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Down 7-6 at half time it was all there to play for in Round 8 for the Parramatta Eels. Alas, a terrible second half marred by many, MANY errors paved the way for the Sea Eagles to rush to a 27-6 lead before the game ultimately finished as a 33-18 loss. The Tip Sheet looks at how such a spirited first way gave way to a meek second stanza and with yet another addition to injury ward (Dylan Walker, pectoral muscle) stretching the Eels even deeper – how do they cope next week?
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I’ve got Russel going to the Wing to replace KELLY next week.
I’ve got Nanva back to centre. Kelly knocks on several times per game often in our own 20-30. he GASSES out our whole team / turns momentum every time it happens.
Kelly dos some good attacking things. But we need less errors.
I’ll also stand by my comment on a previous blog here from Rolly Polly Eel: We can’t expect to see consistency from this eels team on a weekly basis when our two best players are past 30. I don’t think they can play at 100% on a weekly basis. We basically have a weak roster. No parra eels players will play origin this year I suspect unfortunately.
Moses probably gets picked – I hope not but I think he likely will.
He may be selected but in all honesty he doesn’t look up for it. If Strange was healthy, I would give either him or Luai a crack. Moses doesn’t look the same as last 3 years.
1). Defence for the first time in over probably 5 season’s has looked weak multiple times per game.
2). His form is nothing close to what he can offer although I’m told this is partially due to parra / ryles using him (both in off season + in season) in a more conservative way to hopefully reduce chances of him missing as many games as he did during previous seasons.
3). The blues coach said he wants to pick players on form and Moses hasn’t looked in form. Luai probably is my choice. Although he’s coming back from injury.
Ideally Moses gets overlooked – and this triggered his ego, which leads to a big lift in form for the eels.. haha
Footy is a simple game; hold the ball; defend; kick well and back up!!
I know we’re down on troops / injuries and some questions to be asked abt these incompetent refs; but the errors didn’t sit well with me.
Gee it’s hard some days being a fan but we stick together.
I bloody hate Manly.
Dylan Walker injury – i hope thats minor
I think our inexperienced forwards aimed up and showed heart, Guymer, Moretti and Pryke, worked there arses off
First half pretty good but should have been in front for all the field position we had
Stats say Moses run for 6 mtrs; should be alot higher
Sean Russell was under done first game back, has to be better next week
If it wasnt for our scrambling defence, Manly would have reach 50
Manly replaced some major players late which made the score look better than actual
I figured out how to be an Eels supporter- I’m watching Penrith and pretending they are Parramatta, we are beating the knights go Parra !
Effort is non negotiable and I think the players gave that today but with the amount of cattle we have out we simply have to be perfect each week for 80 to compete. Games are really hard to watch at the moment because it’s like we are fighting with one hand behind our back at times. We were terrible in the second half and got the result we deserved but watching us run out against teams nearly full strength and we’re battling to come up with a squad of players most weeks is hard to get excited. Warriors next week with maybe 2-3 players out meanwhile we have 14-16 It’s just getting ridiculous
Next three weeks are going to be a huge battle and if Moses and Paulo were to go down I genuinely don’t think j we could be competitive
Agree, Moses will probably go to origin and get injured there again(I’m not being dramatic when it happens like this every year) which I’m not upset about because he has not been anything special this year, I want to see Volkman 7 Lorenzo 6
Special thanks goes to the recruitment staff, I would fire them if I could and poach some Penrith staff, how do they have better systems than us?
We have to move past this bashing the refs.
Not that I believe they are honest or competent but because we have to work within this framework.
Complaining about the officials gets us absolutely nowhere.
I thought we were lucky to be anywhere near them at halftime to be honest.
Its that old joke ..one Eels fan talking to another
” I thought we were in that game until that kick ”
” What kick ”
“The kick off”
They were just too fast and too aggressive for us but that happens when you have the recruitment ability that we have.
Play reserve graders .. get reserve grade performances.
Yes, 100% correct. I myself was disappointed to hear so much blame being given to the officiating(Gough & Badger together is taking the piss though), if we tidied up the handling errors and the 10 in the bin it would have been a grandstand (or thereabouts)finish
I think we held the Eels plenty accountable Spark. The game was won and lost in the 3rd quarter due to our repeated and frustratingly simplistic errors in spite of some gusty efforts either side of that.
It is completely fair to put the majority of the blame on our own issues and also call out a diabolical game from Peter Gough…of which we have a long, long, looong documented history of poor officiating against us even as recent as Easter Monday.
