Parramatta Eels 20
Penrith Panthers 48
I’ve sat on this one for a few days, and I’m not feeling any better about what happened on Saturday night. The predictability of the collapse is the worst part, after five minutes of tough footy one silly penalty was all it took for the defence to fall in a heap. Isaah Yeo, who had scored 3 tries in his last 50 games before this week, strolls through under the posts. Isaiah Papali’i does the same a couple of minutes later and I’m sending the kids upstairs so I can start swearing at the TV. At least make them work for it guys, come on.
Yes, there was a bit of fluke about a few of the Panthers tries. Yes, the Eels managed to triple the Panthers points against total. Yes, of course the Eels were the ones to get a try called back because the referee ignored that for the last 30 years they’ve been standing 12 metres back instead of 10 because every single time the players out wide cheat a step. No, none of those facts matter when it took 12 lousy minutes for this game to be over as a contest. We’ve seen the same problems four weeks in a row, which are remarkably similar to the same problems of the last four years. I’m tired.
Sixties has covered the injury crisis and roster issues better than I can over here. We can’t drop anybody because we haven’t got anybody to come in. We can barely replace the guys that are injured. On current efforts several of these first graders don’t deserve the spot. The more things change, the more they stay the same. On that note, here’s the grades.
Isaiah Iongi
1 – Fullback
With the Eels setting an NRL record for number of tries conceded from kicks in the first month of a competition (stat not verified), a lot of that must fall on the primary custodian of kick defence in the fullback. I’m not sure if it is something he’ll be able to work on in a moon boot, but the Eels defensive structures can’t handle high or low kicks and Ryles needs to go back to the drawing board with his fullback on both positioning and fundamentals.
Bailey Simonsson
2 – Right Wing
The Parramatta defensive concern has shifted from wingers and centres speaking a different language to a middle that couldn’t make good contact playing T-ball with a tennis racquet, and this new version makes me long for the days of three Eels backs covering the one centre while the winger strolls over untouched. What does this have to do with Bailey Simonsson? I’m saying I didn’t think he was bad here and I like what he’s doing in 2026.
Brian Kelly
3 – Right Centre
BK stomped the bar under about a foot of dirt in his first Eels appearance, so clearing it today doesn’t mean much, but I came away thinking we might just be okay with him this year. Some moments in attack, not the problem in defence, that’s a pass mark in a game like this.
Sean Russell
4 – Left Centre
The side swap with Brian Kelly may have unlocked the former Titan but it sure didn’t help ol’ Rusty, who was missing tackles, missing reads and generally flailing after a few weeks of confident footy. We’ll have to wait until we’re not down 18 in 14 minutes to get a full judgment on whether the shift is a net positive, but this was Russell’s worst game of the year.
Josh Addo-Carr
5 – Left Wing
While getting the ball knocked free wasn’t Russell Richardson levels of fail, it was a real bad look for a veteran that should know better and an absolute dagger to a side that needed some, any kind of spark. The Fox made up for it shortly after and otherwise had a fairly solid performance, and really should have had a double for the day on that intercept.
Jonah Pezet
6 – Five Eighth
Pezet’s defence is becoming a capital P Problem, this week adding missed tackles to miscommunication with his edge defenders. He’s not adding enough with the ball to make up for it, and while the attack clicked into gear a few times in the second half, his defence is also a decent reason why we get behind in the first place.
Mitchell Moses
7 – Halfback
It’s not his fault the team can’t defend their line, but for every smooth attacking play the Eels are putting on there are one or two moments where the rushing defence smashes the carrier or forces the play inside, or the runners just aren’t in sync with their playmaker. A Moses masterclass is well overdue, hopefully Easter Monday delivers.
Jack Williams
8 – Front Row
Too many missed tackles for Jack Williams, but the forward grades here are all going to reflect the complete and total submission of our middle to the Panthers that happened after about the fifth minute.
Ryley Smith
9 – Hooker
Didn’t take a run but also didn’t miss a tackle. Nobody knows if he was hurt, benched or we just didn’t have enough interchanges to bring him back on, but it was an unusual single stint for the Blue and Gold terrier.
Junior Paulo
10 – Front Row
73 lousy metres for our premier forward, with a third of those coming from kickoff returns. Another that didn’t miss a tackle, but with his experience, seniority and size Big Junez should be leading the middle charge, but four weeks in a row now we’ve been dominated from the opening kickoff. It might be time to try something different with Junior and bring him off the bench.
Kelma Tuilagi
11 – Second Row
After the Broncos game Kelma promised it would all be different this time and we gave him one more chance, but once again he’s rolling through the front door at midnight with lipstick on his collar and missed tackles on his breath. After that performance I’m not in a forgiving mood, and if that was Kelma’s last chance I’d be okay with it.
