There is no way of ignoring it. The Eels are in a roster crisis and unless there is a signing or two in the near future, the potential for further problems will only grow.
Let’s look at the facts. The club took a top 30 of just 27 players into the season. They have done their utmost to resolve the Ryan Matterson situation but have been unsuccessful. He’s included in the 28 player roster, with minimal likelihood of participating in 2026.
I have no problem with the strategy of keeping that maximum of two spots free should players become available as mid season recruits. It’s how we added both Walker and TDS in 2025.
Likewise, I won’t be drawn into criticisms of the club missing some recruitment targets. The last thing I want is for the Eels to pay overs or sign players to excessively long deals. Given the players we have missed, I’m not losing sleep.
However, despite the best laid plans, there are times when the footy gods dictate a change in strategy. And in 2026 the Eels have fallen down that injury tree and hit every branch on the way down. The scenario has rapidly changed.
Consider the Eels known hospital ward:
Hopgood – ACL, season
Doorey – ACL, season
Samrani – meniscus, potentially 3 months
Iongi – syndesmosis, potentially 3 months
Will Penisini – groin, at least another two weeks
Richie Penisini – bone bruising, maybe another week or two
Without knowing any other injuries, at best the Eels will have 21 fit players from which to select their 19 for the Easter Monday clash with the Tigers. Given the number of players interchanged due to injury yesterday, I’m also not confident that those listed above are the only current casualties.
Matt Doorey assisted from the field
Herein lies the problem. In this situation there is no wiggle room for replacing players who are out of form. And let’s be brutally honest, there are players who aren’t producing their best.
Ryles spoke in the press conference about injuries providing an opportunity for young players to step up. The Eels already had to cover that likelihood in getting dispensation for Araz Nanva this week. He didn’t play, but dispensation must be given to be able to name ineligible players so we know that he is now an option.
The self identified areas of roster concern for Parra before the season started were middle forwards and outside backs. Look at the injury list. It’s Murphy’s Law that the Eels would be dealt with injury blows in the very positions that required strengthening.
Where to from here is the great unknown. It probably can’t be rectified in the next week or two, but the Eels need to start shaking whatever trees they have previously identified to see if a player falls out sooner rather than later.
This doesn’t need to be just anyone. To put you in the picture, player agents are very active in the early part of the season. As soon as their client misses selection, or becomes disgruntled, those agents start making calls to find out what options are available.
We might read about the likes of Timoko or Xerri, but the list of “unhappy” or “unwanted” players goes much deeper. Every club would be aware of who they are, but the chances are that every club is holding fire and waiting for the best possible recruit.
I’m not advocating for the Eels to lower their standards, but maybe it’s time to fire a recruitment shot. Sure, the club can choose to upgrade internally, but that means adding even more inexperience to an already relatively inexperienced team. The result of that was evident last season. It takes time, and some pain, to opt to develop players in the top grade.
Defeats like the Eels suffered against the Panthers are difficult to accept. Hopes are dashed, emotions run high, and it’s infuriating to invest time and money to attend games when the standard that was dished up in the first half was so poor.
There can be no excuses for what punters sat through at CommBank yesterday. Anyone who watched the presser from Ryles would have seen that he wasn’t talking green shoots or finding false praise. It wasn’t acceptable on any level. Low energy starts, poor defensive efforts, unsatisfactory completions and errors, take your pick on the cause of the malaise.
The hip drop strikes on Iongi
Unfortunately, given the roster crisis, the challenge for Ryles and the coaching team becomes more about how to extract better performances from the current side rather than who they will relegate to NSW Cup.
The positive is that the Eels have just faced arguably the three best teams in the premiership and after four rounds they are two wins from four starts. To ignore that the two losses were very heavy defeats would be akin to hiding your head in the sand. But likewise, it would be ignorant to write off any win as being lucky or undeserved.
I shan’t be writing off the 2026 season after four rounds with a fifty percent win rate. Nor will my support diminish.
But action is necessary on the roster, and time is of the essence.
Eels forever!