By your own logic why then complain about recruitment? Surely it too gets us absolutely nowhere? Celebrating, commiserating and complaining are the mechanisms available to fans. I am completely happy for you to verbalise, well type but you know what I mean, your frustrations with recruitment as I am for anyone to vent about some genuinely substandard officiating.
The difference is quite simple mate – we can control recruitment.( Or lack thereof )
We have absolutely no control regarding substandard or dubious refereeing.
When we continually sound off about Gough or others, we just offer a crutch to excuse our own substandard performances.
And yes .. I’m aware that you both called out the Eels players as well.
I understand though, the standard of referees in at it’s lowest point that I can remember.
Personally, I fully expected the blow out after halftime as I could see that we were just hanging on by our fingernails in the latter part of the first half.
Manly were better but the game turned on the 6 Again around the 55 minute mark when we had been defending for near 15 minutes after half time. Couldn’t see a breach and Manly were not disadvantaged in a messy desperation moment near the line. Pretty sure it was 5 th tackle.The first half was a keen battle mostly shaped by the players.
I thought they might review Manly’s first try, check out No 12 (Ben Turbo, good player) not competing for the ball but nudging into the airborn Penisini enough to cause a problem. Was worth a look. Haumole deserved sin bin for second dangerous head shot. I think it was a St George forward who got 10 in the bin for a lesser shot where the ref said ‘you didn’t adjust to miss his head’ .There was no adjusting with Haumole, he just poleaxed Russell’s head.
Russell copped a hiding today, what did he do to Manly
There were a litany of poor calls and no-calls BDon even factoring a bad call that went in our favour in the challenge for the Jack De Belin lost ball.
The interference on Penisini at the start of the game is a really interesting one since it has been such a point of emphasis for the NRL this year but since the Roosters/Cronulla game in Perth it feels like they have REALLY walked back interference/disruption.
Both Manly players poorly timed their jumps and never earned any priority to play at the ball and both impact Will’s ability to defuse the bomb. A different referee and video review official could easily call that the other way.
Haumole should have spent at least one stint in the sin-bin. No other way around it. Twice he made direct and forcible contact to the head of an Eel (Volkman and Russell) but these insane inconsistencies are simultaneous a big part of the product right now and one of its biggest issues.
Geez it’s hard to be too critical but when you start each set with at least 1 or 2 surrender tackles, you’re on a hiding to nothing.
Joash and the Fox (who is cleary injured) were both guilty of catching bombs and just dropping to the ground. Yes, they were hard ones to catch but I reckon there were 5 times in the second half where we took 3 tackles to go 10 metres.
Charlie Guymer also provides very little in attack. Absolutely dominated in all by 1 run today and the blokes getting the runs after him were getting levelled.
This is what happens when you have more than a few 2nd and 3rd stringers against an almost full strength, monstrous team. The errors then came from fatigue.
Moses also missed his assignment on most of his short kicks. They were all landing 10 metres from the try line.
Handling cost us today but there are some boys in the team playing injured and it’s telling.
I like what Guymer bring in defence but geez it’s going to be a shortish career unless he can find a way to avoid getting lined up and smashed every time he runs it. It’s like he’s been in a car crash every time he gets tackled and he gets up slowly each time to play it. He just seems a bit slow or something which I’m surprised at because I thought he was an ex centre. He needs to maybe a step into his work
Seriously though, has a team ever had a worse injury toll in the opening 8 rounds of the NRL?
I’d love to see a comparison but the last three teams we’ve played have all only been missing 1-2 players from their entire squads and we are down 13 and counting.
NRL Physio keeps track of the impact of the injury toll on each team in a competition ladder format and to the surprise of no one – the Eels are the clear leaders in 2026.
Game of 2 halves for me.
First half, better than either half against the Dogs. Yes we only scored 6 points (remember how many points came from the Dogs failing to defuse kicks, turnovers and just generally deciding to play a prop in the centres), but structure was better, and all were running hard and making good inroads with great resilience on our line. 2nd half it was just so disappointing to see how quickly they keeled over, it was reminiscent of the Titans game. Ultimately we had no answer for Olakau’atu and as the game wore on, our middles just caved.
No team is perfect, but we just have too many moments of regret.
35 seconds before half time Walker, stupidly, tries a high risk play that gives Manly the half time lead and injures himself
Kelly. You can’t keep having multiple errors and off loads to no advantage in your own 20m zone. He tries hard, but it isn’t good enough.