Kitione Kautoga
12 – Second Row
Didn’t miss a tackle but often with Kautoga it is not being in the position to make the key tackle that is the problem. Where Kelma is 75 games and 6 years into his first grade career, Kautoga still hasn’t racked up a full season’s worth of appearances and has plenty of room to grow. I just wish he’d started from where he finished 2025 instead of where he was after five games.
Dylan Walker
13 – Lock
A frankly crazy level of attacking involvement for Walker, who had 37 touches and 13 runs. Starting Dylan very clearly blunts his primary weapon; exploiting tired legs with clever passing, but given the state of the rest of the middle I’ll grin and bear it if Ryles feels the need to keep him in the starting role despite what we lose.
Tallyn Da Silva
14 – Interchange
Last week was a long time ago. 2 penalties, 80% tackle efficiency, I’d say more about his efforts but I was already watching the game on my phone with the F1 qualifying replay on the big screen by the time he hit the field.
Sam Tuivaiti
15 – Interchange
I wonder in what percentage of Sam Tuivaiti’s career appearances has the game already been over by the time he hit the field?
Matt Doorey
16 – Interchange
Giving him an N/A which may as well be an “A” in this game, because the poor guy absolutely does not deserve what happened to him.
Luca Moretti
17 – Interchange
You have to catch that pass mate.
Joash Papalii
19 – Interchange
Well we’re about to get an answer to the question “Is Joash a fullback?”
Given how the Tigers matched the Warriors forward pack this weekend, if the Eels’ team list on Tuesday is more of the same, we’ll be getting more of the same. Four games of being dominated early is enough of a sample size for me to declare a massive problem in the centre of this Parramatta forward pack.
The Easter Bunny better be kind to me on Sunday, because it might be the only joy coming to us Eels fans this long weekend. If it can bring a good middle forward and a spare fullback alongside some Creme Eggs that’d be great, thanks.
Until then, stay slippery, Eels fans.
Gol
Stats and images provided by NRL / Eels media
Parra must start considering how much time they put into polishing and hardening Jonah Pezet, because if it’s only going to benefit the Broncos next year then may as well replace Pezet with our future player and have him ready for next year.
I reckon Ryles must be getting very close to that decision. If we are going to have a rookie half making rookie mistakes, we may as well get the benefit of getting experience in him for our own future benefit. I suppose the only issue would be the punishment to our younger player’s confidence coming into the rabble that we have for an NRL team. Big changes need to be made, either in personnel or attitude.
Crazy to watch Sandon Smith play so well for the knights compared to Pezet.
We could have locked him up for 3 years.
He has speed and is an actual attacking threat and can pass and can tackle.
Pezet can pass..,,,
Pezet also has an excellent short kicking game. So far that’s as much as I can see.
And is a good goal kicker.
We could have easily grabbed him.
Could not agree more…..we are wasting everyone’s time now….I thought (briefly) before we got him, that he was defensively OK…..as Gol rightfully points out there is nothing about any parts of his game to qualify him for ongoing selection.
Sack MON.
I’d have been kinder to Simonsen and Kelly; I thought Kelly’s defence on Liam Martin was an eye opener. Is it worth trying Simonsen in the second row?
Next Monday is probably the vital game of our season; if The Tigers have passed us the prospects for the year are truly bleak.
Very very sick feeling we may be finishing in the bottom four this year.
This may be a real tough slog which is hard to swallow after plenty of years of the same.
It’s further away than ever.
I knew that before a ball was kicked our backed of the season papered over some cracks
Fair grades
I’ve run out of patience for Junior sometimes a player needs to leave before the game leaves them.
At this point if Matto was fit he’d start and that’s saying something.
I wish I had a answer to who to pick etc but I don’t the cupboard is empty
I think your grade on Bailey Simonson in particular is very harsh. In a team which was getting dominated all over the park he made some very good yardage runs out of our end.
It’s a bit rough blaming the outside backs when the middles folded so easily causing everything to implode inwards.
Paulo and Walker need to play off the bench where they are most effective, and Williams is not a good middle. He should go replace Kelma, who is always the last player to get up off the ground after making a tackle and has no urgency about him at all.
I am not sure what is going on with Ryley, but he has been ordinary to start the season. Maybe he is playing injured, but his line speed and contact have disappeared.
Jonah Pezet defensively, is a big target, and teams are going to be running plays at him all day.
At the end of the day, apart from Sam, this team has aging middles who struggle to keep up with the pace of the game and are offering little line speed in defence.
Our recruitment team needs to stop shopping a tthe bargain bin buying unwanted aging players from other clubs such as JDB and Kelly and find some actual NRL players. Forget going for the big fish to try and justify your existence and just get some solid middles.
