They may have fallen agonisingly short of a spectacular Easter Monday triumph amidst a barrage of injuries and awful calls but there was plenty of pride in the jersey from the Eels in Round 5. Sixties and Forty20 try to make sense of the chaos after Parramatta were defeated in golden point by the Tigers as the playing field became a triage unit for the battered Blue & Gold. Who was left standing for the club as we now face a short turnaround against the Gold Coast Titans?
Join the live stream from 8:00PM to catch the full instant reaction.
Play the kids and they might surprise ?
There’s a lesson to be learnt here.. well done Apa Twiddle.
We are in massive trouble with injuries.
If they aren’t 100% I wouldn’t be playing either Moses or Pezet next week and giving them both a fortnight to get over any niggles.
Moses especially, is just too important to us to play him with injury and we have a competent halfback in Volkmann in reserves.
It’s going to be a patched up side anyway next week, Simonson and Russell are definitely out.
Where do we get a centre from ?? Narva …
( Who makes Brian Kelly look like a great defender)
Does Apa stay on the wing ?
I know we will need some sort of dispensation but I’d play both
Volkmann and Talitana in the halves only because they have played together before.
It’s a long season .. gotta rest Moses !!!
Moretti – he would have to be the most unfit player at the club.
I had high hopes for him but he looks in terrible shape.
First set after half time and he was struggling to get in a defensive pattern and basically loped around always behind the pace.
Now to Pezet.. I was willing to give him a running chance but that kick on the second tackle on their line when we had them basically beat was probably the stupidest play I’ve seen for years.
What a bloody dunce.
We lost all momentum from that point and that’s where we lost the game.
If we had scored then, we would have smashed them.
Poor old Broncos .. imagine swapping Reynolds for this clown ?
Like swapping a Merc for a Datsun 180B.
Hey my mum had a Datsun 180 – it was reliable, had a decent engine but it also had that choke we had to use to start!!
In all seriousness I’m 50/50 on the game – we made some dumb errors and defence but that ref was avg
Yeah I used to run around in a 180B.
Those old dattos .. great cars!
They were ok – mind you slow but steady.
While I am extremely wary about his availability, the indication from Ryles in the presser was that Sean Russell was somehow okay. I can scarcely believe it but I guess we find out very quickly with the team sheet at 4:00PM.
In the same presser Ryles was at a loss as to what his right edge would resemble on Saturday but he (and Mitch himself) immediately threw Moses in as the immediate first pick there. Mitch obviously has some kind of groin niggle but I imagine you would have to tie him down to stop him running out against the Titans.
Who partners him is the big question. Joash Papalii seems to have a hamstring niggle of his own which could complicate selection options. Lorenzo Talataina missed this week due to concussion so we fans have little insight into his status. Ronald Volkman looms as the most probable option although if Papalii is good to go he could play #6 and let Apa Twidle play at fullback.
Moretti’s fitness, or lack thereof, comes back to a heavily disrupted preseason. Unfortunately it is a very real issue for us now and with the glut of injuries to other middles it has fallen into the fix-it-on-the-job stake.
I have vocalised my own concerns about Pezet through the opening rounds. The kick was a brutal error of judgement that cost the team dearly in terms of impetus. Perhaps he is better suited to the role of primary ball-handler but with one Mitchell Moses in the team he will always be the second fiddle. Ryles has proven to be a pragmatic operator so I am not sure how much more rope Pezet can be afforded.
but 40 wasnt he gr1 therefore mandatory 11 days , so wnt make that 4pm team sheet
russell i mean
Apparently according to the boys gwa cat 2..
NRL website claims Russell is a Cat1 and will miss next week. If you count the site as reliable. Who knows.
That’s more like it. He was definitely a cat 1
Looks to now be confirmed as at CAT1 – which I believe is very much the correct call. Obviously puts even more strain on the back line stocks but it is the right process.
Ok thx Spark we need him
I understand Moretti had a disrupted pre season but he looks over weight and spent.