Sixties
I was concerned about depth before the season started now I’m ready to write off the season.
I’m not happy with how bad the defeats are or how easy we leak points.
Our 3 recruits this year have underwhelmed
I feel Moses hasn’t got into the season yet
The sky isn’t falling yet but its close.
I’d pick up Jaydn Sua, been a constant performer for the Dragons in a poor side.. will be 29 end of 2027 off contract end of this year (2026)
He is a big body and could be moved to the middle and perform well for us..
Jayden would be a great pick up, no question. Reportedly he has an option his way at $700000 for next year so it would take a lot to move him. My suspicion is that Jason Ryles, with almost all of his coaching experience at perennially elite clubs has seriously underestimated how tough it is to rebuild a roster at a lesser club (which, I’m afraid, is what we’ve become) once the roster has been let slip
no its falling just hasnt reached terminal velocity yet
Action has been needed since 2022 to set this roster up properly, no depth in the backs and only 1 elite player. Also Missing players targeted is a critical factor, plus the we don’t pay overs .is a somewhat lame excuse that gets the club nowhere.
The coaches can only do so much with possibly the weakest roster in the comp if we are honest.
What we have seen in two of the losses is the glaringly obvious lack of cattle to compete with the genuine contenders for the 2026 title with regards to forwards.
I know that it’s a rugby league cliché, but the forwards ARE the engine room of a team. What they do lays the foundation that the creative elements do .
We saw it with Melbourne especially that we don’t have the muscle/strength/size mix with mobility.
Mobility we have.
Strength/Size/muscle element, when compared yo the teams that will compete for September, we just don’t have it .
The line speed that teams like Melbourne and Penrith possess with that mix, we just don’t seem to possess in our NRL squad .
Now like Sixties, I’m NOT going to bemoan recent opportunities in recruitment that passed us by .
All I will say is that until we alleviate this missing element, us Parramatta fans have to accept that we won’t trouble any team for the title.
And that’s what every team, every player, every staff member is employed for isn’t it?
Don’t we pay our membership fees for that too and to watch a team that is able to compete with the best, not the bottom eight contenders?
we have some players like kelma who want dragging outside and bludgeoned under a full moon with some dull, blunt object. why is he in the run on squad hes a late game x factor proposition at best. he got know heart or mongrel
1. It’s a young man’s game. We have to stop giving excuses to save these juniors.
Apa is 21 and people are running around saying oh maybe hes too young !!
When are you going to start him ? When he’s 25 ????
A 21 year old is more than ready and if he’s not why are we wasting time with him ??
2. If Kelma plays NRL against the Tigers, we deserve everything we get.
agreed and im sick of hearing joey and matty johns say and hes only nineteen wat will he be like at 25 well maybe hes close to his peak physically right now, his reflexes are sprung tighter now than they will be at anytime in the future, look at that casey mclean
might be that hes as good as it gets right now
Hey Sixties, I totally agree and the club mentioned they were after the right players in pre season. If we are to be a strong club we need some depth here and this means some NRL quality depth. I don’t know who but it’s not my job tbh and like many I want us playing finals footy.
Errors killed us last night and as you said the first half was at times diabolical.
Frustrated yes but we have the ability to amend things I don’t get how poor the first period of the game we’ve been now….
Surely JR and co know this and also have players we are looking at.
i think losing lomax significant there was one game last year he ran for 300 mtres.
simmo gives a pretty good approximation of lomax sans the jumping x factor
Four things in our control we need to fix up for tigers: 1) line speed (get up quicker with some real inside pressure); 2) contact (hit with shoulders and work in groups); 3) work hard to get back to marker instead of laying down beside the ruck for a selfish breather; 4) start jdb, bench walker, drop Kelma.
The right signings will help but it won’t help much if we can’t even do the basics well in defence. That’s on the current players and coaches. Our middle has been so porous for years (even in the gf year we would concede a lot of metres per set).
Huge game against tigers who have a lot of confidence.
