The injuries just keep piling on to the Parramatta Eels in 2026. Matt Doorey (season, ACL) and Isaiah Iongi (8+ weeks, Syndesmosis) are the latest bodies thrown on to the pile as Jason Ryles faces a genuine roster crisis. The Tip Sheet explore what the Eels can do in a recruitment round table. The usual good stuff is on the menu including the weekend wrap and all of the big news out of Team List Tuesday.
PNG have their head coach as Hull KR guru Willie Peters helms the expansion franchise while it was much harsher news for another coach as Anthony Seibold was brutally sacked by the Sea Eagles just a month into the 2026 season. A flurry of back line signings has seen the New Zealand Warriors, St George Illawarra Dragons and Melbourne Storm all make moves for next year.
Join the live stream from 7:30PM!
Note to Mark O’Neill
How is it that a professional club goes into a NRL season without one starting prop ? Jnr is past it never bends the line and prefers trick shots.
Williams isn’t a prop
O’neill – how is it that Parramatta have two back rowers who are severely below average
O’neill how is it we have one decent defensive centre at the club who he’s managed to let go
O’neill how is it that you absolutely stuffed the Dylan Brown contract like no football manager would have with a thousand clauses
When are people going to ask O’neill th4 tough questions and stop complaining about injury crisisis
Interesting comment about our lack of middles/starting props. Cronulla for a long time now have always taken to the field with 4-5 NRL standard props…5 this week if you count Rudolph.
The retention and recruitment people should all be replaced. Ryles has absolutely nothing to work with and im betting if there’s a downturn in results, his head will be on the chopping block, not Mark O’Neill’s, who is the biggest failure the club has ever employed
I don’t disagree with you Chiefy.
Re Jack Williams. He is a middle forward. That where he has played most of his NRL career (only started in the back row 5 times before he came to the Eels). But 2/3’s of his game are off the bench.
So yes, our big name forward signing last year was a guy who 2/3’s of his150 games are off the bench.
This year our big name forward signing was the oldest forward in the game.
Its pretty clear where the root cause of the problem is.
Great show as always gents, thank you.
Hopefully the club can snag some decent signings before it’s too late for this season.
I agree Sixties, I couldn’t watch another 2025 rebuild season. I’m not expecting to win the comp this year but making the 8 would be a minimum expectation.
I also witnessed all our premierships and never in a million years thought 40 year would go by without witnessing another. It’s been a long, long 40 years for us old timers.
Forty, I agree, it’s time to go all in, managing the salary cap “wisely” only gets you so far and in most seasons missing the 8 is the end result. Big names win big games, Moses is a great player but has very little to work with. Although I’m grateful to have beaten the Dragons, I still cringe at how they stream rolled us through the middle.
I would hope that at some stage this season Lorenzo gets his chance, even if he does miss tackles, he can’t be any worse than Pezet. He’ll give Moses something to work with and offers more of a threat than Pezet.
I’m still mystified as to why we are developing a player who won’t be here next season.
I see the bookies have us favourites to beat The Tigers
Surprised me
Jason Ryles has tried to use a similar small forward pack like bulldogs and what not
Unfortunately it hasn’t worked for us but also we only have one genuine middle forward on the roster who’s experienced, and his close to retirement age now
The eels have have the worst record to start the season defensively ever I read which is simply not acceptable, even IF having to face top teams in several games
My only hope / suggestion is that facing lesser teams will begin to make our statistics start to look less worse, because you cannot go around getting 30+ points on you each game and make the top 8
I’m also concerned that we are unable to sign experienced players who are good and we basically need a better starting middle forward pack – I’ll admit I was wrong here, before this season, I thought we’d be fine
Even bench middle forwards at clubs like sharks or roosters would be walk up starters at our clubs in regards to the middle forward positions
I actually feel bad for BA now – it’s obvious Jason is better than BA at attracting + developing younger talent, ryles is clearly good at that
But just like under BA parra really is not good at signing good players on the open market, I was told by somebody who’s got knowledge from what goes on in our club
That a lot of players we miss out on literally just get better 3rd party benefits / better value contracts elsewhere, there’s many perks other clubs offer which the eels cannot or do not match
The clear pattern here is that parramatta isn’t able to offer 3rd party deals & perks, so our problems WILL NOT go away in regards to R & R, this is here to stay, nothing will substantially change until there’s changes / we can offer whatever clubs like bulldogs, storm, broncos, roosters, etc, can give players (or their families) alongside of their main player contract
In hindsight we probably should have paid over to maintain Dylan brown if we could, paid more to Sean Russel, not given Lomax a release
Why? Because unlike many clubs the eels simply cannot sign a quality player under normal circumstances, we always replace great players with average players, and there’s over 5 years of history / data to support this claim
Think when was the last time parra let go of a rep level or high level player and replaced them like for like? Never… we actually are really poor at this
The only hope parramatta has is that the jnrs can translate into first graders an fast, with a high % of them becoming NRL stars – Or the eels will be perma bottom 4 again once Mitch Moses retires or gets any serious injuries
I don’t think people realize how close to being fully cooked we are… you take out Mitch Moses, Jnr Paulo, even Josh Ado car, and this side would be in complete shambles
We are being held together by 3 veterans. The fox, Moses, Paulo, and Paulo looks almost cooked himself
Some realities:
1. Recently released statistics show that we have easily the worst defence in the league so far, using average metres made against us per ruck and average line breaks as the measure. Not bottom half; last.