Surely they could have got some aerobic fitness into him and if not fit how would he ever be a better candidate than JDB ????
Guymer is the same. Here is an ex centre that is as agile as my elderly old man and looks way too unfit.
Maybe it’s the lack of aerobic fitness in today’s game that is causing us so much havoc with injuries at the moment notwithstanding the foul play ?
Moses would never want to stand down but he’s so important to that side if there is any injury to his groin , he will just have to rest it.
It’s a long season and the last thing we need is to lose him for 6 weeks with a groin tear.
Flip side… We need the 2 points, real bad, right now and it’s the Titans.
Even in our weakened state we should be a chance if Mitch plays.
It could be a chance for players like Apa, and Lorenzo to get a bit of time and confidence in first grade with the security of someone like Mitch steering the ship.
Rather than Volkman or Joash.
I really hope he plays.
Spark, of all the things that pissed me off yesterday, that Pezet kick pissed me off the most. And for reasons you mentioned.
Who does he think he is? His short kicking game is diabolical, he has no game sense, misses more tackles than he makes and his running game wouldn’t threaten a Jersey Flegg team.
He’s a short-term guest and he’s playing like one. He’s using his time here to develop his game and he’s costing us while he experiments.
Piss him off to cup, give a long-term resident a chance to develop, we can’t do worse than this bloke, he has nothing to offer, I can’t think of single reason why he should appear on our team list today.
I reckon if our list was in much better shape, Ryles would have demoted him by now.
I’m sure we arnt the only ones that are genuinely disappointed in him but let’s look at the bright side, we only have him for a year! Imagine what the Broncos are thinking ?
I honestly think it was the worst play that I’ve seen in decades.
The tigers were on the rack. We were odds on to score then and we didn’t get another look at their line for about 20.mins.
Even if we had forced the line drop out , there’s a high degree we don’t win the short drop out. .. on the second tackle ????? WTF goes through his mind ?????
Yeah same, I was in shock. Not only was it a selfish and stupid play by a supposed game manager… but it was so poorly executed that not only did he bomb a potential scoring situation he also managed to hand momentum and advantage back to the Tigers.
Honestly regardless of injury, he should be dropped for that alone.
I’m usually the angriest after a loss but I genuinely can’t fault a single player tonight, that loss was as gutsy as it gets.
Yeah, the ref was an absolute joke, no question—but this whole shit show traces back to Mark O’Neill. He’s the one who’s screwed this roster since the GF and cannot land one significant signing. The blame sits squarely with him.
Get rid of him and his team before he gets another coach sacked with his incompetence.
Eaxactly
The recruitment since 22 has been pathetic.I was told today again that Herbie was coming 2 years ago but asked for an extra 50k and we declined.We lost Sanders ,Blaise and Dylbags and got the superstar Pezet.Surely the hard calls need to be made with the recruitment team.
Apparently that comment struck a nerve on your podcast — and honestly, I thought it was pretty tame. A mate just rang me saying you were on air live demanding to know who I really am. Seriously? Why is that relevant? I’m a nobody just like you are.
That kind of carry-on is pretty unprofessional, and it’s obvious you overreacted to what was a fairly harmless comment. Let’s see if the reaction remains on the podcast when you sleep on it.
I still contributed to the live metric. Record episode by your own admission.
No stress though, Sixties — I’ll introduce myself properly next time I’m at the game. We can have a chat like the avid Parra fans we both are, hopefully over a beer.
Take it easy big fellah.
I haven’t heard the podcast yet. But that comment is completly fair in my opinion and one plenty of fans share.
We started the year with an incomplete squad (again). We needed a blessed run with injuries and we haven’t got it and it has exposed the squad development horribly.
MON was given a life when the finger got pointed at B.A. If B.A was to blame for the squad then, it is either Ryles fault now, or the common denominator….. The CEO and Head of Football.
