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Evidently, the Parramatta Eels learned absolutely nothing from their humiliating Round 1 loss last year as they did just about everything possible to make their lives a nightmare last night against the Melbourne Storm. Sixties and Forty20 have to wearily tread on familiar opening night ground as they review a bitterly disappointing 52-4 loss in a game where the Eels constantly looked for shortcuts and got exactly what they deserved on account of it.
There is no other way about it – the Eels embarrassed themselves. So where to from here? The Tip Sheet looks at what the humbling reality check means for Parra and how much should fans react – or over react – to the brutal loss.
Given the compressed nature of this week, the Junior Representatives – in the form of the Lisa Fiaola and Tarsha Gale Cups – find themselves somewhat unfortunately hitched to the reaction pod today. The boys look at how the two teams stack up against the North Sydney Bears on Saturday as they look to follow up strong victories against the Steelers.
What did I say ??? What did I say ??
Had a conversation with a mate of mine just before the game. Good mate but one of these blokes that just lives for the punt, and anything else running around. Will literally bet on two cockroaches running up a wall and he’s given me some solid tips over the years from that pristine sport we call horse racing.
He knows everyone and knows where the bodies are buried so to speak.
You know horse racing .. that uncorrupted sport that PVL runs….
Ok I digress but although I knew that there was going to be a blowback I was fairly bullish about our chances
“No mate. The fix is in ”
My heart sank.
I expected him to be able to clean up with margins etc but he wanted nothing to do with the Eels chances.
“Mate they are getting slaughtered- everyone knows what’s coming . It’s going to be brutal”
Ok we can analyse the egregious 6 agains and the like but let’s talk one play and analyse it.
Brian Kelly passes the ball backwards and it’s called forward by Todd Smith.
Now if you put that vision in a room of 1000 people and ask them what direction that ball travelled, 1000 people would say backwards.
Todd Smith may have been obstructed in his view so that’s ok but it was so obvious that Mitch Moses called for the Captains Challange straight away.
Now there may have been some suggestions that Kelly passed the ball into the Melbourne defenders arm , hence Moses clarification from Smith before the challenge that it was for the direction of the pass and not the knock on.
Easy.
The bunker Chris Butler then said the ball travelled forward.
Mitch then knew they were screwed.
Now considering PVL is so bullish about the US market, let’s consider this.
I’m this decision occured in US sport, it would immediately trigger the appropriate investigation of the sports anti corruption wing.
It was that blatant, but here Butler will rock up to the review with a smirk and say ..” Hey I got that wrong” and PVL will trot out that old ” they are only human” routine.
The decision was so blatantly wrong, one may say that the audacity to be able to make that decision just shows the absolute impunity that these people work in.
Ok well who is to blame.?
Contrary to everyone else I’m putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of Jason Ryles and his team.
Ryles has been around for a long time and would have heard what was coming.
The team was full of ego and thought that winning the pre season meant that they were world champions.
Ryles should have sat them down and said ” listen fellas, we are going to get slaughtered by the officials. No risky passes, just run your sets and keep it tight. Don’t interfer in the ruck”
The team was ill prepared for what happened and it showed.
It’s not going to stop. I can imagine PVL would be sitting there, laughing like shit about last night.
Revenge is always sweet.
We just have to wake up and smell the roses here and realise that we have to be 30% better than the other team in all aspects of play if we are going to be able to compete.
It’s not a level playing field.
Yeah I agree. I appreciate the boys being measured in the stream and focusing on what the team could control.
But the Club needs to step up again against the NRL and demand investigation into anti tampering / corruption with match officials. Because there is no way that many critical “mistakes” were made.
Im so furious with the NRL As a long time supporter it’s not like I can’t handle things not going our way but to see that deliberate sabotage of our game is almost it for me with this sport.
I’m sorry.
You may be right (you’re not), but you may be right. Maybe there was some sort of retaliation by PVL (why Butler and Smith would want to ruin their careers so PVL can sit in a dark room and rub hus hands together… that requires pizzagate level conspiracy thinking), but lets just humour you and say that is what happened and will continue to happen.
