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Plenty of courage, some silly errors and ill-timed defensive lapses along with a handful of baffling calls. Sound familiar? Welcome to Ground-Eel Day. The class of the Warriors prevailed in the end in a tough Round 9 slugfest with the Eels but it was a torrid battle until the final 17-minutes. Sixties and Forty20 unpack another tough loss for the Blue & Gold as they continue to show plenty of fight but remain guilty of getting in their own way.
The spectre of injury also looms large once again with Ryley Smith succumbing to an incredibly painful sternum injury.
Join the boys from 8:00PM as they discuss all of the action out of Round 9 for the Eels.
I thought we played pretty well considering our squad.
I know we have some injuries but when is the penny going to drop regarding the ability of some of our players ??
The Fox is an Australian player .. wonderful.
Russell and Penisini are borderline NRL Players who would struggle to get regular time at other clubs.
I’ve always thought Pensini has always played overweight and the fast pace of this year has well and truly seen him fall behind.
Joash is a Cup player and that’s that.
Volkmann is a borderline NRL player.
Moses is well out of form. If he gets picked for SOO, then that’s truly a joke.
Kelma and Guymer wouldn’t make any other NRL side.
We are positioned on the ladder where we deserve to be.
Damn we have some deadwood at the club.
Agreed – Kelma knock on after 2nd volkman try and then non attempt at tackle for ford try sealed the game for warriors. He is no nrl player. Will P was putrid defensively and is no nrl player either. I agree will is overweight but I don’t think stripping some weight helps
His speed/agility much. He has cement in his boots.
Agree Joash, volkman, Guymer, moretti, doorey aren’t first graders either. Heck Jack Williams is barely nrl standard in good teams with the amount of errors and missed tackles he has. The sooner the club are honest about the quality (or lack thereof) in the squad and ruthlessly seeks to improve it we are on a highway to nothing.
Ryles was very animated at will p giving up on the last rts try. He is hamstrung on what changes he can make due to injuries but he isn’t hamstrung on who he cuts at end of year
Penisini didn’t come across on that last try because he could hardly walk let alone run. I’m not really sure why he is being picked he’s clearly injured with that groin. He needs to be declared injured and pick Nanva
He ran fine the next set for the eels. It was laziness akin to giving up. He may have an injury but that was piss weak (as Ryles reaction showed)
Well I reckon Ryles might be better spending energy by reacting to himself for picking a bloke who is carrying a groin injury
Agreed – picking Kelma, will and Kelly on an edge is diabolical team selection. Ryles is responsible for resigning will and continuing to play him, Kelma etc – all of whom aren’t first graders in any top 8 team
Spark the eels have needed to sign a marquee centre (or) wing going back to years before even Brad got sacked
Remember we were the laughing stock because teams simply ran around us and we could not defend our try line on the flanks
Or at least one of our centres was known as a target where team’s easily bamboozled them?
Waqa Blake comes to mind.. Blake ferguson, sivo and his inability to defend comes to mind & surely a few names you could add…
Kelly and Penisini in defence unfortunately fall into similar categories, then we’ve got a ageing star (the fox) who’s injured atm hence they hardly use him.
I’m actually afraid of what happens to us next year: if we sign no more quality players, and say Moses got injured – we would end up in Dragons territory glued to dead last with Jason Ryles being sacked.
More bizarre things have happened… I still think winning STARTS upstairs. I thought this might be an issue for ryles, but then i underestimated it. It’s clear we can’t sign players – and Ryles is now stuck with the same bottle necks Brad Arthur had to deal with at parramatta.
I hope I’m wrong here but if we have a poor finish to this season and sign no high quality players for 2027? Then my prediction is Jason ryles will be under pressure and may even lose his job next year.
Our entire hope for 2027 is Jason ryles can sign players or we are doomed before we begin.
Spark, bang on mate.
The players we have brought in recently are all aging deadwood at other clubs, I really don’t get it. We are now at the point where we need to take a broom to the roster yet again.unbelievable.
There have been some top quality players up for grabs this year, we have only managed to grab Sua, who you could argue isn’t in great form himself.
We have zero folding ability currently and zero goal kickers.
Moses looks like he’s lost the boys, take the captaincy off him.
I could go on but it feels like a lost cause when we look so rudderless.