Yes our line speed needs to improve. It didn’t help that the idiot ref decided to penalise us for offside in the first 10 mins when we tried to apply line speed pressure (as if the panthers don’t jump the gun) but what the good teams do is just continue to rush up. The refs won’t penalise all game especially for offside.
your damn straight i might be inclined to give kelma another shot as a x factor from the bench
Where is our pathways players how come we dont have anyone ready to come up apart from Sam Tuivati?
Who is running our football department whats Mark’s job why isn’t he getting a hammering?
Why isn’t our recruitment manager also in tbe firing line?
In the off-season we recuited an aging JDB and Kelly both bot wanted by their clubs..
We dont seem to buy anyone that is wanted by their previous club.. JAC was sacked from dogs Lomax not wanted at Dragons.
It’s not good enough and someone needs to go..
Our pathways players that are ready now went to Penrith and Canberra.
yes ethan is finding his way at the raiders, losing ice and marata hurt
The discussion around moves we CAN make right now revolves entirely around making tough decisions that will hopefully reap the benefit. I could talk to no end about our current trend line in each match but the TLDR of it is simply our aging middle.
Walker is one of the best bench impact players in the entire comp and we’re nullifying him by starting him at lock. We have a high energy, all or nothing bloke in Guymer who has halves experience that could start the game at 13, absorb the initial energy while still being capable of delivering some ball playing at the line.
Paulo, love him to bits, but he has shown more impact in his second stints than in any of his starts. At this stage, experience be damned when we’re not bending the line and causing a condensed defensive line – which is a whole other thing to discuss when it’s further exposing weaknesses on our edge – Tuivati while early in his journey shifts the momentum the moment he’s been on the field so we might as well give him a starting opportunity to test the water.
Bar the Storm game (even including the Roosters trial), we have been poor until we rotate our bench on. There is something to that.
I’d also be making an argument around whether Teancum would offer more off the bench than Moretti now that Doorey is down and out.
The roster position with the injuries is in dire straits, but we currently have options we can utilise and should explore while we explore/wait for recruitment opportunities. Continuing our current path is simply going to continue to generate uphill battles that we’re not always going to be able to fight back and overcome.
i believe walker was having some great impact for us but he plays a very unortodox style but lately the opposition have cottoned on. but he has a go , good for team morale , has one a gf and played soo
I’m not only appreciating TCT’s unvarnished read on our current situation free of hysteria but also the measured responses I’ve read
None of it helps our cause but we’re certainly not carrying on like some Maga cult at least
just by virtue of being parra fans wld suggest we are much crazier than the maga cult lol
You could copy paste this article for all of the past 4 seasons. Mark O’Neill has had his chance to effectively address the issues in our roster yet every year they present again.
It’s shameful that this level of incompetence is allowed to remain at our club. There’s 3 key roster issues that MON has continuously overseen:
1. Depth – we routinely enter the season with thin depth in position groups. With respect to the individuals in 2024 our starting wingers by the mid point of the season were Ron Massey Cup players. Focus is on middle depth now but we are also 1 injury away from having to field a Ron Massey hooker in NRL.
To be exposed to this extent again so early in a season rests with O’Neill yet it is by design we are here. Absolutely disgraceful.
2. Contract Strategy – it was great watching Blaize jump above the pack and run over for a try as part of a comprehensive loss while we get to enjoy Pezet on a 12 month rental. The incompetence to have neither of Blaize or Sanders signed across Dylan Browns off contract year was amateur at best. We now watch both Blaize and Ethan establish themselves as NRL players for other clubs while our front office claim they are managing the roster through Pezet to not block pathways. Spare me.
3. Inability to land targets – Galvin, Keon, Barnett in the past 9 months alone. It’s embarrassing for the club to so publicly state their interest and not land the signing each time. Front office might buy what O’Neill is selling but the players are not.