Respect the guys have a relationship there so it is hard to be too critical, but we have the best faciltities, offer a great part of Sydney to live in, plenty of support within the club, and we can’t get players to sign.
The reason you, among a litany of unrelated trolls we had invading the live stream last night, were called out Avenger is that your singular and repetitive means of engagement with us and this community is simply to shit on Mark O’Neill. Or to shit on us for not shitting on Mark O’Neill. You were warned in the live stream chat to leave it to the blog but you felt compelled to take a follow up crack at recruitment.
We have given you an extremely generous berth here to do so. We don’t censor your comments, we don’t delete your comments. Frankly we give you an extraordinary amount of leeway to carry on in the manner you do.
I understand not enjoying my or Sixties’ content. At the end of the day it is two bozos prattling on about a club that is actively contributing to the raised blood pressure of roughly 800,000 fans (if media engagement numbers are to be believed).
What I can not fathom is actively engaging in content you don’t like so consistently.
Through the Brad Arthur era you only ever came on here to complain about the coach and it has been the same story for Mark O’Neill in more recent times. You have made zero effort to engage in ANY of the wildly varied content we put out every week for over a decade and the first moment you get any kind of push back after years of extremely generous blog moderation you throw your hands up and act like you are the wronged party.
So don’t tell us we are unprofessional and are overreacting to a harmless comment because it is the incessant, relentless history of nagging that was reacted to. Not a singular comment.
I wasn’t on the live chat, All I did was post the comment above which many obviously agree with. Your problem is you think the guy in front of you is following you.
And another thing, Forty20—maybe look at introducing a proper name registration system. Right now anyone can post under any name, which just leads to confusion and guesswork. It might save you from chasing shadows and calling people out publicly on a live chat without actually knowing who’s who.
The righteous one wanders away from FRF and graces TCT with his presence. At least TCT have the guts to stand behind what they post and not walk it back when things don’t go as they predict.
Funny that a grown man who hides behind an on screen persona and calls out everyone whom disagrees with him as unknowledgeable would ask for a better registration system. I would have thought anonymity was your greatest defence….
Everyone keeps blaming O’Neil, WHY?
Do you know what his position and job description is?.
I commented after last week, that we would beat all but the serious contenders.
We beat the Tigers today, but the referee had other ideas.
The bad:
Pezet can’t be left unsupervised. He makes terrible decisions trying to be a hero.
DaSilva is in the same category. Even he doesn’t seem to know what he is about to do.
The injuries might just have ended our finals chances before we get going.
The good:
A gutsy effort to be proud of. It should have shown on the scoreboard.
A star is born with just one touch of the ball. At least we have a pair of wingers to go on with, although Apa may find himself at fullback with Joash at five-eighth out of necessity.
Moses is broken. We have no idea how much. I think we need to start shopping for a half back, as he doesn’t seem to be able to get a season without injury, hasn’t for a few now.
It’s only the Titans next week, but with a depleted side, we can’t be confident to bank the 2 points.
da silva has shown that hes going to be a very good outcome for us, size, speed ok hes done a few things moses doesnt like but hes getting better
If not for injury Pezet needed to be dropped. His obsession for kicking early in the set killed us this game and he was lucky it worked out against the broncos. I don’t see what he brings at all, no running game, average passing and defensively he’s at sea.
I won’t say anything about the cheating refs, disgusting performance from them
Parramatta had the ref against them 100% that was blatantly obvious. Is the game corrupt? Or simply unprofessional? Do the NRL have favourites / teams they want to push? I can’t understand how this games officiating is so unprofessional. Over seas in any code this would be viewed as red flag behaviour bordering on suspicious. If you follow any sports over seas, you’ll agree the NRL in terms of officiating is extremely unprofessional, inconsistent, and questionable on a weekly basis.
Now on to the halves Moses is not well, hasn’t been all season, pezet is worse than Dylan Brown when Dylan had 1 NRL game under his belt in all seriousness as a half. Pezet is a #7 and I cannot see him succeeding at 5/8 in all honesty at NRL level, no strengths to his game at all in that position you can think of.