Yeah spark make some valid points there although I still think Volkman and Papalii playing off the warriors pack would look like totally different players.
There’s two issues reality is Jason ryles has gone too far the other way from Brad – we’ve gone from “chasing the collision” to “avoiding the collision”
The warriors forwards are large, physical, athletic, and literally had us scatter like bowling pins on several occasions.
If Jason ryles wants to keep his job, he will desperately need to sign a Marquee middle forward for next season, AT LEAST one athletic back rower, and 2-3 solid outside backs to replace Russel and Penisini.
Call me a doomer but I think Jason ryles needs another clean out like he did when he first came to parramatta. There’s too many slow, old, or poor players, and “injuries” is not the excuse either..
Because we unfortunately also looked average even at full strength. You can’t win NRL games with no go forward. His spread wide attacking structure and yardage game has us either stuck in our own end, or too many dropped balls.
I still think some guys can hold head high.. Volkman, Papalii, da Silva, few young guys did try really hard. Thats what matters. Give those guys a quality forward pack to play behind they will look far better.
The club needs another clean out. Unfortunately. But the reality is look at what Warriors have done in a few years with some really high quality forwards and outside backs to work with.
We should be trying to sign some of the warriors forwards. Even RTS from warriors who’s leaving to super league…
Why didn’t we sign him? He still looks better than literally every one of our outside backs…
Yet we settle on Penisini, Kelly, etc.. club needs to be more aggressive on roster if they want to break 40 year drought.
Why can we see this but they can’t? And why even when dragons and tigers sign quality players, but we can’t.
Ryles needs to do what he did when he first came. Clean out a lot of players. Injury’s aside, not everyone is up to NRL standards.
I just think we have to stop carrying players that are just not up to standard.
Look at Richie Penisini .. the boys wax lyrical about his ability but he is always always injured !
Yes he’s injured AGAIN !!!!!!
Just got to say .. mate we just can’t carry you.
It’s supposed to be a business.
Kelma might be a top bloke but if the CEO gives him another contract, he should be sacked!
Everyone is going on about how good Volkmann was today but he missed a mass of tackles.
It just shows how low the bar is.
We are so very lucky that we don’t operate in a conference system because we would be relegated to non existence.
Even without injuries the reality is our roster is not good enough and I’m struggling to see the strategy of what we are trying to build. We don’t have a strength in any position group to build around.
Our pack has no punch in it – we are very easy to contain for any NRL level defence. We lack yardage and strike from our outside backs and outside of Fox don’t have NRL level quality. Some of the errors from Penisini, Kelly and Russell were abysmal.
We’ve been unable to field an NRL level backline for a few seasons now. We lost our international winger from last year (not critical of that decision by the way) and replaced him with a reserve grader in Kelly – another gift from MON.
And we now appear to be exposed by the imbalance in our roster with Ryley going down – we have nobody else who can play hooker outside of TDS.
Feels like a long way back at the moment.
Bp you are right the reality is we don’t have strength in the roster.
Even with brads sides who often were weak but often just made finals & got knocked out..
Often we didn’t have great backs as you mentioned, BUT we had strong middle forwards / plenty of punch.
Today we don’t have high strength anywhere in the roster. Parra NEVER in my life (from memory)? Makes finals or looks highly competitive without a few really strong middles.
Our DNA is strong middle forwards and offloads, currently we don’t offload, and we get flogged up the middle every week by every team.
Even before the injury crisis.. so what’s the answer? I think investing into strong middle forwards and athletic outside backs could fix a lot of things.
Agree Muz – the roster under BA lacked quality in the backs but our pack was always very strong.
I still believe in Ryles but I do not believe in our roster management. We urgently need to reshape our squad and find some quality middles and outside backs.
Strength and conditioning is another concern – our players do not look physically at the level required. The warriors across the park looked far more athletic, fast and fit compared to us.
Agree with pretty much all of that BP.
Question is; If the roster construction is the problem, who is going to fix it? Has MON, Jim or Ryles ever fixed a broken roster. The first 2 have contributed to the complete disaster of the current roster and Ryles, having spent much of his assistant coaching career around two of the best football departments, may have underestimated the importance of quality and mgmt.
To me the roster can not be fixed until issues in the front office are addressed.
