The Eels and the Bulldogs meet across all three grades in Round 14 with the two clubs surprisingly evenly matched in the Flegg, Cup and NRL. Sixties and Forty20 preview an age-old rivalry against the back drop of the King’s Birthday long weekend and the Monday games.
With Kiraz and Crichton potentially in doubt, how do the two teams stack up? The boys discuss how the Eels can complete the sweep on their Western Sydney rivals and what challenges face them in that task.
Others have commented that, for some reason, our developing forwards look better than our backs. In particular, we lost Hawkins from our halves last year, Pezet and Twidle in season 2027, as I write Volkmann still unsigned for next year, Papalii better suited to 1 than the halves. Mitch will be 33 by the end of next season. We do look awfully thin in the halves for 2027.
If we were to go to market, who is there? I’d been keen on Harris-Tevita; he’s now signed with The Warriors.
My view is that we should take
a long look at Junior Amone currently banned from NRL after a serious conviction two years ago.
His sentence (non-custodial)l is up, he’s been playing football in The Illawarra in recent seasons so is pretty fit and, before his charges, he was identified as maybe the best emerging 6 in the competition and already was on big money at The Dragons.
I always felt that his offending was about showing loyalty to his father Tau in a dangerous situation. I had Tau as one of my students at Warrawong High School where I was principal in the 1990s; Tau was in very serious trouble outside school back then. I suspect it would not harm Junior to leave The Illawarra.
He’s 24 and big enough to play 6, lock or centre. He would have to be cleared by the NRL but I think that’s probably. I think we should look at giving him his second chance