Really our best move would be to replace MON and the R&R teams but sadly I can’t see that happening anytimg soon. Some clubs talk about premiership windows, we are looking at avoiding the spoon windows atm.
Fair enough Gol; we need better from the experienced players for me.
Footy is a simple game – run hard / make your tackles / back up / kick to the seagulls etc. You just want to see strong defence first and foremost.
As others have said and 60’s blog – we need to get some players into the system……and this was mentioned at the fan forum too.
We have now lost two middles for the year; surely JR has some players he is keen on, albeit added depth.
Iongi is another one.
Hooray.. someone else has stated the obvious about Iongi !!!!
I think he has massive upside but he’s a protected species at the moment and you have articulated exactly the problem. Notwithstanding his troubles in the air, his positioning on the line is absolute rubbish.
I thought you were overly kind to Kelma. That was yet another poor defensive performance from him.. one of his many many poor performances.. one that SHOULD consign him to the reserves.
It’s ok if he can run a line but if an edge cannot make a tackle, it’s all for nothing.
I’ll give some leeway to Williams. He’s an edge so playing him as a front rower is just damn insane.
Actually Williams NRL career consists of 15 starts on an edge, 37 in the middle (15 front row, 22 lock) and the remaining 97 games are off the bench (mainly as a middle replacement one would presume). When you consider 10 of those 15 back row starts are for the Eels, he has essentially been a middle his whole senior grade career… we’re either using him wrong, or maybe there is a reason he has started 2/3’s of his career games off the bench…
Disagree about Ilongi and his positional play, he is no different to most fullbacks. Tries have been scored via kicks, hardly any on 6th tackle. Even read on here a couple of weeks back, someone having a go at his positional when the try was scored by a kick, on the 3rd tackle whilst we had a player in the bin. NO fullback can cover that.
Tks Gol, you got the 5-minute -‘oh shit’-penalty-from-nowhere blues like me..at the time I tried slapping myself back to sensibility…after all it was one setback on the Panthers 30, what could go wrong…but I couldn’t recover from my first thought, there’s an old saying about your first thought is your best one…then it was pure science fiction, blatant improbability unfolded. All year we’ve seen Cleary and co dismantle opponents on the mere sniff of territory and momentum, they won’t do it to us…or will they?
Whatever our game plan is, I think we’ve got to go back to the defensive drawing board, our yardage prevention and first 20 minutes is never going to create any real control, we’ll win some but lose just as many and end up in that 9-14 position on table. Rather than pretend to be a selector, I’ll come up with a riddle…there are some forwards who should not be on the field at the same time, how do we identify our best defensive combinations over 80 minutes. And just a random..Hopgood and Smith jointly were making 75 – 90 tackles with very few missed tackles when we got on a roll late ‘25.. effective hard workers seem to make a difference.
Could not agree more…..BDon, I think you nailed it, the defence without Hopgood and theoretically Smith is really the identifiable difference….that one standout defensive forward doesn’t exist in our current make up…….JDB is the only one that can fill such a role and he’s not being picked……I am a great supporter of Ryles, but his judgement is concerning me……it must be very hard to coach a parra side.
JDB currently is involved in a major legal action. I’ve read we are not picking him while he has that distraction.
Poppa, perhaps the need is a closer look at who has been handling recruitment for the past 7/8 years. The roster is getting weaker year on year, when you look at who has been moved on over that time and then their replacements, very lacklustre. Factor in we have to spend 95% of the cap, really a worry.
Simmonson ran for 180 metres and scored a try he’s probably a B grade. He has been very good this year actually. Kelly also had a very good game, was also a B.
Enjoyable read (if that’s the appropriate description). There have been far too many complete and utter capitulations over the last 3 years – countless games where I turn it off before half time – this was just another one.
The Pezet experiment has failed. Add Kelma into the mix and its a big gaping hole for the opposition to run through. For weeks almost every attacking kick Ionghi is not even in the frame.
I imagine JDB wins another chance who should probably start at lock and bring Walker off the bench. Time for TC Brown to at least sit on the bench. We are being out muscled.
Maybe Volkman needs to be there to put some pressure on Pezant. He looks like our second best half at the moment.
I’d like to see Twiddle given a run at 6. I see he’s one of the extended bench for Monday and won:t be playing Cup
Would be be up to the defensive demand ? I have no idea and neither has anyone else. We won’t know unless he’s given a run
Kelma at backrow again? I have run out of words to describe in how many ways he is not a first grader, let alone a starter.
Ryles selection seems to suggest he hopes we can score more points than opposition each week. Doesn’t scream a coach who cares about defence
Walker shouldn’t start – that’s another head scratcher
Very conservative selections by Ryles, basically the same pack that’s been walked over in the first 20 minutes of every game so far. Best of luck.