The scene is Eels HQ at Kellyville on Wednesday, with the coaches out on the training track and the players about to take the field.
I jokingly asked the question, “Is there anyone left?”
Instantly, the replies came back.
“How exciting is it!”
“This is why you coach!”
“You always focus on who or what you have, not what you’re missing.”
“Now we’ll see the results of our preseason”
The positive mindset of the coaches shouldn’t have surprised me, but for some reason I wasn’t expecting it. After all, there’s nearly a full team of players sidelined this week, surely that’s nothing to be enthused about.
Eels assistant coaching staff
Maybe it was time for a re-evaluation of my own assessment of the situation. Philosophically, what I heard from the Eels coaches made sense, and it was far better to hear such self belief rather than what Dragons fans heard from Shane Flanagan before the season kicked off.
The first step was to watch this week’s preparation. I won’t go into the details, but the way the coaches and players went through their work on Wednesday made it enjoyable and interesting to watch.
Friday’s session was different. It was serious scrimmage work, followed by instant review on the big video screen. The focus was obvious.
My next step was to consider each of the replacements called in by Ryles to take on the Titans.
Jason Ryles
Coming into the 2026 season, Araz Nanva was on the watch list for thousands of Eels supporters. The big question from many of them: Will Araz make his debut this year?
With so many fans desirous of the elevation of Nanva, his selection would have been highly anticipated at some stage of the season. If so many punters believed in his capacity to step up to NRL level then his selection should be seen as a positive.
Joash Papalii is a massive fan favourite. The calls from supporters for his inclusion at the start of the season were deafening. Nobody wanted to lose the potential superstar fullback that is Isaiah Iongi, but Papalii playing fullback maintains the energy and excitement in that role.
Junior and Joash
The injuries to the forwards ensure that Charlie Guymer is part of the 17 every week. He’s a different type of player to both Doorey and Hopgood, but he’s also highly respected by the coaches, as evidenced by his recent contract extension. Furthermore, he’s also a player that the fan base has repeatedly praised.
Finally, the ever consistent Ronald Volkman gets his opportunity in the top grade. Though his profile isn’t as high as the others who’ve been called into the team, he’s without question been the leading light for the Eels NSW Cup team in 2025 and early 2026. Regular followers of lower grade action would be familiar with his exploits, especially his long distance tries.
Let’s not forget that the reinforcements actually started to arrive this week via the return of Will Penisini. His return has almost been overlooked amongst the doom and gloom felt by many supporters, including myself.
Penisini
And if we focus on the other players that we have, the mainstays, there remains plenty to feel confident about. We can’t ignore the sheer number of players missing, but let’s have faith in those taking the field. If everyone plays their role, there is strength in the pack, quality in the spine, and finishing ability out wide.
Can I get on board the positive mindset train, even after it looks like our Eels have fallen out of the injury tree and hit every branch on the way to the ground?
It appears that I have, but even if you can’t bring yourself to grab a seat alongside me, the most important factor is the coaches have that positivity in spades and the players responded at training this week.
See you at CommBank Stadium.
Eels forever! Parra Proud!
Sixties
Good read mate. – we will be there for our first match. Think it will be a tough opening stanza – we need our spine and Jr to all be v good and hold firm.
Defend well, cut the error rate and kick well – Titans playing good but we can do it over 80.
Keep defence going at all times
Keep the pressure on opposition at all times then the points will come they will break eventually
Most importantly
NEVER GIVE UP.
Hope to see you mate.
Keep defence going at all times
Keep the pressure on opposition at all times then the points will come they will break eventually
Most importantly
NEVER GIVE UP.
Spot on Gary
Great point about what Shane Flanagan said before the season kicked off, not exactly a “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers” type of inspirational talk before the Battle of NRL Agincourt. Looking forward to the game – after reading your piece, I feel good knowing, win or lose, the boys are guided by coaches who care about them enough to inject the right mindset into the team, unlike Flano
It’s why I wanted to share this. And given that I am fortunate enough to have candid conversations at training, I asked for permission to share it.
Thanks Sixties. It’s easy to get down about our start to the season but I believe in the power of 10000 butterfly sneezes and today is a new day on the back of the resounding success of our pathway teams.
Can I also share that there have been a couple of occasions where the reps have been playing on the grandstand field at Kellyville whilst the NRL team have had their captains run. And after finishing the coaches and players have stopped to watch some of the play.