2. We have also.played, in our first four games, the sides seemingly destined to come one, two and three at season’s end; there’s plenty of low hanging fruit still to come. Monday will give us a very good idea as to where we stand in reality.
3. There are seventeen clubs in the competition, one more recruiting. For them to have an equal chance of winning the comp we need 540 young men capable of sustaining an elite level of performance over the season; we have maybe 80.
4. Of that 80, probably 35 are employed by three clubs
5. Given these realities, it is extremely unlikely that we’ll be able to recruit out way to success.
6. And in fact we never did. In our 6 years of dominance we recruited two elite rugby league players, Steven Edge and Mick Cronin.
7. As a result, development and retention are the keys to success.
8. Development has been just fine; retention has been massively disappointing.
An example – the absurd contract given to Dylan Brown which meant we were stuck with him indefinitely if he was hopeless but he could walk whenever he wanted if he was in demand
That contract cost us not only Brown but also Sanders and possibly Talagai. Not a bad effort, costing us maybe three elite talents in the halves in one decision. Whomever came up with that stroke of genius has no appropriate role in sports administration.
Our role now is to recognise our elite developing talent, nurture it and be sure to retain it.
Good read Noel, thanks, very interesting.
Agree Noel. Here’s the problem
Our development is good. Retention is bad (as you say).
But good development is useless if you do not retain.
“That contract cost us not only Brown but also Sanders and possibly Talagai. Not a bad effort, costing us maybe three elite talents in the halves in one decision. Whomever came up with that stroke of genius has no appropriate role in sports administration.”
Correct. And lets face it, it was a guy who held the equivalent job with the Shambles Tigers for a minute before he had to resign due to workplace behaviour. He should never have got a look in for the job in the first place.
Now the above circumstance has happened which as you indicate, should be a fireable offence, never mind the other failings. But, personally, i think we are past that. We are at the point where the people responsible for holding him accountable, are not doing their job and should themselves be giving a ‘please explain’ to the Membership.
If it is true, why is it that we can’t offer competitive third party benefits to retain or buy new players? I thought the club was supposed to be in a healthy financial situation. Is our recruiting problem the result of a remaining hangover from the dark days of 2016? Are we being policed much more closely than other clubs? Or is it incompetence?
Shane Richardson isnt a bad shout look who he got to Tigers Luai May boys, Api, KPP and Turuvia didn’t he also bring GI to Souths. We need someone who can negotiate. He aint perfect but way better then MON
Yes, there should be a campaign to f off o’neill and get Richardson. If Richardson wants the top job get rid of Sarantinos and let Richardson appoint who he wants as football manager.
When the media start putting pressure on the club, you can bet Sarantinos and o’neill will again make Ryles their scapegoat and they’ll continue getting paid
Start making noise or live in complaining all your lives
The club continues to make announcements around the game, such as Motiv8 and now with the state govt. As stated before, the administration aside of the club is as good as any club, they need to prioritise recruitment and first thing is hire someone with experience and cut through.
When it comes to “overs”, someone at a rival club told me that if you sign someone say $200k. More than your wanted to pay to secure an elite player , he adjusted the bottom 5 or 6 signings in the top 30, that’s sensible and seems most well run clubs do that. Cases to reference (Crichton and Luai maybe Haas) Look at Storm and others, they don’t have real depth in that back area, just players who want to give it a real go
Perhaps that is the strength of the GM and CEO,now hire the right people for the needed results. By the way, we have a list manager who would be reasonably well rewarded, for what result has got most beat.