Mitchell Moses will miss Round 14 for the Parramatta Eels but will he turn out for the NSW Blues in Game 2 of State of Origin? The Tip Sheet tackles that uncomfortable question and more as the Blue & Gold ramp up for a King’s Birthday long weekend clash against the Canterbury Bulldogs on Monday.
The Manly Sea Eagles have finally committed to hot shot interim coach Keiran Foran with reports emerging today that the two parties have agreed to a 3-year deal. It is a big week for contracts on the whole with the first tenders for the new broadcast rights coming in while Connor Watson has confirmed his future with split tenures across the Dragons and Chiefs.
With respect, we don’t have a competitive roster even at full fitness. This is a bottom 4 roster (bottom 6 at best) at full fitness. The backrowers can’t defend (which Ryles doesn’t seem to hold them accountable for given their inconsistent attacking flashes) and the middle is the weakest in the competition. We don’t wrestle well at all and our contact is weak. The backs are bottom 4 in the nrl even at full strength. We are amongst the slowest team in the comp. We still concede the most metres per set (as we have done for years). We still have a putrid kick chase. So Let’s not kid ourselves about where we might be when healthy and what injuries have meant for this squad. We weren’t top 8 contenders at full strength. And that begs the question: what was the plan for this year? What is the plan now? There doesn’t seem to much direction other than tossing out a team and hoping they are competitive? Why are reserve grade backs still full of Ron Massey standard players? Is it not worth promoting more promising juniors? Why are players in nrl like tualagi who may not be with us next year? Why is tuivati and walker unsigned when they are valuable parts of the team? Who is our backline getting slower while others prioritise speed?
I get the podcast seeks to be positive and not linger in pessimism about the team/club and I respect that. It is nice to hear different perspectives to my own. But I just think the front office (from the ceo down) are responsible for a shitshow that has been so predictable and avoidable. I don’t trust them to make the right calls and they’ve had far too much time but kept making similar mistakes. What other organisation pats themselves on the back for failures like this front office does? They’ll probably still tell us about pre season comp and a couple wins at end of last year. Maybe they’ll bring up the gf (non)appearance and the avoid acknowledging the fundamental flaws in the team even then. The joint stinks. Perception is reality in this game of recruitment and retention.
Anyway, I respect Ryles and the coaches who are trying to squeeze a lemon that doesn’t have much to give
Often other fans ask me where we spend our money. They tell me how they go looking for our full squad and are shocked and hour poor the quality is. Even the injured players aren’t that good. And I tend to agree. We overrate our players and lack top end quality.
Agree 100%.
We are dying as a football team and that’s no knee jerk reaction.
The point everyone seems to miss is that even when 100% fully fit, we have a very poor club roster, certainly not a roster that in anyway could challenge for a consistent top 8 spot.
The fact that we have spent our salary cap is astounding.
I actually get to a point that it’s hard to comment about it, as it’s coming to a point that apathy starts to creep in.
These days whenever I go to a business lunch with league people, the subject of the Eels is met with resigned laughter.
All the directors have the same line, ‘We are suffering from an unprecedented Injury crisis’ .
Damn we can find an excuse out at Kellyville and that’s a fact !
Ryles isn’t stupid and is incredibly frustrated by the club despite all the smiles.
It’s not going to last.
I’ve spoken to enough people who are close enough to Jason to tell me that the ship is full of holes and sinking and there are captains on the bridge screaming ” Full steam ahead !! ” Absolutely oblivious to the current situation.
The boys here would attest that Jason just runs the company line but the couple of conversations I’ve had with him tell me , hes on the way out and if the Storm job comes up and he’s out of contract, he’s gone.
It’s just in his eyes.
And yes .. the Storm HAVE apparently made contact but the Eels have done the ‘hes under contract ‘ routine.
If we have a kind injury run next year and find ourselves again at the bottom , which is highly highly likely , some of directors may call for change.
They are good, decent business people who care about the club but we desperately desperately require reorganisation via a decent footballing director who has been around like a Matt Cameron or a Shane Richardson who can rebuild the club.
Matt Cameron isn’t going anywhere so I would be grabbing Richardson with both hands and feet. He knows how to rebuild a club and we are basically the Tigers 3 years ago.