The eels need Joash at 6 to offer a running game in the halves who’s also better defensively than Pezet, slide Twiddle into fullback, throw Moey Allamadine on a wing?
Who goes to centre with Sean Russel out.. Nanva? Charlie Guymer? We are always paper thin for back 5 positions, no difference under ryles it seems.
I will say that I still believe we win that game had Pezet not kicked early on set, or if the ref wasn’t sucking off the wests tigers. How does every crucial call seemingly only go one way…
Love your content guys, cathartic listen after a loss. Your criticisms are always well measured and thought out rather than outright reactionary. Fox commentary annoyed me. Eels with a thousand injuries, lack of calls, field position and only lost because of goal kicking and they all like “how good are the tigers?”. We will brush ourselves off
and go again . Eels v titans will be first game attending this year, fingers crossed more successful endeavour.
Agree about Fox Andrew. Obviously wanted to push the Benjamin/Tigers 2024 into 2025 redemption story. Yes, the Tigers are playing better than last season, but it hardly rated a mention post game that the Eels put on four tries to three with half the team in a hospital ward.
Sorry, 2025 into 2026 – see what the game does to me!
Almost feel like we’re getting close to Rabbitohs 2024 levels where they had to sign players on a week to week basis. Nothing we can really do this week other then throw another young kid in the deep end, this is my team rolling team. On the brightside for cup they play after the NRL this week but not entirely sure how big the commute is between CommBank and Kellyville
1. Joash Papalii
2. Apa Twidle
3. Brian Kelly
4. Araz Nanva
5. Josh Ado Carr
6. Ronald Volkman
7. Mitchell Moses (C)
8. Jack Williams
9. Ryley Smith
10. Junior Paulo
11. Kitione Kautoga
12. Kelma Tuilagi
13. Charlie Guymer
14. Dylan Walker
15. Luca Moretti
16. Sam Tuivaiti
17. Tallyn Da Silva
18. Jack De Belin
19. Jake Tago
1. Bradley Avery
2. Mohammed Alameddine
3. Devonte Vaivela
4. Samuel Loizou
5. Jake Tago
6. Lorenzo Talataina
7. Ioane Lui
8. Unitoni Mataele
9. Kriz Niutili-Schmidt
10. Teancum Brown
11. Will Latu
12. Jezaiah Funa-Iuta
13. Jack De Belin (C)
14. Meni Luke
15. Saxon Pryke
16. Tyrese Lokeni
17. Max Tupou
18. Arthur Miller-Stephen
You can freeze frame the Walker 10mtr penalty and see there’s nothing in it, although I’m not sure on the actual rule. Walker is in a sprint start position with his back leg 100% OK, his front leg, extended forward may or may not be in front of Gough’s line. When you freeze at exactly the millisecond the ball is placed on the ground, to judge Walker offside looks like a pedantic call based on suspicion not fact. Then, Walker was not the player who baulked Madden, our marker got there first by 2or 3 mtrs and a few repeat views indicate Madden was not baulked by Walker.
And the try after the missed strip by Pearce-Paul just before half time to me was a big turning point, in a game of missed opportunity.
I can’t speak to the offside call BDon since I haven’t caught a broadcast of the game so I will take your word for it. Walker was devastated at the conclusion of the game though. Felt for him in that moment.
The Kelly/KPP strip no-call was a legitimate Barry Crocker but there were a gaggle of bizarre calls/no-calls through out. The entire Jack Williams sequence before half time that put the Eels in a damned if they did, damned if they didn’t scenario. A blatant knock-on near the end of the game when the Tigers were shifting the ball down the right edge. The missed obstruction in the set that resulted in Bula scoring. A hip drop not getting penalised because it didn’t lead to an injury on Tuilagi.
One thing both teams should feel aggrieved with were the phantom set restarts. I was left just as puzzled at some of the six-agains awarded to the Eels as the ones that went against us.