Sean Russell looked like Sean Russell of every years before this year with some awful defence and defensive choices.
Williams. The Fogarty try. Just standing there flat footed.. Not good enough.
I’ll give Joash a wrap. Defensively in particular.
JDB first stint commendable but second stint, like everyone, was a passenger and very ordinary.
Given it was Brookvale, where no one wins the battle of the officials I would have thought, given Gough apparently hates Parra and always is out to get us, that he would have had a huge impact on the game but he didn’t. Of course he didn’t.
The short drop out didn’t work. Let’s pump it long and sting hard in defence.
The da Silva sin bin was classic milking, made it look worse than it was.
I loved the hustle to save the length of field try.
2 short dropouts, 2 tries to Manly.
It’s an idiots play.
Manly have developed an interesting tackling style where the third player in lifts the runner’s feet and the other 2 smash him onto the ball with enough force to make it almost impossible to hold.
We lost 2 or 3 that way.
Late in the second half, the ball movement looked good. Should have done it earlier.
Exactly they have Saab on
one side Olakolatu on the other no brainer.
I always enjoy (and I don’t mean it facetiously) the varied discourse on line drop outs since there are legitimate merits to either side.
As opposed to you Stix, I am very much for short attempts although situational footy means I think there are times you should definitely go long. The opportunity to steal a possession from your opposition is more valuable than ever in the current metagame. My issue lies in the fact that Moses is not a great exponent of the short restart. Clinton Gutherson was much more consistent in the execution of his drop outs.
I take real umbrage with the process behind the TDS sin bin since it was communicated from Bunker to Gough that he met with multiple indicators of illegal spear tackle. Hands between the legs and driving force alongside going past the horizontal. Da Silva had wrapped around the Manly player – not hooked in under the legs – and the bizarre jump of the Manly player added all the driving force.
Anyway, it is spilled milk now but thankfully the charge sheet is out and it is only a fine for TDS.
I’m starting to think part of our problem is Moses with his long kicking ability, the team don’t have to run it hard if they are a bit tired because they know we will be kicked out of trouble.
We shouldn’t be so reliant on the long kick, we are going to get smashed this week if we don’t run it hard
Nanva needs to come back into the squad. He looked better than Russel did at centre for his first 2 seasons at nrl.
Get rid of Kelly. Put Russel at other wing. There goes our handling errors and poor defensive issues.
Who else agrees? As Ryles said in 25’ “the future is now” – why not put Nanva back in who played good against the dogs?
Has Nanva been elevated to our top 30 squad for this season? If not I think there is a requirement for dispensation from NRL to play him
That wasn’t made clear in his 2027 extension/upgrade announcement. I am plenty happy to see Nanva get more playing time but until Round 11 it might be completely at the behest of the NRL and the dispensation they choose to provide to us.
I think it was Leilua in St G v Roosters got 10 in the bin for only one shoulder high shot, less forceful than Olakau’atu’s two (Volkman and Russell). Both of Olakau’atu’s were done with momentum and force, it was not clear initially how contact unfolded. With Volkman the shoulder glanced upward into his head and with Russell he just smashed him in the head/neck region. I don’t think Gough properly saw the Russell one, the bunker seemed to tip him late, but if they saw it, should have binned him..it was high,without due care and dangerous and his second offence. Leilua would agree.
Amongst a class of shit gough has to be the worst of the lot, or at least he is for us. Whatever we do he does not like and whatever our opposition does is absolutely fine until the final 5 minutes of the game where he can find 3 six agains in a row. Missed forward passes, knock ons, head high tackles, shoulder charges. There’s a reason why he’s the referee that Moses is the most animated with.
Now onto our failures. In a time with so many injuries we need Paulo to stand up and he’s only done it for 1 week. He’s been a fantastic player across all levels of the game and to achieve what he has for a player of his size is astounding. But he’s no longer up to the speed of the modern game. Kelly despite his handling errors is actually rucking the ball really well on the wing, if he can learn to reign in the offloads which will hopefully limit his errors that is his position going forward.
The rest of the team I don’t believe played too poorly. What we’re missing is talent and with 11 or so injured, 1 who cannot be picked and another who left on the eve of the pre-season you can understand why we’re lacking the polish in attack and fitness in defence. Penisini is playing through a groin issue but continues to run with intent, Da Silva is starting to get it together and learning how he can run the ball with a dominant half, Pryke is proving he can be a solid option off the bench and maybe with a bit more time a starter.