The Parra Management have themselves to blame.
1. Don’t release Lomax from his NRl contract in the first place.
2. If your case is iron clad and you have gone to court purely on principle – which is what we have been told – Then don’t settle.
The Eels Mgmt had a chance to show if there was corruption, they opted not to and will now sit back and end up getting 50 cents in the dollar when they agree to let Lomax play in exchange for a 35 year old journeyman with 8 months left on his contract.
Its not a conspiracy theory buddy, the evidence and there a mountain of it in the playback and the cynical grade 2 charge against Hopgood.
We all saw PVLs PR lackey Brent Read on Fox this week threatening Parra with consequences for standing up for themselves.
That game was not normal.. you cant seriously think that that was typical of NRL refereeing?
This should ruin Butler and Smiths refereeing careers, at the very least it’s extreme incompetence that compromised the game.
Also, how would any corruption about this game have been revealed in a Lomax court case?
And the Lomax situation is not Parras fault it is 100% Lomax’s and the Storms fault.
Carlos/Spark,
I am sure there is corruption in the form of favours and relationships. I don’t doubt it for a second. Would i trust PVL? Not in a million years. I loath a great many things about him. I think the Eels were on the cusp of exposing it/him on some level with the communication between the Storm mgmt and PVL. That is why an agreement was made out of court – so that PVL and Abdo wouldn’t have to sit in a witness stand with evidence presented. But if you are going to go after the integrity of someone powerful, you better be willing to see it through. (“Did you order the code red?”). Parra Mgmt didn’t. They caved on their “principles” and I am sure there will be retribution. PVL is nothing if not vindictive.
But that retribution will come in the form of things PVL has more direct control over. Scheduling. Funding, off field incidents etc.. Things that require fewer bodies to execute and hurt us less obviously, but just as much.
It won’t be through officiating. For PVL to tell officials, to cheat the Eels out of a game, or many games. it will need co conspirators, Annesley, Maxwell and all the referee’s. And it will have to be done under the big bright lights of games broadcast to millions. Good luck with that.
Any incompetence, by officials is just that, incompetence. Annessley has made a career of being incompetnent in everything he does. He couldn’t help pull off a rort if he tried.
I am sure i can find examples of fans (including myself and you guys) ripping Chris Buttler or Todd Smith last year and the year before and the year before. Long before any of the off season’s events. Do i think some ref’s have unintentional bias? I know they do. Some times it manifests on the field, it would seem, (i.e Grant Atkins), other times it doesn’t. I think the boys point out that Todd Smith has been praised in the past. I have praised him in the past, but he is becoming a system referee and it isn’t natural to them and they make mistakes/inconcistent decisions. But the ref’s for all their short comings around consistency etc, they’re not corrupt. How could you spend your life, working your way up through the grades, week in week out getting abused by players and spectators, from juniors right through to grade if you don’t love the game? And if you love the game, enough to want to officiate and be the punching bag for the losing fans every single week – even when they get belted by 48 points – how and why would you want to get to that point of your career, and then mess with the integrity of the game you love?
Maybe i am being to ignorant to the power and ease of corruption (lord knows they are in the US). But PVL, as brash as he is, doesn’t have the sort of power to commit corrupt actions in broad daylight that a certain US President does. All he can do is disadvantage us in ways off the field, that may impact us on the field – And that is bad. But it won’t be through referee’s.
You’re making a lot of sense B.A but I am still too angry for reasonable positions lol.
The level of incompetence we saw in that game was so extreme it calls into question the integrity of the officiating.
Mate I’m not saying there is corruption, Im just repeating what was told to me.
As for Chris Butler and his decision, my point is .. where are the questions ?
The decision was so blatant and egregious that it shouldn’t be just laughed off as puzzling.
The NRL doesn’t have a dedicated anti corruption wing like they do in the US.
