to say “top 4 in 26” keep in mind, it’s better to underestimate than to overestimate
What I like about what Ryles is building in regards to our roster is it’s a very long term approach, LOTS of young players
So we won’t just have a lucky year like 22’ GF and then it all goes to shit after players get old or leave us the next season
We have genuine depth and age on our side on this roster, this roster & culture you can see building is going to build us into a consistency based team
Try to point out any players, or even games for that matter, where they haven’t put 100% in for Ryles in 2025
The standards been set: the only guys I can think of who didnt turn up at 100% were sent packing or got stuck in NSW cup
The old culture of quitting when times get tough, or only “turning up” occasionally has been banished – for these reasons I’m personally confident the eels will finish top 6 in 2026 📈
I think we have a largely “good problem” for 2026 with a lot of forwards that we could call up to first grade and slot right in. But there’s a concern lingering in the back of my mind that we can’t keep them all in the medium term and may never actually get the consistent best of them. All the while not having any dominant rep level forwards. So I wonder if we have a balance issue. – in some respects it’d be nice for the first grade team to just pick itself and have a bigger gap down to the Cup players. Just food for thought – and I hope I’m wrong.
On the flipside, other than Kelly/Russell/Simonsson, the backs don’t really have this issue.
Is there a chance Doorey starts? He does seem to have had a bit of a whale of a preseason.