Mark O’Neill once fixed a broken trolley when he was a Woollies manager. The guy’s incompetent fingerprints are all over this mess. Him and his mate, Ben Rogers. It is common knowledge in the NRL that player agents hate dealing with him. He basically ended up getting BA sacked and he is halfway to doing it again with Ryles. Nothing will change until the two of them are shown the door but the questions remains does our CEO have the balls to do it?
If the CEO refuses to hold MON and co accountable in the face of pretty indisputable evidence, shouldn’t questions be asked of the CEO and his capacity to hold the position?
Agree.
I’ve commented before on O’Neills incompetence and it is unbelievable he has survived this long. He would have been shown the door long ago at any serious organisation.
While he’s GM of Football it’s hard to see the roster issues being addressed.
We’ll get handed his usual couple of November signings again, comprising guys who aren’t in the plans of other clubs for 2027 and be told they are key acquisitions.
So hard to believe we spend the same amount of. Money on players as other clubs and this is what we have come up with. We have a team of very average players who would be more suited to the Toyota cup.
Our team song should be the Benny hill soundtrack. Our uniform should consist of red noses and wigs. Our team bus should be a clown car. Our motto “There’s always next year.”
How can people train and play full time and still be so bad?
I thought this was quite funny. Haha
Agree on Joash and Volkman they are definately capable of first grade football just look at Tanah boyd he is a deadset plodder but look at what his playing off the back of. Put Tanah in our side and he’d be bog average same as Harris Tavita. There forwards simply dominate teams and give them so much momentum.
As long as Jason keeps this theory of small mobile packs are the way we are on a hiding to nothing.
Three locks and a hooker on the bench is not a well balanced team to win the middle of the field.
Our forwards have been so disappointing majority of the year and how teancum and mataele are still sitting in reserve grade is beyond me.
Opposition Coaches must be laughing at us putting tualagi,Penisini and Kelly together on an edge because I am. A two second review would give you enough evidence to tell you that a disaster waiting to happen so why are the coaches thinking this is a god idea
The small mobile packaging under ryles has never worked our defence and yardage was poor last year and this year too
The bulldogs made it work last year but had very strong hard running back rowers who are rep level in terms of quality
Unless we sign quality middle or two, a start back rower, and 1 or 2 QUALITY outside backs for 2027 – you can almost guarantee we will flop again
I think Jason needs to do a mini clean out again and roll the dice on marquee players – or Job job will likely be under pressure in 2027
Ps no teams win the comp with no punch up the middle and reserve grade outside backs – we are ultimately not much stronger either at full strength
We look remarkably worse than in 2025 which is hard for me to understand
That’s a good point you make about Tannah Boyd.
He would struggle in our system.
If this is not 100% correct, it is pretty damn close ( I haven’t watched any replay)…every Warriors point came in their set after we turned over possession(error or penalty) or 6 Again..
Our good stuff ( and there was a fair bit of it) just got weighed down by the not so good, against a strong opponent.
Apols Forty/Sixties, I watched your session after I made these comments, we certainly watched the same game!
My brother in law and I text each other during games…after first Warriors try I sent him ‘give them the ball they score’..and then ‘like that’ 5 times afterwards. That’s why I didn’t have to watch the replay for a fact check.
Go and buy someone who knows what success looks like. Isaiah yeo is off contract and has publicly declared his going to market do whatever it takes to get him to the club. Forget his age because he is a four time premiership winning captain.
He is the epitome of what a winner looks like and there is no way Penrith keep him and Nathan if we made him an offer he can’t refuse.
There were some bad reads and poor errors, but they played with a lot of heart and not much luck.
Sure they need some key recruits, but bringing in 5 or so more players I don’t think will help the spirit or soul of the club. I’m optimistic that they will get some players across the line in addition to Jaden, and fingers crossed some of our young players like Sam and Lorenzo will be ready next year. Iongi will return strong and there is a team here.
I remember 86, I’d like a premiership, and I think the club can get there with JR.
You don’t think it will help the spirit and soul of the club? What spirit and soul is that exactly? I think this is exactly what we need to change and while I am a big advocate of not recruiting anyone 30+ I agree 100% with Parra 1990. We need someone like Yeo to come and show our players what a true leader is and what professionalism is. We need this so so much.