We have a phone in service where people can phone in and dob suspects in.
The very last thing the NRL want is any stain of corruption.
It’s getting to the stage where an official can make a decision so blatantly wrong without recourse other than a giggly review with his mates.
In a professional game worth potentially billions there has to be more than this !
You do understand how gambling works don’t you ? In Indian cricket they bet on everything.
How many no balls bowled, how many wides in an over .. everything.
Are you telling me that there isn’t a market for – when Parramatta lose their captains challenge ???
The whole purpose of PVLs crusade into Vegas and further is for a share of on.line gambling money. That’s it.
The POTENTIAL to corrupt and official is immense.
If I were going after an NRL official the very first place I would go is for the bunker official.
BECAUSE THERE IS NO CONSEQUENCES for that official.
As I’ve said before , despite all the anti corruption officials in the US, with their ability to tap phones etc they still uncover corrupt referees !.
They are corrupted despite knowing that they have a high likelihood of being caught !
But maybe our officials are incorruptible ? Maybe the very thought is so inconceivable to us here in the colonies that it belongs in the tabloids.
Last night we almost lost third person into the bin. Todd Smith told Butler that Junior hit warbrick high and gave him a bloody nose. Before Butler could respond, Warbrick screamed no.. it was just a head clash !
Look the game has always been shady. Just see what Jack Gibson said about about Darcy Lawler !!!
But as we move into the professional era we just have to tighten up this part of our game!
As for Chris Butler’s decision last night, if that’s the hill he wants to die on then can I suggest that he is so incompetent that he requires immediate removal.
I’ll have a listen to the boys this afternoon.
My take: We can complain about the ref’s and we can say “well its just Rnd 1”, but that doesn’t mean what you just saw doesn’t matter.
Yes some 6 agains were tough, but plenty were legit (though I hate the 6 again rule). But this was organisational failure.
Brian Kelly can’t tackle. Was our Mgmt not aware of that when they signed him?
JDB is the oldest forward in the comp. He was gassed early – gave away back to back six agains before the first try – the one where Kelly, the centre, left not1, not 2 but 3 attackers outside him as he crashed in on a decoy covered by 2 defenders.
Ryley Smith carried some very ordinary trial form into this game. His service continued to be poor. Only DeSilva’s was worse.
Jack Williams just stood out there and did nothing.
Pezet was poor
Ball conlrol was awful.
No sustained pressure was created.
Time after time the Storm just walked up the middle of the park
Line speed was non existent from about the 20 minute mark
And of course the Grant try, untouched from 30m out… You would have hoped that would have been sufficiently embarrassing to light a fire… it didn’t.
Our entire forward pack plus reserves accounted for 6 tackle breaks 6! Harry Grant had 7 in 60 minutes.
Poor recruitment, poor selections, poor preparedness, poor attention to detail. Poor discipline, poor performance. Complete organisational failure.
Iongi and Walker were solid. Russell tried with limited chances.
Melbourne were very good and they were allowed to be very good.
I agree with you on all these points !
As I said , I thought they were full of ego and thought that they could just roll in there and do the business because they just won the World Cup !
In fact, Russell’s try after going down to 12 men was probably the worst thing that could have happened to us because it showed them that high risk tap on footy is the way to go.
I actually feel bad for Sixties — like the rest of us, he got convinced we had a real shot at winning and ended up overestimating our roster.
Ryley Smith was terrible, he was there to control the middle and especially Harry Grant, absolute fail, he was unseen apart from mistakes.
Pezet is a typical Storm system player, offered nothing, didn’t run, didn’t tackle well and when given the ball didn’t pass.
Kelly and Pezet on an edge were targeted and they were found out, and didn’t the Storm verbal Pezet and he folded.
Iongi, Russell , Kautoga and possibly Hopgood were ok, the rest really need a massive mirror to look at their form
Talatina., Showed what a 6 can do in Cup, take on the line and defend – hello Pezet and Ryles.