100% BP
Agreed – it’s a pathetic r and r strategy that is proven to have not worked. I don’t understand how there is no accountability
i believe the recruitment team can only have limited pull in attracting the elite players the clubs who get their man are the bennetts, robbo, bellamy , clearys et al. the best players want to win gf and so seek out gf winning coaches i like ryles but he hasnt got that cache amongst the top echelon of players as yet
those players will even let a good prospect of winning a gf or becoming a rep player trump a higher offer, knowing that the biggest money will flow after those achievments are attained
We haven’t been decimated, we’ve been double decimated.
To decimate is to take one in 10.
We’re two in ten and counting.
I’m giving credit where credit is due. At half time, I thought it would blow out way worse than it did.
I was hoping for a top 8 finish this year. I still think it is achievable. There is a certain resilience in this team. Sure they have played badly at times but they don’t lay down and they have the ability to score points.
Better defence and I still feel top 8
BTW, Jason needs to give his half time talk before the team runs out.
Ok, so far we have covered the players, recruitment, the front office, Carty – we haven’t touched on JR yet
We keep seeing reoccurring issues, slow starts, lack of energy, bad defense, lack of physicality- it’s not long surely before Ryles cops some of the blame
While Ryles seems competent I’m wondering if he’s more of a friend to the players than a taskmaster we need
It’s a fair point.I played for a lot of years and I found the Mentor approach got more out of the team than your taskmasters and buddy types. The likes of Bennett and Gibson stick out. Ryles is still a novice 1st grade coach, let’s see how he reacts to adversity and uses the limited talent available to him.
well said
2-2 after playing Brisbane Melbourne Penrith all away . Aside from teams above mentioned we same boat everyone else
That’s all good but JR has to really get his team in order.
He’s had a look and tried a few things and that’s fine but Walker cannot start again.
Also Williams is an edge and that’s it.
If he starts the tigers game with walker at lock, Williams as a middle and Kelma anywhere near first grade then it shows he has learned absolutely nothing.
And by the way, you cannot class yesterday as an away game. We may have been in the opposite dressing room but that was our home ground.
I have to take exception to the notion this is a “relatively inexperienced squad”.
Jnr, Walker, JDB – All over 250 games.
Mitch – 240 games
JAC – over 200 games
Kelly – 191 games
Williams 150 games
Bailey – over 100 games
That’s a lot of football.
And there was the decision to part ways with other experienced players – all well publicised.
I don’t expect and respect that a podcast/blog funded in part by the leagues club needs to be careful with any criticism so I don’t expect it.
And I agree we shouldn’t pay overs. Why would we be in a position where we have to?
MON is the issue and not holding him accountable is also the problem. Coaches may have a say in who to target but MON can’t get deals done in recruitment and retention. When was the last year we had a net positive with our recruitment and retention?
He is competing with people like Gus. He clearly isn’t up to it. That the CEO can’t see that, questions his ability so of the Board don’t start pressuring them, they should be changed – not that we can do anything about it…
If going up on experienced players to fast track youth, then enough of Kelma and Russell (leaving) and Moretti. They’ve had their chance. Bring through the youth and people will be more likely to cop the pain. And there will be pain, our NSW Cup side can’t exactly tackle either….
Here’s the rest of the 27 players available. As I stand by, it’s a relatively inexperienced squad, particularly in the spine. 12 players with less than 30 games out of 27 players is significant. Outside of Moses our starting spine has 74 games total.
Penisini 101
Tuilagi 75
Hopgood 71
Russell 65
Doorey 54
Da Silva 35
Moretti 34
Iongi 26
Smith 26
Kautoga 22
Pezet 22
Tuivaiti 14
Guymer 19
Papalii 15
Samrani 15
Tago 8
Volkman 7
Mataele 1
R Penisini 0
The average league career is 45-60 games so that means around half our incomplete squad is over the average.
But if the contention is it is an inexperienced quad, then the question remains why are Tago, Moretti, Volkman, Pezet, Doorey etc so inexperienced despite being in and around 1st grade for so long? Is it because they are not first grade quality?
Defenders of the Administration (and again, i respect you have to watch your words and/have relationships with these folks that you need to maintain) can cut it any way they like, but the squad is not good enough. Recruitment and retention is not good enough and it hasn’t been for some time.