I generally lean towards criticism of the system over the official(s) since they are thrust into the fastest iteration of the game we have seen with just three sets of eyeballs to make all those split second calls (and whatever the Bunker can do) but Gough did not call a good game.
Tks Forty..my blue and gold eyes may have placed Walker onside, a Tigers supporter would probably say he fudged by one step too early, but it was so split second lining up when Walker took off and the ball placed on the ground that there is probably 100 Inside 10’s every game that are not penalised. To cap it off it was our marker who baulked Madden, not Walker.
The 6 Agains…we got pinged when Tigers rucking it out in their 20 for ‘holding down’, the release was 100% NOT slow, the last tackler up put his hand on the Tiger’s hip, there was no downward shoving motion at all, you see it 2 or 3 times every set, the release includes pushing yourself off the tackled player, it’s almost the law of physics dictates that it happens. you are unentangling from an impact collision, I watched and saw it happen countless times in the next few sets. When is this rule going to be analysed by stringing together replay reels and the common sense and consistency aspects highlighted. I noted we hardly got beyond the Tigers 40 in the final 20 minutes of the first half..6 Agains seemed to achieve that (plus a certain kick).
We are going to struggle to field a team next week. People talk about Souths last year but it’s round 5 and we could have as many as 10 top line players out after tonight. Moses wasn’t fully fit going into this game obviously and he tweaked his groin as well. The only reason he will play is out of pure necessity. This is bad as it gets in terms of injuries this early in a season.
I’m very proud of the effort tonight but we did shoot ourselves in the foot at times too. Pezets early tackle kick for example. I love Williams but my god he has poor hands at times. It was harder to drop that chip Doorey put through than catch it. I’d say if he catches that we win the game.
Gough? I won’t comment other than to say he referees us in a way that I would describe as almost condescending
Please grill MON on the complete failure of recruitment over the past 4 years. It’s weird that you haven’t asked him about it when you have had the chance. Why does he only sign reserve graders or retirees?
Gusty performance. I respected that. Felt for Bailey. He isn’t the worlds greatest player, but he has probably been our best this year.
Lot of upbeat talk about the Tigers coming in but they are a pretty average team . No organisation offensively whatsoever.
The officiating – we can talk about dodgy calls, it is what it is. But the non call that shows why officiating in the game is so crucial came in the early moments of the second half. 56th Minute – Moses kicks for the corner, Simonson jumps for the ball and Laulili’i gets beaten and begins to drag Bailey down in the air. No call. 10 minutes later and he did it again and Bailey is badly injured. If the officials do their job the first time, it doesn’t happen a second time.
To the game. First half I thought started well, great that Jnr turned up to play, as did Mitch. But it seemed when Jnr went off, then Russell went down, we went to water too easily.
The second half bounce back was commendable given the injuries. Again, helped we weren’t playing Penrith/Storm etc and the Tigers let us stay in the game.
This isn’t going to be our year sadly. Our squad is not built for this sort of inury toll. It was barely built to survive if we were fully fit. I know there was an article this week on the Throw about fans and being optimistic. Well the optimism now has to be, that the opportunity now to play a bunch of players, not ready for NRL, and get games under their belts, find out if we have centres of the future, halves of the future, before we need to start signing players for 2027.
Pezet: Ok he is not the best defender, most five eights aren’t (though we had a decent one). But outside him he has Kelly who looks like he is playing Oztag and inside him Kautonga who can not count, leaving them routinely outnumbered. What hope does he have?
I see people comment on the 2nd tackle kick by Pezet. Ok, ordinary decision. Now I challenge those fans to watch our 5th tackle options the last few weeks. We have pretty poor kick chase options Bailey did ok today, but basically we have no aerial attack (since Admin/Coaches let Lomax walk) so we’re forced into shifts on the last or early grubbers. Moses from 30m out kicked for field position today.