At the moment we are the Titanic just heading out to sea with lots of glitz and pomp and a disaster waiting to happen.
The sooner the club understands this, the sooner we can start the rebuild.
I think it’s fairly obvious that Ryles will leave as soon as a competent/strong club like roosters or storm offer him a deal. We are run by muppets full of spin and lip service. Why would he continue wasting time at a club that isn’t serious about winning?
I’ve pretty much reached apathy. The only real thing keeping me engaged is I know if we lose Ryles we will get the spoon for a couple years. Him and his staff are the only thing between us and the spoon as the roster and front office are bottom of the barrel
Ron see the dragons?
They signed:
kaloamatangi
Drinkwater
Metcalf
Sami
AND they are dead last with 1 win since mid last year sometime
The parramatta eels? We haven’t had one high profile signing in years
In fact every “high profile” signing we have came from desperate circumstances either they wanted out of previous club asap or unwanted by other clubs
I’m not sure not sure how people can be honestly bullish about this club anymore
As of next year the dragons, tigers, bulldogs, dolphins and titans will all have a better roster than us
We are sleep walking into either wooden spoons or the coach looking for an exit if a better club can give him an opportunity who can actually sign quality players
No way can we all keep acting like everything is normal – something is not right, zero high calibre players sign to parramatta
But even the dragons can sign them … please someone explain to me how the guys running parra are all still retaining their jobs ?
Dragons have gone high risk for high reward. We go low risk, no reward and excuses. No wonder fans are numb
Thanks for the info, Spark.
The big question is whether our recruitment and retention team can survive this, or whether they’ll once again escape scrutiny while another coach becomes the fall guy. The board, Mark O’Neill, and our CEO—who has found himself in the headlines this week for all the wrong reasons—are doing little to convince anyone that this club is heading in the right direction.
Without a genuine circuit breaker, we’re destined to remain stuck in the wilderness. I keep trying to find reasons for optimism and convince myself things will improve, but deep down I know this club is a basket case until the people responsible are held accountable.
Completely agree and the performance of the front office in regards to our roster and general football program is amongst the worst in the league.
I don’t see how they are actively improving the team for next season. They seem only capable of signing the rejects from other clubs once they’ve finalised their squads. We have been bottom 4 of the comp for the majority of the past 3 seasons and I have zero faith that Sarantinos, O’Neill and Rogers can improve us.
Regarding the fellas comments above about our roster and quality – Unfortunately we won’t see a massive change in the current trend of signings and roster
Until there’s major changes in either staff or policies up in the front office
We basically offer no third party agreements – we are not competitive with other sides
Why would player managers come to us when they can get bigger salaries and better TPA’s elsewhere in virtually every scenario ?
I’m not a doomer but I’m being realistic here, our roster development is a joke, look at the signings the dragons who had won 1 game since mid last year have made in recent years
For anyone who’s serious about this club there is writing on the wall that there’s a bottle neck or issue holding our club back, and we likely may see more years of pain until the people running the joint change or they change their stances on TPA’s and paying overs for quality players
We have a better roster at full strength but let’s not be delusional, we are the only club in the NRL who cannot and will not sign high caliber NRL players who can make your team become competitive for the premiership
I spoke to a bloke who played NSW cup for roosters and he told me that it’s well known Eels only “pay unders” and that there’s no TPA’s, and the consensus among players is that the eels will never win a comp because they don’t ever have the roster
I’m a bit more positive than that and believe we can win it again one day – but it’s HARD to see how if we are the the only club who cannot sign star players in the NRL
We desperately need change or results may remain the same for years to come, why can’t we do TPA’s and pay overs for just a hand full of players like every club does?
If Moses goes to origin camp whilst not being able to play for the club for another week due to injury then this is going to affect his legacy, so in time when he’s finally done with origin what will we be left with? He’s misses too many club games for us to be competitive in the last 3 seasons
I believe he’s just not worth it at this point, we need an Ethan Strange or a Cleary not an injury prone halfback that can’t kick conversions and heads off for rep footy carrying injuries
We could have made the 8 last year if it wasn’t for his rep footy ambitions, which wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t made of glass
At this stage I would trade him for Galvin in a heartbeat
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
I have to congratulate you gents for trying to put a positive spin on the roster and the recruitment, but the reality is that the roster, even at full strength is one of the worst if not the worst in the competition and our recruitment is pathetic.
