What an insane game. That’s it. That’s the synopsis this week.
Join Sixties and Forty20 to try and bring the blood pressure back down to survivable rates in the Instant Reaction podcast.
The Tip Sheet – 2026 Ep 51: Gilded Boot, Golden Point; Eels & Moses Find A Way
On a day when ROLY wrote about league integrity/ conflicts of interest.. and Sixties gives you “take the over 61.5”! For the first time in history a team kicked a winning field goal AND got 2 points after the bell as well, to get the over!!!
I SMELL A RAT!!!! 😜🤣😜
The universe is a strange place. It’s like the stat someone found about how the last 33 to 30 scoreline was in an NYC game and you guessed it – Liam Kennedy was the ref!
Live match notes:
Great start. Good things always happen around Samrani! 4-0
Moses error… I hope that doesn’t swing momentum.
… it did.
Eels have been on the back foot since. 4-6.
Since the TDS line break the Eels last 3 sets have been 23m, 20m and 24m…
This game is playing out as I thought. They’re too fast.
Reed is killing us. Imagine a few more years of him working with Mitch… Lucky they got Josh Hodgson….
Another error. Need a result.
Get a result. TDS try as referee dispels myth that refs are against us. 10-6.
2nd try Cows. Both try’s just dicing up our edges. No one is shocked right..? 10-12
10 to half time. We can concede 1, can’t concede 2 tries…
There it is. Your Brian Kelly error 20m out … No. Saved by the ref…
Another Cows error and challenge burned.
Joash breaks 3 tackles, possibly his first 3 tackle breaks of the year.. only made 2m though.
And another poor pass from Mitch.
kick through by Cows, Joash shields ball over dead ball line. Penalty to Parra for some reason.. one last chance for the half..
10-12 halftime.
Scrambling effort is all that keeps us in the game.
Fingers crossed in 40 minutes everyone is wondering how Eels win despite all the stats. Only way Eels win is by improving our first contact in defence and making tackles stick, getting more (any) PCM’s. Mitch mixing up the kicking game and putting in touch occasionally so we can get our breath. Cows will give us chances. We have to take them.
Another Cows error from Burns! We have to put a strong set together and get points.
Couple of set restarts – Try to JAC. Yet another ordinary attacking set, saved by a Volkman kick!
16-12… interesting.
Rare defensive error from JAC… defence at 6’s and 7’s.. try Cows. 16-18.
I keep watching Moses identical kicks on every play, keeping the ball in play, and think back to Brian Smith. This is a game where he would have e tried to get the ball out of play as often as possible, minimise the opponents time with the ball and try strike against the run of play.
Another line break on the edge. Volkman is no better defensively than Pezet and I am concerned that concussion Russell suffered a month or so ago has wiped his short term memory as he returns to 2023 Sean Russell.
Congrats to Reed. Well deserved try. Miss you Reed. 16-22.
Must be next to score. If Cows score next, it could get ugly.
LOL. This is ridiculous. How are we still in this!? Intercept try – onya JAC. 22-24… 19mins to go.
Good no decision. JAC gets Dearden’s leg but immediately let’s go.
Huge hole Moses takes no one. 9 line breaks against. We could win or lose from here but 9 line breaks isn’t good enough. 22-30.
Attacking set – 9mins to go. Must score…. Awful set. Just poorly organised. Sloppy passing.
Another Cows error – they refuse to win.
Samrani is my boy. Best centre at the club. (And if you had a Samrani-Chester-Luki anytime tryscorer multi @ 21-1, you’re extra happy… just saying)…
Missed?! Moses is off in all aspects of his game. 26-30. Not over…
Real attack! A Mitch Moses short side special- perfectly finished by Samrani and Joash. Conversion missed – the last miss hurts now. 30-30! Here we go…
Ugh! Another Moses kick like every other. They will be in field goal range.
Phew.. that was close.
Off to Golden Point.
We can not just take a set and kick high and long to Drinkwater. 10-30m put, 10 in from touch. The Cows will make it back into field goal range… unless they make another error….
Great run Volkman – must go now!
MITCH MOSES!
WTF?! They scored the match winning point! What happened to advantage?! Wait it is an extra 2 points?! That will do me.
Congrats to the team for hanging in. It was far from perfect – but the Cows gave us a chance and we took it
Enjoyed your observations BAS. And I’m enjoying a much needed Eels win without boasting too much about certain predictions
Damn Jordan Samrani is a bloody good footballer.
No great speed or guile but gives 100% every game.
We are still bereft of quality especially backrowers and backline players and I’ve yet to see Joash beat a player one on one but that’s for another day.
Samrani continues to improve and makes a case for holding his spot. Things happen around him.
and its his first game back im all for will and samrani to play in the centres, russel is a bit off and is leaving the club
4 times we’ve completed over %80 and won all four
Injuries be damned with the 6 again rubbish high completions has never been more important.