As some point out today, the Storm have secured Isaako today, despite already having a far more complete roster. They are set to lose Warbrick at seasons end, so they jump in and get a proven performer. That’s good football management. Don’t we deserve that kind of proactive management in our club instead of the sort of management that says – woops – we lost Reed, we have no back up plan, then panic sign Hodgson. We let Brown walk, after we let the two guys most likely to replace him walk, and we failed to sign Pezet long term, so lets panic sign him for a year. What are we doing? What is the plan?
i think the pezet experiment has to finish hes not a good foil for moses
And now the Storm have signed Jamayne Isaako from the Dolphins. He was the player I have been mentioning on the Podcasts in recent weeks as someone we should sign, can goal kick as well. We miss out again.
That’s very frustrating mate always seems to happen doesn’t
Some teams get things done. Others, like us, watch on and tell ourselves “we don’t overpay and we are not reactive”. In reality, we are paralysed by this pathetic r and r team while other teams add real options to their squad
I don’t think people realise this yet / it’s never mentioned. We only have ONE elite player on our roster, ONLY 1 elite player, that is Moses
When we made 22 gf? We had about 8 elite / TOP TIER form players on our roster that year:
– Prime Gutho
– Moses
– Prime Paulo
– RCG
– Isiah Papalii (a Daly M winner)
– Dylan Brown
– Prime Matto
– Prime Sean Lane
Each one of those players were either origin representative players, or tier 1 international rep players, or stand outs in the whole NRL comp at the time.
Now? if you look at our roster the only clear representative player we have (who isn’t even first choice) is more of a back up at rep level. Thats Mitch Moses.
We have a very WEAK roster compared to the storm, panthers, broncos, roosters, raiders, even sharks.
We have suffered with our roster ever since Bernie Gur left us, it kind of felt like our R & R decision making and vision downhill.
A lot of the best players we had who helped take us to a grand final came under him, and we genuinely have struggled to recruit & retain elite talent ever since, is this a coincidence? Not sure.
I personally think we can make top 8 – but make not mistake, we have only ONE elite player on our roster, you can’t play for premierships like that.
Panthers, storm, bris, etc, all have about 5 walk up representative level players in their starting lineup every week, parramatta cannot match that. Our recruitment is extremely poor, and when we let go of elite talent, replacement is typically far worse.
Eels are in a crisis and if Jnr Paulo goes down.. you’ll see why other NRL clubs are happy to “pay overs” to sign high quality middles to their rosters.
Exactly i feel like against panthers we were playing an A division side and we were a well coached B division side just making the numbers up.We lost two international players last season in Dylan and Lomax and replaced them with a plodder in Pezet who cannot tackle and kelly.
Zero Crisis
Ritchie Penasini – is not a first grader and maybe never will
Doorey – he wasn’t in many people’s top 17. A fringe fg player at best. Injuries have always surrounded him but o’neill took the risk
Samrami – he wasn’t in anyone’s 17 to start with. A back up at best .
Hopgood – he isn’t a prop no way. He wouldn’t make many nrl teams as a prop. Maybe bench
Will Penisini – 1 – 2 weeks
Iongi – has been in ok form, but it seems the media attention has hurt him.
So in my calculations – we should be able to cover Will and Iongi. With Kelly who’s on good money and a recruitment and retention signing. So we have Kelly and Russell in the centres – hardly a crisis. .
Then Iongi – not in great form , we had Joash training at fb for the most part of two years , then there’s Apa Twidle who i think is a better option if given the green light
So in my opinion – what crisis
Its just an excuse
Look at the Tigers – they have big players out. Their best player 1.2 million Jerome Luai
Their best centre in Taylan may. And Douhie the last half available on one leg. – yet they beat the Warriors handsomely
Sure we have depth issues, but we can’t say its an absolute crisis, We should still be thrashing the Tigers without Luai.