Forget about elite signings, just sign some NRL quality players instead of the squad of reserve graders we have at the moment.
We keep hearing about upcoming juniors but let’s be honest after watching reserve graders last week against Newcastle there is nothing special coming through there.Hell there was nothing there that looked remotely like being NRL quality.
And banking on juniors to come through and be stars is a fools plan.
You can’t criticise Mitch for wanting to play SOO it would be the only chance he gets to play with NRL quality players.
Change is needed. Excuses about third parties etc are just that. We are overpaying so many plodders if we are spending the required amount of our salary cap. We are an underachievers wet dream.
Forget there’s always next year at this rate we will soon be saying there’s always next century!
As usual, other than the top 30 injury list, supporters are left in the dark re absent juniors or others outside the top 30. If the club is fair dinkum about fan engagement, communication should extend to all those that pull on the B&G. For example, Jordan Miller left the field 4 weeks ago with an HIA and hasnt been sighted since. It appears a number of Flegg players have also come and gone from team listing’s yet again nothing.
The club wants fans invested in its Development Club Policy. How about providing updates on all Eels players. Surely this information is known. Why is it not shared?
This is a bad look for our club.
Unfortunately we are seemingly ran by clowns: https://www.nine.com.au/sport/nrl/news-2026-the-mole-parramatta-eels-fan-podcast-host-jim-sarantinos-argument-issues-20260602-p603ac.html
Every club has multiple podcasts and fans who are critical.
The eels are out of touch – imagine seeing the bunnies or broncos CEO’s out engaging in this behaviour when they are going thru a tough season?
Jim’s brought stability to the eels – but is his focus more on the balance sheets than the actual performance of the team as a whole?
Why isn’t our club focused on winning
Read the article about Buster Hindmarsh signing for Panthers. Where was our club in grabbing a legends son. Big boy as well. Isn’t this the local development club. Disgraceful.
I agree Seth, this was my initial reaction as well
These stories are all too frequent for the club to flippantly dismiss, it’s no wonder the fans are getting cranky
We are miles off winning anything.
The club is rotted to the core until we weed out all the people in charge driving the ship into the ground. Which include the CEO, HOF & Head of recruitment who have been here for 8 years during BA & now Ryles tenure.
Though we keep getting reassured our recruitment team are laser focused on building a premiership calibre roster full of rejects and over the hill has beens.
November 1 was 7 months ago when recruitment for 2027 started and all we have jagged is Jaydn Su’a from the worst team in the comp cleaning out the roster.
Don’t get me started on the rumour about Moses Suli if we sign him i may give the club membership away.
Meanwhile board members in conversations are telling me what an awesome job MON did to get us to a GF in 2022.
The same GF we lasted 2 mins in and dished up the worst GF performance since the Storm in 2008.
All the points made around recruitment above, who could argue with any of them.
The boys discussion where they graded out three key recruits for the year was interesting.
On Pezet. Yep, has to be headed a fail at this point due to underperformance and injury. I thought he would be better and I still have no problem with the signing. Because at the end of the day if we didn’t sign him, we still just have empty spots on our roster and it would have meant Joash was our starting 5/8 and he clearly isn’t a starting 5/8.
Kelly. I will give you the last few weeks have been better but was he recruited to be a backup? Every team needs five players to play the centres/wing positions. We have one winger who is a top winger.. our other four key outside back are all below average NRL players. So I don’t think it’s clear he was signed to be a backup.
As for JDB he is a fail. Boys said he wasn’t recruited to be a key signing, then who was? Last week as an experienced leader he made three hit ups. That’s not good enough. All he is doing is clogging up space for up and Cumming players to get game time. That’s the reason the dragons got rid of him to give younger players. Game time in a year they weren’t going to win the comp.. now they have more youngsters with experience and they’re making big signings. The table may not reflect it but the dragons are so far ahead of us.