Let’s just take a minute to really look at what’s going on with the officials.
The referee (Gough) yesterday has a communication device in his ear.
There are 5 people on that communication device.
1. The referee
2 .The Match official co ordinator.
3. The two lines people
4. The bunker official
Plus there is a referee coach in the stands who supplies a step by step analysis with video of his/her performance.
I can just imagine how hard it would be to fully concentrate with that amount of chatter in your ear.
Whilst it’s easy to be critical of the referee, what’s the lines people doing ?????
They are there to catch forward passes, disruptors, blockers etc .
As for illegal play, the bunker tips the referee off all the time.
If they miss something then it’s not just the referees fault.
Both Volkmann and Russell stayed down for an appreciable time so that the bunker could view the tackles and advise the referee as to whether they were illegal.
So what part of Peter Gough’s performance are we so upset about ??
Seems to me that Gough is the easy fall guy in this.
Who are you, Spark Gough. The ref’s are out there all game, they know when a team is at it’s most vulnerable and fatigued and when to deliver a fatal six again. Our team is certainly off the pace but gee we get some momentum changing calls against us. Apologies if he is your uncle.
Spark, whatever it is I discuss, I attempt to be objective, not personal and ask myself ‘is there evidence to support what I’m saying’. Even then, others will have different opinions and on TCT I call them ‘counterbalance’ not crap.
The replays yesterday clearly showed both Volkman and Russell were hit in the head with O storming into each tackle with his body weight and momentum near full throttle. The current world of our game doesn’t discount for glancing off the collarbone area (Volkman) or misjudging (Russell) or being 6ft 5” (The Big O) getting technique wrong. Somewhere between Gough and the bunker what has been happening to blokes all year (eg Leilua on Saturday) didn’t happen to O. It’s a reasonable take on events, I didn’t lose sleep over it.
Sorry mate usually enjoy your comments but Gough has continually come up. I’m sure he got stood down or given a rest after a recent parramatta game so why do the nrl continually appoint him to our games? always controversy
Gents… Look all I’m pointing out is that whilst people are raging about Gough, it’s a collaborative effort.
As for Volkmann /Russell incidents that was clearly clearly an analysis from the bunker.. completely out of Gough’s hands.
And no, I’m not related to Peter Gough or any referee but perhaps instead of just crucifying the referees perhaps we can acknowledge that ALL the officials at that game were equally poor ?
The lines people do fruck all all game, perhaps it’s time for them to step up ?? And don’t get me started about the bunker !
Lots to admire in Kelly’s game and he does things other players can’t do. He also rucks the ball with gusto. However, those mistakes! Losing the ball in our own 20 on the first tackle was the crucial turning point in this game. Our boys had defended bravely against the odds up to that point. With that mistake, you could hear the hiss of deflation. Bang bang bang, three quick tries and it was all over. Pleased to say we didn’t give up. This is probably a team capable of upsets when things go right but winning streaks are sadly unlikely.
On a more positive note, some young players are showing promise.
What are we doing about the vacant spots in the roster?
Apparently Mark O’Neill stated that the phones were running off the hook. Stay tuned but please don’t hold your breath.
Despite ill health I hope The Team finds the energy to suggest grades this week. I suspect the discussion around grades could be revealing. I imagine that very few of us are anticipating the winning of the competition this year and so our thoughts are focussed on the number of players currently with the club who are without contracts for 2027 – how are they performing in the collective opinion? We know Pezet is moving on, few of us would expect Matterson to be back; by my calculations that leaves eight NRL spots and five development contracts still open with maybe six contracted players who are still unsigned; who are our priorities? I see Richie Penisini scored three tries in Cup on Sunday – is he worth a look in NRL or has Nanva claimed his spot?
Lots to consider
We should congratulate the Saints because at least they are taking steps to address their shortcomings.
Nanva had an absolute shocker on the weekend.
I’m all for investing in juniors but where are the outstanding juniors at Cup Level that are demanding to be selected?
I understand we have a injury problem but we will get nowhere if we don’t invest in PROVEN NRL players.
There are a number of NRL players who are ripe for the picking now.
There is nothing to be gained by sitting on our backsides saying that the juniors just might come through because they might not.
We need to improve our squad NOW not in 3 years.
I thought that we HAD to have 29 players registered as top 30 prior to 30 June?