Is it even heart breaking if there is nothing left to break? We find out tonight after the Parramatta Eels were barely edged out by the Canterbury Bulldogs in Round 14 in a game that was truly for the purists and sickos. The 14-12 loss was very much against trend in 2026 but the was largely due to some baffling, ineffective offence from the Bulldogs as the Eels held on grimly in the first half.
Sixties and Forty20 break it all down – as always – in the Instant Reaction podcast as the Eels just barely miss another victory in this challenging season.
After watching manly play and see how they move around to get out of their own half, even with often reserve graders taking up some positions.
I actually think the eels have a lot of fundamental coaching deficiencies in terms of both strategy and approach.
If the eels start a set in their own end they offer literally zero attack, zero creativity, and extremely predictable one out running for 3 tackles to begin each set.
There’s nothing to be afraid of when facing us – I’m wondering how long until people at the eels are under pressure? And I don’t just mean players.
Our players are always very spread out and forwards do not run on to the ball, It reminds me a bit of rugby union at times the style of play we attempt to use.
Really hope that Moses & Ryley smith returns soon! we miss the kick pressure and we miss the longer kicks from Moses.
Which is odd because when we played well last season we moved the ball quickly in our backfield, it was a real feature of our play last year. For whatever reason we seem unwilling or incapable of doing so this season.
Brett I think our errors have been so bad they’ve opted to not chance our hand in our own end
We also had Lomax last year and he offered meters and physicality from the kick returns etc
It is also a coaching issue too – watch how manly comes out of their own end not just ball passing but they rarely just do one out hit ups every run and they usually always get out of their own end
I’ll listen later, but geez we did a lot to win that game and a lot to beat ourselves.
Reply to myself..tks men, sounds simple…completions and tackles, I totally agree but how do you lock in improvement? I think with the tackles we just cant carry certain players on the park at the same time. Aren’t the missed tackle addicts the same suspects every week? Why put them on the park together, if at all? I like starting with Sam, and Williams on an edge. We should continue with Brown.
Obviously, Toni Mataele is a better defender than several we had on the field yesterday
I fear that we’re going to lose him
I kind of feel sorry for the young eels. These guys coming into first grade and losing almost every game.
Must be very hard on your confidence and mental head space. Hand in there young eels. Keep your heads high.
If we had a good experienced spine and some solid props those young Eels who are inexperienced would probably be flying.
Let’s hope Jim, mark and Ryles can get some decent signings – or some individuals jobs will be under pressure come 2027.
Imagine our young players having say Yeo, Cleary and Moses Leota to lead them around? They would probably look like young stars. The young Eels desperately need leadership and some strong Sr forwards. .
Which is why Ryles has been reluctant to blood too many young guys. He’s been criticised for sticking with flawed veterans, but put too many young fellas in together and they play dumb.
There are a couple of other issues.
The most recent two times I’ve watched Eels Cup on tv they’ve had, in total, 110 points put on them. Hardly a side brimming with talent. Yesterday the NRL side missed 54 tackles – no way can you expect to win a game in the NRL with that figure. The only pertinent comment is the the Cup defence was worse.
Sort of hard to know where we go from here.
Maybe a starting place – our starting second rowers missed 13 tackles between them yesterday. Toni Mataele was one of the best two of three of our defenders yesterday in Cup; he’s spent most of his career playing second row
A day to show us where we are.
In Cup the reserve grade side not much above a contest for the spoon put sixty on us. Yes, we’ve had injuries; still, just a disgraceful display. Capable of NRL, now or ever? Maybe three. My faith in Mataele is unshaken – we need him in NRL
The main game was gripping because both sides tried so hard and it was so close.
For us, some great positives – Williams was heroic (as he’s been for some weeks now); Brown could not have been more impressive in his debut; Considering that he came to us as a trial and train and was filling in for a gun, Volkman did a great job; this new guy, Edwards I think is the name is a tough footballer without necessarily being a great dummy half.
Positives – that’s about all she wrote.
Negatives – we now need The Dragons ro keep losing or we’re in danger of The Spoon.
Yes, it’s been a bad year with injuries; we have greater problems than that.
Williams and Kelly were great. The Fox good. Brown a good debut. That’s about it for me. Kelma runs hard in attack, but a liability in defence. Kautoga too invisible for too much of the game, never goes looking for it. Ditto Russell, I forgot was playing after about the 10th minute.