Hi Hiroshi, I respect you are an optimist. I wish I was too. But I have to ask a few questions to understand how the optimist see’s what they see.
When you say they played with heart and not a lot of luck? What heart are you seeing that is above and beyond every other club. Because of you are just showing the same/ average effort as every other team does, that doesn’t really help.
What luck did we play without? We got favourable 6 agains. But gave away dumb penalties and threw stupid passes. We rarely got the ball in attacking areas of the field.
When you say “ I’m optimistic that they will get some players across the line”, I have to ask, what do you base the optimism on? Again, I’m not having a go, just trying to understand. Because from where I sit, there is no reason to think our management can secure any player where there is a competitive bidding process. Because to date, I can’t think of one.
I’m happy to give Ryles a chance, but I don’t think he is getting a fair chance until there is change above him.
Agree.
How bad was the escort that Penisini did ?
Right in front of the referee.
Damn that was bad.
I watched the game late (but not knowing the score). This is how saw it making notes as I went… side note, pretty consistent with most people’s views:
Great first 10 minutes. Good structure, good discipline.
Worst rule in the game helps us with 2 x set restarts and a strong run from Volkman. Good start.
Poor Ryley. Looked inauculius. He didn’t finish the last two games because of his sternum. If this is sternum, the Eels might get a call from the RLPA for a please explain.
Penalty Parra – here we go…. Nope no we don’t. Dreadful no look pass from Joash.
Moretti had his best start with the ball, but i hope he is embarrassed by that defensive decision. 6-6 all.
Another error from Papalii…
Another try. 6-10
GET KELLY OFF! Ok so RTS try disallowed but let’s review. Six again called on the last. Kelly does not react AT ALL. RTS then runs over Kelly. RTS gets stopped, Kelly then comes back and knocks RTS over the try-line. Seriously!
Walker and Kelma left behind in the ruck, Warriors take advantage. 6-14.
I think we just got a six again because Sutton is annoyed with Egan for his long HIA walk across the field. But it’s all for naught, Joash throws a no look tip-on that wasn’t on, forward. For what it’s worth, Kelly goes for the put down and only comes up 2m short…
We burn our challenge when Volkman clearly gives an escort.
Breaking News, Kelly drops another ball.
Penisini shows how little he trusts Kelly by escorting RTS on a kick no Warrior was getting close to. Penalty goal.
HT 6-16.
Ok 2nd half. I’m going to look for positives.
Brian Kelly! Offload for the try. If he has a half decent manager they would call MON tomorrow and he would probably get a 5 year extension!
Penisini HIA, Sutton again wants him to go off on the far sideline. Again, are the RLPA watching this game?!
Bollocks call on Volkman. I think he mouthed off at a touchie earlier and he has been up against it since.
I’ll bag Joash for yet another error (dropped kick) in hope it will have the same effect as Kelly and result in something special later.
And DWZ bombing a try – couldn’t happen to a bigger twat. That guys hair flicks across his face and he stays down clutching his jaw!
57 mins in, 10-18. We really have no attacking structure and making too many errors, but the Warriors refuse to put us away.
Volkman hasn’t been perfect, but he has been the Eels best by miles. Great effort play again. Game on. 14–18. 2 penalty goals the difference.
Sutton misses a Kelma knock-on. Kelma refuses to play the ball, knock on finally called. The football iq in this team is poor. Kelma backs it up with flat footed non-defence. That could be the ball game. 14-24. 14 mins to go.
69th minute – attacking kick for the right winger…. But the right winger was in the middle of the field. Out of respect for how incompetent that is, I won’t mention his name.
Intercept. Game over time to start reflecting.
I get we are using some back ups and if a Pryke makes a mistake, so be it, he’s learning. But Kelly is dreadful. Should never have been signed. If Samrani is fit, play him. Moretti has been around long enough. He is what he is, a good NSW Cup player. Joash is younger, but the fact he keeps making the same mistakes, suggests he will not improve. Keep him for Cup, but he isn’t helping you win a comp.
Jnr against a powerful pack went missing again. He can’t back up week to week. Where is Mitch? We all love Moses but where is the run?
I get torn on the results. I want the Eels to win, but the losses should highlight the short comings in our recruitment and retention strategy so should trigger change. But it hasn’t in the past, and you know injuries will be used as an excuse along with an organisational structure they had no accountability.
