Round 11 has wrapped up, and the “Not So Magic” Round, an Eels home game, has resulted in yet another lopsided defeat.
The current NRL ladder has the club occupying 15th place with only the Titans and the winless Dragons sitting below them. Parra’s supporter base is understandably at their wits end, especially with the magnitude of most of the losses.
The Undeniable Truth
There are three facts that cannot be denied.
1. Parra’s squad was hit by significant and long term injuries at the start of this season. Statistically, to this point in the season the Eels have had more games missed through injury than any other club.
2. Moving forward, the Eels squad needs an injection of “top of the roster” recruits if they are to have realistic premiership ambitions. At full strength, the Eels can be competitive, though perhaps not on a consistent basis. An analysis of the player rosters of the Premiership-winning teams from the last 10 seasons (2016 through 2025) indicates that the Premiership teams consist, on average, of:
– 8 Origin level players in their 17-man squads; and
– 10 international-standard players in their 17-man squads (Australia, New Zealand, England, plus elite players from other nations such as Stephen Crichton, Viliame Kikau, Jarome Luai, Brian To’o)
3. Defensive frailties are exposed on a weekly basis. In their seven losses, the Eels averaged nearly 40 missed tackles per game, versus 27 for the opposition team. Amazingly, the Eels had more missed tackles in all four wins! That stat truly emphasises that they are currently the worst defensive team in the NRL. The much quoted “effort” is non-negotiable in the NRL. To be a consistently competitive and gritty team, the “effort” in defence must be far greater than holding the position of worst defensive team in the NRL.
After highlighting such negatives, the question must be asked, how will wins be achieved for the remainder this season?
The squad won’t change. Future recruitment needs to be the subject of a dedicated post, and I’ve already expressed my opinion in a video posted to our social media platforms.
Matt Doorey
As for the 2026 squad, there will be some returning players, but season ending injuries have put the line through J’maine Hopgood, Bailey Simonsson and Matt Doorey. Maybe they wouldn’t have moved the needle in terms of premiership success, but their unavailability does impact the competitiveness of the team.
The return of players such as Sam Tuivaiti, Gideon Kautoga and Isaiah Iongi might provide some improvement in defence, mostly as it could result in some re-shuffling of positions. However, my expectation of a significant lift in defensive performances remains low.
Negative Plays
An examination of the Eels wins reveal that total Negative Plays (errors + penalties + ruck infringements + 10 metre indiscretions) is a key factor.
In all four wins, the Eels had less negative plays. In total across those victories, the count stands at 57 to the Eels against an opposition tally of 93. In six of the seven losses, the Eels have had more negative plays than their opponents. It averages out at five more per game.
High Negative Play counts, like that against the Warriors, have proved significant
The anomaly was Saturday’s loss to Storm. Melbourne made 27 negative plays to Parra’s 25. As I offered in the Instant Reaction podcast, it was a case of when and where the Eels negative plays occurred.
Completions Are Key
Breaking down the negative plays into their individual components, one stat stands out like dog’s wheels. Completions.
In every win, the Eels completions were above 80%.
* vs Broncos – 88% vs 75%
* vs Dragons – 86% vs 74%
* vs Bulldogs – 82% vs 75%
* vs Cowboys – 91% vs 71%
Here now are the completions for the losses:
* vs Storm Round One – 63% vs 85%
* vs Panthers – 73% vs 82%
* vs Titans – 64% vs 76%
* vs Manly – 76% vs 87%
* vs Warriors – 70% vs 86%
* vs Tigers – 79% vs 83%
* vs Storm Round 11 – 77% vs 71%
Every loss featured completions under eighty percent.
I positioned the Tigers and the Storm at the end of that list. As previously noted, making fewer errors than the opponent made the loss to the Storm statistically anomalous, but it was still consistent with all losses featuring completions under 80%.
And so to the Tigers, where completions came in at 79%, just below the required mark. Unsurprisingly, the outcome was a tight, and arguably unlucky, defeat. That Golden Point loss featured two late and critical errors that proved decisive in the result.
Completions feed into the other negative plays. If a team completes their sets at a higher percentage, they spend less time in defence, which means less likelihood of penalties, set restarts, and of course missed tackles.
High completions against the Bulldogs delivered the victory
The Eels defence is a mess, but every time the team completes above 80%, they win. Go figure!
Without question, the quality of the opposition can force errors. So ultimately, the talent of the Eels opponents is a factor in creating the type of pressure that produces errors. Finding that equivalent talent for the Eels roster is the subject of recruitment discussions.
To that end, supporters understand that the Eels 2026 roster, especially with its injury depletions, does not (respectfully) contain the anything like the number of gun players that the leading premiership contenders boast.
But even allowing for that, in this small sample size of wins, the impact of high completions cannot be ignored. It would be a certainty that this would be the messaging from the coaches.