The Crisis is in the front office with dismal retention and recruitment with o’neill who should be ousted asap. The roster is weak, we have one decent prop in Sam Tuivaiti , and have missed out on numerous opportunities and farked up the Brown contract and others with dumb options in their contracts
The Crisis is o’neill and Sarantinos
Get Shaun Richardson in the club and some professionalism asap.
Shane Richardson?? Let’s not be silly, he’s not a good replacement – couldn’t stay out of bad news at tigers; bungled Galvin issue and lot all tigers leverage in that by putting out statement whinging that Galvin rejected tigers contract extension. Left souths in poor circumstances. He might seduce you with his talk but it’s mostly hot air. 1.2 million for a 5/8 (who benji secured , not richo). Bula unsigned. Lost Galvin and TDS. Lost stefano. Won spoons.
Richardson ain’t it. Get the Parra bloke Matt Cameron back.
Galvin looks like a fish out of water at the dogs
Sure, but tigers lost all leverage on that situation because of richo. His big mouth got in his way and dogs didn’t even have to offer a player swap. They took him and laughed at tigers, like the rest of the nrl
Richo is not the answer for the Galvin issue and all the other issues that he presided over/was involved in
Also, MON came to us from tigers. That tells us to stay away from richo and look at roosters, Penrith etc
Ron, I have been banging on about Matt for afew yrs. He is CEO I think now..he probably won’t come back but he would be good and has the runs (centuries on the board). We need some wins in he R and R
Money talks and we make a lot of it. Open the cheque book and get the best (roosters recently signed the raiders head of recruitment – someone we should of signed)
Just going through the nrl injuries lists
The majority of teams have 4 or 5 players unavailable
We have 5 out. – 2 of them are fringe players
So its hardly a so called crisis
The most frustrating thing to me is how everything starts to go to pot when we have a few injuries. We seem more fragile than other teams when things don’t go our way. Whatever you think the root cause is (recruitment, retention, roster make up, injuries etc) we lack resilience. And have done for 3-4 years now.
I do think we should have landed Koloamatagi though. All the best middles have very recently secured deals, so the market is pretty bare.
We’re way too late to be starting to reacting now and start looking for players who are going to upgrade our squad in the near future. Players that are available clubs don’t want and why are they attractive to our club. We need to be a year ahead of everything instead we seem to be six months behind everything.
Landing walker last year at the time was an absolute fluke.
We are claiming we are a development club let’s start playing them. There is nothing worse then watching underperforming experienced players keep out a young gun.
Being realistic We are not a 2026 premiership threat so keep blooding young guys if the experience players arnt cutting it. Every year we wait is just another season we wait for them to get up to scratch.
If we are honestly relying on our current R&R team for external elite recruitment we are in for a long wait.
Yep – This!
Our approach to recruitment is grabbing players who should be in nursing homes and players who break contract with their club for one reason or another. Walker, JAC, Lomax, Joe O, De Silva the list goes on. That is hardly a strategy. Or if it is, it is literally the worst startegy in the history of sports recruitment.
Player TPAs. Specifically, inability to get them. Is this the elephant in the room? (Apologies if someone has already brought this up). I recall this being talked about as a recruitment problem after our salary cap scandal. That was ten years ago…is it still a problem? Do any of the TCT guys, or anyone here, know if it is still relevant?
“I’m not advocating for the Eels to lower their standards, but maybe it’s time to fire a recruitment shot.”
Our recruitment standards could not get any lower. All we recruit are players unwanted by their clubs.
Our recruitment team seems to now be focused on landing a big signing to try and justify their positions and for some reason like to announce it in the media to show they are trying, but all it does is make them look incompetent as they make larger and longer offers for players and still miss out!
Jason Ryles better get it together, the last thing we need is a soft touch coach
I want to see some folding
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Do you remember when we signed JAC ?? There were people moaning about his defence and his attitude etc..
Now he’s the first picked every week behind Moses.
You can’t beat speed , a fact we remind ourselves whenever JAC gets in the clear.
Now Tyrell Sloan IS available and is actively looking to leave the Saints.
At the money the GC are the only ones having a nibble.