Yep…that was pretty damn frustrating to watch. Our ability to self destruct is without question. The 2 penalties for blocking the kick chase were just dumb and at key moments. I thought Ronny was unlucky with the tackle on Boyd, I thought his timing was ok?
I agree that our recruitment track record is poor at best and in any professional business MoN would be struggling to hold his spot but our injury toll is comparable to the Rabbits last year so I don’t know what many here thinking should be happening?
We were always outsiders to win against the team coming 2nd who have arguably one of the best forward packs in the NRL so the result is not a big surprise.
Penisini’s performance tonight was really disappointing after the last couple of games. I won’t be surprised to see Samrani take his spot next week and Nanva deserves Kellys wing spot.
Mitch needs to find his running game. At the moment he is not a threat with the ball in hand. He’s become so predictable, turning people under or trying to kick the bladder out of the ball.
The biggest concern for me tonight was the disconnect between the players. There was a lot of “finger pointing and angst” between individuals after a few of the Wahs tries as players clearly blamed each other for the breakdown of the system. I haven’t seen a replay but at the game Mitch absolutely GAVE IT to Will P for the 2nd blocker penalty.
Mark O’Neill needs to go. 8th year as General Manager of Football. Thank god for the Dragons this year
I’m ready for this season to end. You see the incompetence all over the park unfortunately. From the boneheaded mistakes like cold dropping the ball out of nowhere, or giving away dumb penalties on plays that gave us no advantage, right through to little things like our recurrent inability to execute clean tackles and get back into marker on time.
We were never in this contest, other than at various points being mathematically close. This team just flat out sucks. And with all the players currently injured being available, I don’t think it would be much different. We’d just have less excuses.
I’m not willing to accept that another season of “loses where we fight hard”. I can’t see what we are building, and there are far more players that look like they aren’t good enough to play NRL, than there are players that look to have a bright future.
2026 is a write off already. Hard to see 2027 being anything more than another rebuild.
It’s unfortunate to say it.. ppl expected us to slip into the top 8 this year including me – But I honestly don’t think we could even at full strength.
I’ll be happily proven wrong but at the moment it’s extremely hard to see our current roster & playing style getting us anywhere even at full strength.
What’s the answer here? Why is our recruitment so bad that even the tigers and dragons are better than us in this area?
I actually think if we don’t have a big roster upgrade for next season Jason ryles will be stuck and possibly in firing line and maybe even sacked.
He came to us as being a defensive coach and we are two seasons in and we have the worst defence in the NRL and it’s with a lot of players that he signed.
I personally think if we had the cattle Jason can coach ok, it’s largely a roster thing.
But my view is that Jason will be thrown under the bus like BA next year if our club cannot or will not pay to sign some elite players for 2027-2028.
Is it lack of competence in front office? Or lack or 3rd party deals that other clubs offer? Either way it needs to be fixed.
It’s gut feel rather than evidence, but I agree with your point Muz. It feels like we are where we are because of 70% roster issues, 20% bad luck and maybe10% some ineffective coaching.
If we put Moses at 6 and take the captaincy and goal kicking off him, does that free him up to start playing like a 1.2 million dollar player instead of a $500k player? How does we get the best from him, because he is truly awful this season
Hmmm…that’s an interesting idea? Mitch at 6, Pezet to 7, even if only for this season.
The number on his back means nothing. He’s not going to change the way he plays, at all. Hes clearly not fully fit, but he’s busting his arse out there, especially in defence. He isn’t our problem.
What’s crazy about the position we find ourselves in at the moment is we’ve had the centre piece to build a roster around for years and completely fluffed it.
It’s very difficult to find yourself a marquee halfback and Parra have done him a disservice.
How did we not take advantage of Gutherson , Brown and Lomax leaving creating an enormous cap amount and do nothing with it.
Moses must have the largest front loaded contract in the NRL.
Once Juniors contract finishes this year we do not have a player Moses excluded anywhere near the million dollar mark so where’s our cap going?
To build a roster you ideally want to lock up a quality halfback, check we’ve sorted our fullback and hooker rotation who’s total would amount to around $2.8/$3 million .
We seem to be leaning towards promoting from within with a junior for the remaining 5/8 position which leaves you with a relatively cheap spine incorporating two hookers.