Kelly – multiple bad errors with and without the ball including drops and terrible offloads. I don’t really care that one was a strip. Just hold the ball.
Ryles: We can all see Walker is more impactful off the bench. What is going on? I don’t know why he persists with him starting. And replacing Russell with Marotti. Seriously? I could excuse the bench flub in Rd 1 when Iongi got HIA’d, but to do it again?! 4 weeks later?! C’mon. Twidle should have come on. That was the moment. Ryles failed. Ryles waited until he literally had no choice to activate the backline player. And Moretti for the record, was wildly ineffective. I have never been in on Moretti, and remain that way. I don’t see the need to persist with him even with the injuries.
Joash continues to show very little. Zero tackle busts. Twidle has to start ahead of him. Jack Williams is giving away free tackles and making poor decisions and of course dropping the ball. The forwards in general – just getting beaten for muscle every week.
Russell didn’t go off after A penalty. Apa was the 19th man and only got to come on because Baily was illegally injured .
It doesn’t have to be a penalty. We had only used 2 interchange at that stage. The whole point of carrying a back and having a six man bench is to be able to replace them if they go down early – so that the game doesn’t have back rowers playing in the centre’s and halves. Maybe that is the problem. Maybe Ryles doesn’t understand the rules.
Never seen more adversity dealt with by an Eels team in a single game.
There were three players lost to injury, another four carrying noticeable discomforts, and a dozen reshuffles.
We didn’t get a single 50/50 call all game with absolutely any benefit of the doubt given to the Tigers on every single occasion. I don’t think I’ve seen a ref try to find as much fault with a team – at one point they had something like 8 more 6 agains than us.
Williams was definitely tackled before he lost the ball. Kai Pearce Paul definitely stripped the ball out of Kelly’s arms before their second try and Walker was marginally offside for the field goal but so were 2 of their players when Mitchell missed his attempt only seconds earlier. Gough was only really looking for indiscretions from one side.
BUT we only have ourselves to blame for the loss. Despite all of that, Kelly dropped the ball cold off a kickoff when we had complete ascendancy and Pezets shit second play kick (which none of his outside men knew about) was a crucial turning point – Tigers utterly dominated rest of first half from that point. And we missed three sideline conversions.
Is V’landys is basing his pitch for media mega dollars on the six-agains in the next broadcast deal. Because today was a game of six-agains. In reality, what a cop out for officials. Players are the stars, but you wouldn’t know it these days.
Listening to the Pod. I respectfully disagree with the 28 man squad approach. For a Top 8 side, i get it. You are making a premiership run and if you lose a key position through injury, picking up someone can be helpful. Penrith could afford to do it. Broncos, Storm, Roosters, they probably could to.
Given the state of our squad (including 1 player basically not in consideration in Matto), i find it hard to believe that the 28 player number is intentional, or if it is, that it is smart.
The mid season signing is pretty rarely a signing that will change the trajectory of the club long term. It is really more a game of hope – i.e hoping a good player comes on the market and no one else has the money to spend to get them.
The reality now is we have unforutnately been smashed with injuries. More than could be forseeen. But we’re 3 short in an underwhelming squad so we have no where to go BUT bring players in. If we try to sign a Xerri (for example) now, when the Dogs know we are desperate, we’re going to pay massive overs. Overs for a player who may not be the best team player. Overs for a plyer we will have to agree to for multiple years.
Bring a couple of younger players in and rotate players around giving them a go, see if they have it or show signs they could have it in the future. And the Managment need to get their tails into gear worrying about 2027. Because the red pen is out and a C grade looks already out of reach.
It is perfectly reasonable to disagree with the approach but the 28/29 man roster is a pretty established MO for the Eels. They value having the flexibility to be able to react to what the player market can spit out. It allowed them to move on Dylan Walker and Tallyn Da Silva and make the attempt to sign Lachlan Galvin. Again, I understand why it can/does draw criticism from fans but there is a logic to it. Whether right or wrong, the club feels that the opportunity cost of being able to attack the transfer market is worth the offset of bumping a modest contributor into the mandated T30 role at the cutoff dates if we whiff.