Any Eels ambitions to move away from the bottom of the table this season can only be realised through minimising errors.
The quest for eighty percent or better continues.
Eels forever!
Sixties
Why is the defence such a mess? It is a miracle we aren’t last given we are conceding 34 points a game. That is unacceptable and not to NRL standard.
My observations are we lose the ruck easily, allowing quick play the balls which in the current PVL ball era is catastrophic. We also have no go forward in our pack so are constantly battling out of our own end in attack and an already poor defensive system is working under fatigue.
It’s hard not to be pessimistic, but I don’t see what we are trying to build with our roster. There are gaps in every position group and our front office has proven they can’t land the top level talent required to address this.
BP, as I stated the defence is a mess and therefore all of those things you say are true, but I’m saving those for another post. For now, the constant for increasing the odds for a win in the short term is completions.
I think that the realisation has finally drawn on most of us that we are indeed a very poor club.
I was one of many who had faith that with Ryles and Matthew Beach and the new board etc that we could finally get our shit together and become what we should be and that’s a competitive force in this competition.
Alas for me at least, the loss against Melbourne really opened my eyes to what an ineffectual poor club that we have become.
That loss was pitiful, there is no other way to address it.
The Storm were abject poor but we were embarrassing.
What is also plainly clear to me is that all this talk about injuries is just a way to excuse the poor performances.
Typical Eels. We grab excuses like drowing sailors.
The facts are that Hopgood is a decent first grade player but Doorey and Simmonson are borderline in ability and would indeed struggle to find decent paying time at other clubs.
Any attempt to infer that the loss of these players in any way should alter our season is plainly ridiculous. ( Sixties I’m not saying you are inferring this in your narrative but others are)
The bottom line is, to grab an old saying,
‘you can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear’
We just don’t have the cattle. Pure and simple.
Mitch Moses is at this point , far and away our only representative quality player.
We have a couple of good players in Iongi and Williams and perhaps TDS and Ryley but the rest are pure dross – Reserve grade /Ron Massey Cup quality.
Those in Cup are truly Ron Massey quality !
NSW Cup should be a breeding ground for NRL players not a place where players who can’t achieve that standard are left to play a substandard competition and take spots from those that may achieve this standard.
Most of the rubbish in this Cup side should be kicked to the kerb and the 19/20 year old kids promoted.
The worst part about it is that we spend the same amount as the top clubs in our salary cap!
We havent played final football for years and won’t do it again this year.
Whilst I never had the privilege to play for this club, I’ve always deeply loved it and followed it for over 60 years, just like my old man but I’m afraid the stark reality is that we are light years away from any success and probably will never get there again.
That’s very hard to take.
Sorry just had to vent.
Spark. I’ve gone into the roster situation in small detail here, and noted that with all available we are at best competitive and not in the race for a title. I’ve added a link to my video on the topic. The club knows my thoughts on the need to recruit at the top end. But the point of this post was about what is the best avenue for the rest of this season to eke out whatever wins we can. It begins and ends with completions.
Thanks Sixties, and some great observations and it seems a simple issue; but without the good depth of players, it can be a v long season.
The game has always been simple – complete your sets; get to the kick; defend them in the red zone etc.
Injuries and PVL changing the game via structure / refereeing aside, we all knew at the beginning of the season that if NRL team suffered key injuries that we would be relying on young players to come up.
The club knew this – and I go back to that club forum on that warm afternoon that I was lucky enough to attend. They were all there. We lack size in the middle – its the teams with a decent spine and some mobile forwards who are doing the damage.
They should have been pro-active in a middle at least and a centre – and I mean some experience. As it is now, we could lose Williams, JDB and more by seasons end with less experience up front than we currently have. We cannot solely rely on juniors.
Within 6 games our roster was lost – and we are without Doorey and Hopgood for the year – not the clubs fault but the lack of back up is.
You guys mentioned this – as did every second fan on this site.
Now we will have Moses in at least one origin game which they also would have known about and if he comes out injured again…..then its groundhog day again.
The issue of R Matterson again rears its head – I understand he has a contract here but this again seems to have dragged on and on.
Agree with all of your observations Milo. There will be no fix on them this season. For the rest of this season, eking whatever wins we can starts and ends with completions.
It’s looking very grim at the moment.
I’m not advocating for a spending spree because ultimately you are in a comp to come first. You’ve got a bunch of teams all in on their rosters with their cap at breaking point and are no where near to winning a comp. I maintain kids need to be the base but having them win one a game a month can’t be fun.
They do need to start moving the needle though. We are actually losing players next year and whilst some aren’t big loses it’s almost at a point of needing warm bodies for 2027.
This can slide very quickly and much further.
As a glass half full you can say at least we aren’t locked into any outrageous contracts like Holmes for example. The opportunity is still there to bring guys in, it’s just how long this club can hold its nerve.