Didn’t know how much this supportive behaviour meant to me until I read it. As a young lad I was disappointed my dad never saw me play. Now I’m older I understand it would have been difficult for him to drive 3 hours from Canberra to Wagga Wagga, where I was studying, to watch a game, or a couple of hours to Tumut or thereabouts for an away game. Maybe for this reason I’m overly sensitive to this insight you shared, but I’m sure it means a lot to the squad having the NRL team take a moment to watch them play. Honestly feel like I’m not going to feel so upset anymore when they lose, sad maybe, but not angry, because they are a family trying their best. NOW LET’S GO GET SOME! GO PARRA!
Fantastic read, more of this please.
Thank you
Why can’t our coaching staff get us up for the first 20 mins of a game.
We get dominated possession wise week in week out.
Why aren’t we ready to go, injuries be damned it’s a shit attitude.
06 again rule is killing us again already
We are on tilt big time our forwards are non existent and I mean a non factor.
Kelma
Gideon
Paulo
Are continually missing tackles, poor contact, walking I’m not sure watch Jason’s watching in video but some of kelmas efforts are absolutely horrid walks constantly
I’ve Never seen a side miss so many starts but it’s now a major problem they even looked flat in the sheds pre game
We are an out and out pub team.
The roster gurus reckon a modern side doesn’t need any speed.
Nanva has done alright but he’s the typical Eels recruit – SLOW.
As for the rest , I have absolutely no idea how some of these blokes get a start in an NRL team.
And for Christs sake Ryles – Jack Williams is an edge !!!! How much evidence so you need to show you that ????
The side is terribly constructed – and the injuries just highlight that more actutely. The backrowers are defensively putrid – there’s no hope with Kelma; cut our losses and start Williams at right backrow. The middle defence, line speed etc is putrid and I don’t know what Ryles will do – he can’t keep running out this team with its critical flaws. Bottom 4 side (maybe even bottom 2)
If I was a gambler I’d put money on opposition forwards to score – our middle defence leaks so many soft tries it’s laughable
There’s limited positives to see in this team at the moment tbh
The worse defensive record to start the year in history – either players don’t believe in what our coaches are telling them, they are not being coached correctly, or there’s some type of unhappiness inside the team (eg pezet signing & persistence) or something else
I don’t know what happened between last season and this year but we look really bad currently and it’s hard to pinpoint what it is that’s causing it
Obviously our roster is bad in a few areas but even the best players we have do not look good (Moses, fox, Paulo) to name a few
Correction: one positive thing..
Volkman has looked far better than Pezet. He isn’t Dylan brown. But he has offered more than Pezet.
Ref has killed this game titans are crap
04 tries pulled back by ref NRL has got it in for parra for banning lomax for 02 years that Melbourne didn’t get him. That’s Nrl having a grudge on us as a club standing ou ground.
I think the NRL were already dirty on us for pulling out of Darwin and then the Lomax situation happened
I don’t get why the club cops it sweet though, they should have followed through and taken the NRL to court but no, they dropped sack at the last minute
Ryles can’t even bring himself to spray the officiating, which a good coach would do, when we get dudded by the ref.
Not looking good for Ryles.
This result is purely on the players. A complete lack of passion. It is a long time since the team looked so disinterested and disjointed. Not for the first time this year but it was for the full 80 minutes. The number of injuries does not excuse the lack of effort. Unlike last week the referee did not determine the result. Our defence, especially presenting a straight line, was pathetic. The game also indicated some obvious shortcomings in our roster. The lack of backline players has already been readily identifiable but how many of our forwards are impact players..? And that is both sides of the ruck.
I didn’t get angry watching the game but was supremely disappointed in the lack of effort. It was basically wtf. Lacking the will to get into position in defence was inept.
It seems to me it is not back to square one but somewhere worse than that. I am not going to get into lambasting individuals because I would hope Ryles can tag the players who are no longer needed. It is pretty obvious.
Thanks to the crowd you tried to get the players going and for once I understand why you booed.
How long does Ryles get, he’s been there a year now and he has a bad habit of sticking with players that should be dropped down a grade for a week
Ryles is soft in the after match presser, never calls out bad officiating, is lost at sea with recruitment
We gave up B.A for this? I would have B.A back tomorrow
There seems to be a massive disconnect between what you are seeing at training Sixties, verses what we are seeing on the field. To me that points to a lack of mental toughness. After last week’s loss to Wests I thought there was a big risk that we would fall in a heap. That was a game we should have won, but let it slip. We back up the following week playing park football, and it’s clear the players confidence is way down. To get out of this will be a monumental effort. To even win another game this year will be an achievement. Without some drastic improvement to attitude, this season will be the end of a few careers at Parra, both on and off the park.