I would imagine their roster modeling would allow for a reasonable degree of injuries but clearly no one anticipated the wholesale slaughtering of our squad. Throw in Lomax completely hamstringing the top end of our roster AND our ability to replace him with the timing of his departure and then the Matterson stuff and you get this cluster migraine of a roster situation.
You touch on a salient point with Xerri. The Eels now face the tight-rope act of trying to find those midseason pieces to combat the injury crisis while simultaneously avoiding mortgaging their future out of desperation with bad contracts. I am not sure the Dogs hold the cards you are suggesting they do since their relationship with Xerri is seemingly spiraling at a rapid rate but player managers will obviously be aware of Parra’s pressing needs. Still, there was a report that Matthew Timoko was shopped to the Warriors in the Sunday papers (they declined with recruitment priorities elsewhere) so I think there is both value (to a degree) and opportunity out there for the Eels.
I have been advocating in recent podcasts as much in regards to simply looking to the younger talent at the club. If the market for external additions simply isn’t there, or the cost is too high I would rather not compromise our cap long term. And yes, that will reflect on management. I know other fans will have the bar set at a completely different level but I can cop not making a panic move by the dead line but there needs to be quality additions to the roster for 2027 at the very minimum.
I’m 100% with BA Sports on this.
The much more sensible approach to me seems to be hold 30 players on your roster from the get go, rather than filling it mid season. The likeliness of getting a mid season recruit that is (a) in a position of need, (b) quality and (c) doesn’t need a full pre season with us to gel into our playing style, seems unlikely. I’d much rather the club recruit in a considered manner ahead of the pre season. PLUS if you have 30 on your book, you can let someone go who might be underwhelming and looking for a gig elsewhere or an early release, and maybe even replace them mid season.
Walker has been an astute recruit. TDS still sits in the camp of unrealised potential. And to me there’s nothing to say we couldn’t have landed TDS in the offseason after having released Lomax.
Plus on top of all of this, it was only a couple of seasons ago that the rhetoric was the same – I think under BA and when Jake Tago played most of the season – we were thin on troops and out if form players couldn’t be held accountable.
So if the Eels go into 2027 with another under-manned roster, you’d have wonder whether the people in charge have rocks in their heads.
The eels overcame huge adversity to claw their way back and the players need to.be given a wrap. I thought Twidle was outstanding and I really hope he’s signed long term . Ps Mark o’neill and r and r
As Moses was taking the fg attempt from 50 in gp I thought no why, it was low percentage. It essentially cost us the game with that 7 tackle set. I thought he blundered as a kick into the corner would have pinned them thus giving us victory the next set
Overall was happy with the way we played. Not much went our way, and we stayed in it for 85mins. Super impressed with the defensive fight early in the first half when the Tigers were camped on our goal line for what felt like 5-6 sets in a row.
Pezet proving to be a bad signing. He may yet be a long term superstar in the game, but we don’t have the time for him to warm into his role. By the time Pezet is back from injury it will likely be round 6 or 7. That will be 25+% of the season gone, without him firing a shot or having close to a good game. He then packs his bags and takes his learnings from the school of hard knocks up to Brisbane, while we the spend another season in the wilderness looking to blood another rookie in a key playmaking position.
Amid all the media hype on Fox and in the press yesterday and today about the Tigers in 2026 one thing keeps being overlooked. The Eels scored four tries to three with what seemed like half the team absent with injury. Four tries to three.
Goal kicking has been a weakness for several years now. I’m not the only person to have mentioned it. Mitch Moses is an elite halfback. He is a very good goalkicker. We need an elite goalkicker. Yes a lot of kicks were from the sideline. But over the years there have been kickers you know we’re just going to nail them. We don’t have one.
I know Sixties/Forty mentioned the relentless practice the guys put in. And I feel for them when they miss because I see the disappointment in their faces. But we need an elite goalkicker.