FOR GODS SAKE EELS. … SIGN HIM !!!!!!
He scored tries !!!
Defence – you can fix.
Apparently he will sign for minimal fees.
We are absolutely joking if we turn around and go no…. We think Ritchie Penisini is the man !!
Jesus this club gives me the shits.
There is gold there looking at them and they are just too stupid to pick it up !!!!
Spark, don’t blow a gasket with expectation. You know he’s not over 30 and been to half a dozen clubs. That’s Mons comfort zone. Apa Twidle is our man . He’s here now just busting to get a go. And he can’t stop scoring tries. Over to you JR.
I think apa is a 6 in medium to long term as he is too slow for modern day fullback and lacks physicality. He Has a similar build to hynes and should be resigned to develop as a half with the option of fullback cover
I agree Ron – I see something in him too and admit I’ve not watched much Reggie’s.
I think we all need to see what happens and hope the club signs some added depth.
I say added depth as imo the comp is quite lacking in areas and will get worse when Perth and PNG come in.
The game is too fast and throw in more inexperienced kids playing NRL – you only need to look across the comp now and let’s be honest – who is going to make the GF? Penrith / Brisbane and maybe Melbourne and….
IMO the comp has become abt the top 3-4 and then the also rans. I hope I’m wrong…and it’s early days but it seems this way.
PVL has created a game that’s too fast and fatigue is killing some teams.
And in the meantime Melbourne can sign Isaako, quite obviously fitting that into their salary cap of rep players. This isn’t a game of 2 halves, it’s a game of the haves and have-nots. Unfortunately for Parra we are in the latter group, and to move into the “haves” will take a monumental effort despite the bias that exists around us.
That’s true mate but we are just not ruthless enough. Look how long we persisted with Haze Dunster ??
We also have Sam Louzou on our books. Please don’t tell me he’s in our top 30 !!! This is a bloke who couldn’t get a run with us so went to the tigers and found no joy and came back to us.
How long are we going to persist with Richie Penisini ?? Or the other pretenders that just sit in our Cup side.
NSW Cup should be there as a transit lounge to give those kids a taste of playing with the men NOT a place where ordinary footballers can sit for years.
I was particularly disappointed for Matt Doorey. The reports told how hard he’s worked and the improvement in his game was remarkable. A cruel game! The players we have failed to recruit are not so significant as the ones who were available to us and we either lost or never have a chance – Lomax, Brown, Sanders, Talagai, Niukore, the Manly second tower whose name I can never spell, Utoikamanu, Kaufusi, Papilii – all still playing good football. Add them to what we have and there: a top four squad.
I was also very sad to hear of the bad luck of Tui Kamikamika, a very good foot ballet and a Parramatta junior who was wonderful in Luke Burt:s 2017 under twenties
I don’t quite get Mitch Kenny’s one week ban despite Ivan Cleary indicating it was defendable but a waste of time doing that. It was a waste of time because one week was a lottery win. I saw a still shot of moment of damage to Iongi, one week is hard to fathom if they’re trying to discourage hip drops.
As soon as Ivan jumped on the commentary you knew they were going light.
His comments were specifically designed to lessen the result and the fact that everything Panthers is just what the NRL are into at the moment.
Absolutely sick of the excuse makers and apologists. We’ll be favourites for the next two matches and blogs like these show the players that there are excuses for failure. Its total bs.
Like I’ve said previously, all clubs have injuries at this point in the season. Tigers have their best player out.
Year after year its unbelievable.
We’re fine. We’re favourites to win !
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Hi Sixties
Even before I read your article except the heading , I know you will make a strong case backed up factually. But ive realised ive lulled myself into a false belief for many years now. That is during the off season I convince myself that this year and more so than ever this year that we have enough forwards to fill two nrl grade
packs. Know im not suggesting your optimistic pre season critiques play a part here, although much of the time your correct as in your prediction doorey wld have a gr8 year. I think whats happening is my own optimism skewing things and the one thing a parra supporter of the last 50 plus years has is optimism, that , or he’s just a straight out sucker for punishment