You then need two quality bookends which for whatever reason we don’t thinks a priority, juniors $950 000 and Mattos $650 000 gives us a lot of room to manoeuvre but Tuavati is yet to be resigned and he’s at the stage where he should be concentrating on being a impact player off the bench not carrying a forward pack.
You get your self an athletic backrower with solid lateral movement that’s able to slot in at centre and another backrower that runs a quality line with offload ability .
We don’t have the former currently and the jury is out on the latter.
You find yourself a high work rate lock who shores up the middle defensively which we have in Hopgood.
You spend heavily on a marquee centre to give you an X factor out wide which also encourages the development of your big athletic young wingers that help fill out your roster without allocating big dollars.
Your other centre needs to be either fast or powerful but essentially strong defensively who also helps out his youthful winger.
You pay a little extra for a player off the bench who can play middle or on an edge who has leg speed to give you some punch off the bench then fill your top 30 up with development players.
I’d love to see our books and how our salary cap looks it’s as if we’ve created an enormous amount of salary cap space to go all in for a season or two just without the signings it doesn’t make sense.
We’ve got Sua, there’s plenty of centres about that meet the criteria.
Manus management is sniffing around again, Tago limited first grade. Xerri on the outer.
Dylan Lucas heading to market , Origin front rower Fotuaika is off contract in 27 as well.
Both clubs are under enormous salary cap pressure and deals could be done early.
There’s plenty of big young wingers not getting a crack in first grade that wouldn’t break the bank but would be advantageous for yardage sets which we’re desperate for .
We just don’t seem to have a plan recruitment wise on what we want to look like, what we need or where we want to get to, it’s infuriating.
I agreee with a lot of this (minus fotoaiku who is just so bad and underwhelming these days). I fear the club will use the injuries excuse and nothing changes – no urgency to improve, no urgency to cut the fat, no urgency to sign players, no urgency to pay overs to get better strength and conditioning people. We sleepwalk through each year with management giving lip service and excuses. It’s disgraceful planning and roster management
Assume for a minute that we have the right team, just like Ryles is forced to.
What’s wrong?
I think the fundamentals.
Ball security is terrible, even good passes are dropped.
Joash isn’t the only one who never watches where he is passing. It has to be fixed at training.
Other players settle for a pass way over the head of the intended recipient.
Even worse, some players look at the tackler before they catch (or frequently drop) the ball.
The backline structure is horrible. Kelly rarely defends in the right position.
Then the strategy for asset of six seems random rather than drilled.
The answer is discipline.
We are probably the least disciplined club in the comp.
Drill it at training, and stick to it on the field.
Without the errors, we might have won that game.
With enough discipline, we would be 2 wins ahead of where we are with a chance of being in the eight at the end of the season.
If we don’t find it, we will lose more games we should win.
One of the most exciting things happening at our club at the moment is the amount of quality young props being developed, Brown, Talagi, Koina, etc.
Nothing against Pryke but we have Walker, Guymer, Debelin playing that role. Why not blood a prop? We lack size and power.
Want to support the calls for changes in the office. We still have roster spots to fill and are in a injury crisis, surely this is enough evidence that the front office is not doing their job properly.
Do we have any faith in retaining them + Petrus with two new teams in the comp and 16 others teams? I wouldn’t bet on it with the rabble in charge
Just on Moses – yeah he’s not in career best form currently but he’s so far from the issue here it’s not funny. It’s almost as difficult to have the quality of halfback in place to win a comp as it is to have the rest of the squad around it and we are fortunate to have the halfback. As someone else said above though we have and are continuing to fluff our lines with the second part of the equation.
This team apparently train 5 days a week and through summer , it defies belief we are so incompetent in almost all areas of the game , our defence is diabolical and attack is limp at best , we resign a guy like guymer who is a player of limited ability and sign guys like Kelly and debelin as our marquee signings, one day I’ll be buried with my parra jersey but will not contribute another dollar to this inept club
While the referee did not lose us the game I’m starting to have real concerns about officiating in general this year.