And the fans for that matter.
Luk, the roster situation is really the subject of a dedicated post. Since your reply I’ve added a link to my social media video on the topic. For now, with who we have, completions must be high.
We can look at the Roosters as the pinnacle of how to recruit and bring through juniors, obviously it’s a high mark given their recent success. Unfortunately we now resemble the old pre Richardson Tigers, no idea on recruitment, no support for good juniors coming into grade and a lack of understanding the modern game and market place. Smaller and slower than any competitor.
The club needs a reset basically immediately, and unless they start now, the next couple of years will be fruitless. Not going to comment on the Tigers issues, but we have stacked important positions with ex Tigers and it probably shows.
Frustrating and sad , losing 2 intl players and not replacing them in an already paper thin squad is the reality A roster weaker than it’s been since 2022 seems impossible but true despite opportunities to sign and recruit.
Hey mate, as we have spoken about before, I agree with a future model that is similar to the Roosters, but they buy at the top end with the advantage of a strong performance and post football career reputation. We don’t. We have to face facts and spend on top of the roster recruits first and foremost. But that isn’t the focus of this post. We have what we have this year. What do we need to do on the field to maximise opportunities to win? Completions.
Yes we need to target the top end of the market, the issue is we don’t appear to have the people in position to actually achieve it. Not going to argue that they don’t work hard, just don’t appear to have the people with ”it” in the elite signing space. Needs addressing yesterday, as well as athletic profile speed and size. Too any average size workers and not enough difference makers, you pay for what you get. Papering over the issue with better completions doesn’t resolve the major problem, although it may help the after game dumps.
Still hope for improvement and it’s needed. To be perfectly honest, the club isn’t going anywhere this season. losing Lomax and Dylbro put a massive hole in the team and performance, somehow it wasn’t addressed.
We started the season like we have done since 2022 with open roster spots in the hope that players become available. We have continually had to get dispensation to allow the likes of Lumelume and Tago to play in recent seasons – as early as Round 1. We have players like Richard Penisini taking up a spot on the Top 30 roster and has yet to play a game in three seasons not to mention the fiasco that is Ryan Matterson.
The recruitment and retention committee need to start accepting that lowballing offers or hoping that players become available isn’t going to fix the roster we have.
Changing the coach is t going to help one iota when you continue the same recruitment process that has been adopted.
Greg, I’m not going to dispute any of that. I’ve gone into detail in a linked video. But all that aside, things are as they are this season. What can we do to get any wins in the remainder of the season? Completions above 80% are the common factor in all wins
Sixties, I appreciate the time and energy you have put into this, thank you.
That being said, the eels are in an absolute shambles currently and there needs to be a level of urgency from management to address the situation which has been absent for some time now.
The onfeild stuff with completion rates is interesting and relevant and something that the coaching staff can address but that’s only 1 slice of the pizza of mediocrity (a pizza analogy because I’m hungry), another slice is recruitment, another is attitude/apathy, allocate another slice to the officiating (Storm game aside)in which we definitely got dud calls and Ryles has been reluctant to call it out all year(and last season)
Matto is another slice too, the fact we are in this situation we find ourselves in is an indictment on the managing of the team
Bring back Carty !
True completion rates are terrible. There’s a few reasons leading to this:
– Our forwards are small and lose the wrestle / tackle against larger or more powerful players which gives fast play the balls to our opponents
– This makes the ruck free flowing and our players are on the back foot which drains their tanks gasping for oxygen and rushing to get back onside
– The 6 agains inevitably come partly because our small or less effective forwards can’t stop the momentum so they stay on tackles for longer and give 6 agains
– We then get gassed out and its often only 10-25 minutes into a 80 minute match and struggle to recoup our energy enough to attack
– The errors always flow after we give away 6 agains or get stuck in our own end (partially due to weak forwards) and over play hand trying to get upfield
I’m not blaming just individual players for errors – that’s a symptom to a larger problem which is roster
No injuries are not only to blame we were weak at full strength unfortunately
If the rumours are true, we are in the process of signing Josh Schuster on a train and trial for next year.
He wants to play second row and is almost unrecognisable after losing a bucket of weight and appears to be motivated.
Manly are paying $250 of his contract for next year, so it’s a low-risk gamble. If he signs, he’ll train with the squad for the rest of the year but won’t play until 27.
Apart from that, don’t be surprised if we don’t make another significant signing for 2027. The Bear and Chiefs will blow even our most competitive offer for any player right out of the water.
We could go back three or four years and poor Sixties would probably have been making similar posts about our recruitment, doing his best to stay optimistic and find solutions.
The reality is there are no easy answers with this current setup. I say setup because everyone, from the CEO to recruitment and retention, has failed. The results speak for themselves. I genuinely feel for the coach because he simply does not have the players to compete.