It was always going to be the biggest factor
I’ve commented plenty on the issues with roster management but what isn’t in doubt is Ryles has the players giving their all.
They were very brave tonight.
Well said
Few notes from the game:
Things happen around Samrani and if you have watched him at NSW cup level and in every NRL match more points and things happen around him than will Penisini – he is quite large and has X factor but he isn’t fast.
Mitch Moses has origin coming up and we suddenly saw him dial in an insert himself into the game and singe handedly won us that game there at the end we lose without his short side play brilliance + field goal on a angle.
I thought our completions were good and that’s probably what saved us from the cowboys flogging us – it’s so obvious their roster and overall attack looks 2 X more lethal than parramatta’s.
Papalii not playing at fullback all the time in cup and training a lot in the halves has weakened his form as a fullback but I do believe for a young player just learning first grade he is doing ok.. fullback at NRL level basically is the most exhausting position in the game.
The more I see Volkman play at 5/8 the less I want to see Pezet return at 5/8 for the eels – he is clearly a better footballer than Pezet is at this stage of his career – Pezet often got media hype but the reality is Volkman offered us much more at 5/8.
Ps what a win.. and THAT short side Mitch Moses raid? Probably the best short side raid I have ever seen in rugby league. Absolutely brilliant 👍
Muz, completions rule. The less you turn the ball over and defend, the less opportunity a ref has to penalise you or give a six again to your opponent
i think hes fast enuff for a big guy i like him a lot that little joash is gr8 for out team hes upbeat makes his tackles and pops up in support volkman is x factor at times that tony mataele was impressive and much better than i thought. our hooker is fantastic and once moses gets off his back a little will be awesome gr8 speed big can hit and plays big mins
Incredible win by the boys.
Enjoy Gianni
For me, our best win of the season. Yes Cows should have won with a leg in the air based on line breaks, but that and tackles missed was their only win. Parra won through sheer effort, never stopped trying and those extra efforts were the difference. Hailing Moses as the Savior is way off, he played a good 10 minutes. Samrani for me was best player on the field. The bench was also impactful and allowed us to stay in the game. Mataele was enormous with his metreidge. Pryke cleaned up the middle and kept making effort on effort. Junior had more impact also from the pine. TRUST THE PROCESS.
Agree about Samrani Brad. Had a ripper of a game.
Samrani might just be my favourite player at the club right now, loves eating up some metres and always finds him in the right spot at the right time in attack.
I think Kelly has been over hated this season, especially after his move to the wing, gets through a bunch of work back there to help us. If (praying) we get a relatively full strength team this season and you don’t want to change the centres I’d have samrani as a step in to move into kelmas edge spot.
I was calling for volkman to wear the 6 when we put footy dean there last year, always just looks exciting in attack and his experience at 7 gives him a good kicking game to let Moses get tackled on 4th.
Mataele has definitely changed my opinion this year aswell, runs looked great and actually affected the line. If we get some numbers back I’d be trying to find a spot for him on the bench still.
Agree about Mataele – he brings the impact Sebastian.
I want to see samrani as our centre moving forward over Penisini. What do we have to lose?
Samrani is a guy who things just seem to happen around him. Will P no way sets up those tries or Ices those opportunities like Samrani did. And he ran for over 200 meters.
I want to see ryles be more agressive here. I don’t him to get too loyal like BA was who didn’t like to upset his experienced players by letting upcoming players take their jerseys.
I know will is injured but i personally thing his upside growth potential is seemingly limited. Samrani is a X factor player. Our NSW cup player of the year. A true meter eater who’s a point scorer and tall / good kick target.
Tony Mataele is also playing well. I want to see big Teancum brown also into the mix. Jason ryles needs to go back to being more agressive again like we was when he first came. Give the Jnrs priority, give the better form players first choice. I would even consider giving Nanva a go again over Sean Russel. Blood him for 2027. Samrani & Nanva likely have more upside potential.
Will Penisini is unfortunately a player who I think the eels need to seriously consider moving on from. Or making him a nsw cup centre once we he returns. Give Samrani the jersey to keep if he’s a form is good.
I think Ryles will have plenty of interesting decisions come round 13
that second last game will played was absolutely barnstorming maybe put more coaching into him but leave him in the team quality
Channel 9 giving POTM to TDS… No disrespect, it’s not that I thought he had a bad game. But let’s be realistic, he wasn’t even the best hooker on ground was he? I was yelling at him to run from DH through that second half, I think he missed opportunities there. Super-impressed that he got through 80 minutes in those conditions. Just thought Samrani was more influential. Hell, so was Kelly (and he is seriously yet to win me over).
TDS featured in the 3,2,1 votes for many of our live viewers but Samrani probably polled better. Mataele also received plenty of votes.
paulo was good from the pine , jdb good team man, jack williams did a lot of good things and hits very hard, guymer big effort, kelly is a beast at times, jac good game