Just finished watching the Knights V Rabbitohs and seen Ponga penalised close to the line in defence. When questioning the ref, Liam Kennedy, he was told you have to reduce your force. Seriously. I kid you not. Reduce your force. The tackle didn’t look high or late, apparently Ponga just tackled too hard. Rex Mossop would be flabbergasted
Maybe I should be just done with it and watch the touch footy national champs on Kayo. At least I know they are only allowed to touch
Talent is not the issue, the issue is the inability to maintain the intensity for a full 80 minutes, except on occasions like the Dogs game. It’s been a problem realistically for 40 years. We simply just don’t seem to have the willingness to be uncomfortable.
Ok let’s look at a case study…
Will Penisini – all the talent in the world. In his prime could even play SOO.
BUT …
Is overweight. Unfit and slow.
Has nothing in his game except a straight run.
What happened?
1. Will Penisini.
What extras does Will do to address these shortcomings?
He could rock up to Fabris school of speed and train and work on his speed but . He doesn’t.
He could look after his diet – aim to become the fittest player in the team- but he doesnt.
Aim for SOO – but he doesn’t.
No. He’s content being a starting centre for the Parramatta Eels, which is great but he could do so much more.
The club
Why has the club allowed Will to have a mortgage on the centre position when they absolutely know that he has a much higher ceiling ?
Why isn’t the club pushing Will to lose weight, fix his fitness up ???
Before people start with the Will Penisini has no talent line … Ok but he is desperately unfit for a NRL player and that causes his misses in defence and handling errors as fatigue overwhelmes him.
This is emblematic of our club and why we will continue to be a cornerstone at the bottom of the table.
Will should be striving for much more and the club should be hauled over the coals for allowing this lack of preparation and performance.
I’m a big fan of Ryles but he better get his head out of his ass and start demanding these players get to a standard.
Every other team is elevating theirs and we are being left behind at a frightening rate.
Id add: how has the club not made will work on draw and pass. He has hands like feet and no speed so you’d think he’d put in extras to work on how to set up his winger. Most of our backline players have terrible fundamentals (including Russell). Brad Arthur’s staff is responsible for that but so is Ryles staff.
I don’t think dropping weight will solve the problem with Penisni but it can’t hurt to try. We need to sign two centres and a winger and clean out the backline over next two years
Agreed on that. Most games this year we have been in the hunt at half time. That tells me we have the skills and strength to match most teams, it’s just our endurance which is not where it should be. A lot of that lack of endurance actually comes off the back of errors and poor decisions, meaning we expend far too much energy making up for mistakes. The best teams don’t do that – they hardly make any errors at all, but Parra will give you one every couple of sets.
A couple of times a year we’ll put on a brave performance and beat the best teams, but that it not sustainable. We can’t lift 110% every game. We need to be at100% every game, and the coaching staff need to make sure 100% is enough to win games. If it’s not, that’s a roster issue.
It’s not just endurance, it’s a willingness to be uncomfortable out there, a willingness to just do the basics right for 80 minutes. We simply don’t have that. And it’s not just the players, it’s the club as a whole. They say we want to be a developing club, but we keep signing older players who are “win now”, not “win later” players. We’ve never committed, fully and unapologetically” on youth developed in house. No one at the club is willing to play the long game. Where does it lead to ? Take a gander at the Dragons right now. That us in ten years time.
Totally agree, it must be club orientated, we’ve had player,coach, personnel changes, over the last 10 or so years and yet inconsistency abounds, what ( if any) is the determining factor ?
Quite simply we don’t have the forwards to dominate anyone. We compete as best we can but just get overpowered. That means no impetus for the backs to go forward. They defend more than they attack which creates fatigue and then desperation and errors.
Yer have to agree with those points if ryles is looking at raising the bar of the club in terms of standards will, kelma and Brian are missing the mark in a massive way. This is the heaviest I’ve ever seen Brian Kelly look and Will was literally gassed after 4 runs against manly and hasn’t recovered since.
Will and kelma need to moved on the negatives way out way the positives at this point. Samrani should go straight into that right centre spot and be given the rest of the year to make something of it.
Samrani does everything better then will other then yardage and if it was a fight it would be 6 rounds to 1.
Effort, hard work, competing on each play , the score is close….
we look like we are in the contest –
until we are not .
Watching the Eels is a bit like watching a tennis match – work hard, compete, match feels close, then we hit an easy volley into the net – allows a break point , game, set , match.
O’NEILL & SARANTINOS ADIOS !!