I know I want it all – but then, why not.
Finally, I was proud of the effort and determination of the team yesterday. We were up against it several ways. As with many if us I’ll be back next week cheering them on.
Namrebo, perhaps Moses should practice less, he might be leaving his best kicks on the training paddock.
You may well be right Joseph. Who knows!
Thanks for the show gents.
This season feels like it’s slipping away.
As you boys said, we desperately need troops and now. You mentioned a couple of good options that could be available now, it’s time for the club to “break the emergency glass” as John said.
We are in a genuine crisis but good things can come out of a crisis. Ryles literally has no choice other than to blood our rookies I don’t expect to win many games in the near future but I am looking forward to seeing what our rookies can do on the big stage.
Yes we did make errors and dumb decisions, from now on I’m going to call a dumb play a “Pezet” But the team was gutsy and had a red hot crack. We would have lost against a top tier team regardless of who was officiating but the boys did more than enough to beat the Tigers and the ref was the reason we lost that game.
I can’t believe there are people who think otherwise.
Wishing Simonsson a speedy recovery, I hope his injury is not as bad as it seems.
Season is most likely gone now.
There is always the chance that players like Apa, Lorenzo, Nanva and Samrani (when he returns in a few rounds) will turn out to be fully formed NRL stars and players and help snag us a few games…
But we’re more likely be looking at some hard rounds till Iongi returns.
And if the NRL keeps treating parra games as 6again ons… We’ll be getting more injuries
Tough game last night, I was proud of the boys for not giving up and being in it right to the end despite the extreme adversity, not least of which being that your opposing team had 14 on the field.
kicking around my noggin this morning.
– Referees
There is a real problem with the NRL in the way the matches are adjudicated being completely different from game to game. The Rabbits / Dogs game this week was nothing like our game and it was also nothing like the Storm Parra game by that same Ref. It really seems like some games get picked to be 6 again games and other games not.
– 28/29/30 man squads.
I think a bit of perspective is needed here. I don’t care how many players you have in your squad if you lose your first choice fullback, winger, both centers, 5/8th, starting prop and best impact bench forward as well as your best next man up (Samrani)… You are F-ed regardless of squad size.
– Lorenzo
I hope he’s ok this week.. last week Forty agreed in the live chat that he’s on the ‘sooner’ side re. getting Lorenzo into the side. I still think Pezet is a good signing for this year but he is not demanding selection he should be considered quality depth.
I hope this week we see Apa at full back, Joash on the wing a position he may have to play until Jordan’s return and Lorenzo in the halves with Mitch.
Goal kicking. Sort it out.
Short and sweet Bob but bang on. Goal kicking is 100% an issue right now. Moses tends to be a streaky kicker and his sporadic fits of misses are contrasted by long runs of consecutive successes but one of a dozen different ways the game was lost yesterday definitely featured those missed goals.
Peter Gough
https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nrl-premiership/nrl-2024-parramatta-eels-press-conference-clint-gutherson-trent-barrett-liam-martin-obstruction-daejarn-asi-referee-peter-gough/news-story/7eb72e6e614598e1c52360c6cbc08fb1
Peter Gough
https://7news.com.au/sport/rugby-league/parramatta-eels-captain-mitchell-moses-blows-up-at-nrl-referee-after-bunker-chaos-c-18562511
Pezet is a liability as a five eight.
He is half who will probably end up a back up at the broncos.
He can kick and pass and that’s it and yesterday his kicking game was not great.
A good five right needs to pose a threat with a running game, be a strong defender, be a good link to the outside backs and offer some speed in attach.
We had a lot of those things with Dyl Brown.
Hopefully Lorenzo will be fast tracked
Brent Read has indicated the Lorenzo is in line to debut this week so something exciting to monitor ahead of the TLT drop this arvo.
Mark O’Neill has to go! Trolley boy and s doing the no pants dance and can’t attract any talent.