Sure it was a bad evening, but our roster is weaker than ever, the Tigers have become as good as us, what the heck do our people do. As before. Richardson is a blowhard, but look how he transformed the Tigers, our blokes form a circle and pat each other on the back. Recruitment has been sub par for years and no one seems responsible.
We should get Sixties to ask some tough question to MON in relation to recruitment.
Hang on. 🙂
Yep I agree.
Yep.
And while I agree that Ryley was poor – especially offensively, defensively we let the Storm walk right up the middle of the field. We have Jnr and JDB in the middle. What, 500 games between them? Where were they?
I’m sure they will give JDB another shot, but if anyone is telling me he can offer more than one of these other 3 or 4 young middles who might benefit from the first grade game time, I’d love to here what his unique gift is. Because if it is just experience, it didn’t help last night.
Our performance was poor and to be frank we were unable to match the professionalism of the Storm. We have a long way to go to get to their level. The promise we showed towards the end of last season is history and should be consigned to that.
In relation to the decisions made by the match officials which have been extensively covered by others above all I would say is get used to it. I am proud of how our club handled the Lomax issue but as someone who lived through what went on in the late 70’s, the reality is just as we did then, we have upset some powerful people. It took a Chris Masters investigation on a 4 Corners episode titled ‘The Big League’ to expose what was going on in the game.
Thanks for the show gents.
Like all Eels fans, I’m absolutely gutted by that result. I really thought we had a chance and not for minute expected to be slaughtered.
Their big four, Hughes, Munster, Grant and Todd Smith were just too good on the night.
One thing confirmed we are not even 50% of the way to becoming a genuine contender. That’s not ruling us out of being able to compete with top teams the team has some talent but we are just not there.
Back end of last year showed the potential in the squad but maybe a complete reality check is exactly what this team needs to show there is a lot of work still to do.
They played like they could just roll Melbourne you need to grind with the good sides they never beat themselves.
Ryles absolutely needs to drive this into these players regardless of who they play cause a bad version of this side finishes bottom 4
That’s it for me. Im joining the Roosters 🐓
The most disappointing thing about last night (and there was a lot) was the gulf in professionalism between the teams.
We played like leaderless amateurs. The Storm played like coordinated professionals. They had a simple game plan that they executed with a bunch of ho-hum bell curve first graders. That squad on paper had no right to put 50+ on what should be a young, fit and talented team. And the relative quality of talent between the two sides in my view is marginal. But we were completely inept in every department, across the park and at no stage did anyone on the field or in the sheds get it under control.
To say last night’s performance was a disappointment would be an understatement, it was worse than last year.
Just about every aspect of the game has been covered already including the diabolical refereeing performance so I’ll put forward some changes that I feel would benefit the team going forward.
Our middles got beaten badly and we got next to no go forward from any of them, our back five, who I thought were going to be an issue in the yardage department wete satisfactory considering how badly our middles performed.
Whilst our ball movement resulted in too many errors in do understand the desire to lean on it, our pack is too small to dominate the middle through brute force, players in motion with lots of ball movement is our best option of gaining control of the middle and then the edges. The problem is our key forward for this plan is our lock, hopgood was once really good for this role but since his back injury in 2024 he hasn’t been close to the same player. Walker is an option but hasn’t been an 80 minute players for years and adds value from the bench, that’s his role. De Belin was recruited to play this role but looks off the pace at his age, it is really early days but I don’t think we can or should be that patient. For me Jnr Paulo is our best option to play that role at lock, he was tremendous for Samoa playing that role last year and I believe he could do the same for the eels. He is more agile than hopgood and de belin, his passes are more accurate and his timing better.
I would move De Belin to front row and jnr to lock.
I’m also not sold on Da Silva, he adds nothing but bad decisions on top of poor passing skills. He would be spending some time in reserve grade if it was up to me.
I would also bring morreti in for doorey, who by the way would only see first grade after multiple injuries to our middles, guymer should also be ahead of him.