Iongi good, without being great, particularly compared to all the other game breaking 1s. Joash and Volkman inconsistent, they try but trying isn’t enough. Moretti has moments, but his runs are just a faster version of Jurbo. Walker is good, but his shortballs are too risky and too many of them were a fail. Da Silva too hot and cold as was Samrani.
Every week it’s the same story. We don’t get better, we beat ourselves before the opposition beats us.
Enjoyed 60s unloading tonight. Stuff 2026.
Its hard to write again after that – error kill us but we hung in there first half and came back well. Something is there for me and some rookie errors hurt – I could go on and on about the officiating…..it is so bloody frustrating; I cannot say anything else as I will be banned.
Suffice to say, if they limit the errors we probably win that.
Wihtout 3-5 main players we looked ordinary but gee it was good to see T Brown link with Walker.
Our bloody RR team had better have some good news for us……
Mark O’Neill has been unable to build a competitive roster since we walked off the field as runners-up in 2022. His failures have been glaring and were a major factor in Brad Arthur ultimately paying the price.
The warning signs were there before the 2022 season even kicked off. He lowballed Papali’i and replaced him with Murchie and Momoisea. He signed an ageing and injury-riddled Hodgson while we couldn’t retain Mahoney. Let’s not forget all the options he allowed for Dylan Brown who was able to leave when we paraded it as an extension until 2031. What a DUMB move that was and the solution a one year bandaid solution in Pezet after embarrassingly missing out on Galvin.
It’s been one recruitment miss after another.
At this point, O’Neill couldn’t land a win if he was in a monkey whorehouse with a bag full of bananas. His fingerprints are all over the mess the club finds itself in today.
There’s many more that are responsible for the years of bad decisions and bad contracts.
If it was only marks fault they would have canned him alongside BAx
The issue at the eels is winning starts at the front office, we already know what goes on there, the CEO is an accountant and has made it his focus on speeches how successful the club is from a financial perspective.
Whilst there’s stability in terms of the organisation being ran professionally, it’s now in a new season or stage of its evolution. Parramatta must take the step to go from a big money making club, to a WINNING club. And employ leadership whose specialty and focus is on WINNING NRL games and ultimately premierships.
There’s currently nobody I’m aware of at parramatta besides Jason ryles who’s experienced winning and success. At the top of the eels, our results and pattern of decision making regarding R & R for years now CLEARLY indicates that we are not ran by people who are capable of making us into a power house successful NRL club.
I’m yet to see us let one good player go and replace them with a player of equal quality.
To give context – if you pull this stunt at other clubs, your job is on the line within 1-2 years. Period. There’s no winning culture and linitef self accountability at the eels front office.
Only BA was made to blame.. and unless our recruitment improves significantly coming into 2027. You can BET Jason ryles will be on the chopping block, just like BA. For similar reasons. BA faced same issues – can’t recruit or retain quality players at parra. No TPA’s, and only pay unders, etc…
Your name says it all
I’m so disappointed in Moses, we are losing games because of him yet again
There’s plenty of chat out there that he doesn’t give a toss about the club, is he ever going to come good for us or is this to be expected from an “elite” half on 1.3M, to consistently miss half the season and to not prioritize the club at a time of record numbers of players missing.
We win this game and last weeks game if MM played, I can’t talk about handling errors until we sort out team mentality sorry.
Honestly it’s pointless talking about games at the moment results have the feeling of ending in an inevitable loss. I hate sugar coating things the dogs attack was awful we missed a plethora of tackles AGAIN.
I’m so sick of seeing kelma and Gideon just walking constantly missing tackles. They didn’t have a run till our 4th set of the game and the kickoff in the second half Gideon just stands there.
All that turns this club around now is recruitment we are flogging our young talent into the ground not giving them a chance
They tried hard, that’s about all you can say.
I don’t know how many fans watched the Cup game.
Nanva was without doubt the worst player on the field followed closely by Guymer. ¹
Both these players have absolutely fallen off a cliff since receiving their contract extensions.
Nanva especially bad. Slow, Constantly beaten one on one.
How these two have managed to get extended contracts with our club just shows you the standards we set.
No wonder we are where we are.
We have nothing in reserve.
Guymer was talked up on here like he was the next Liam Martin, but he’s looked pretty ordinary so far. I get the instinct to hype up our juniors, and that’s fair enough, but since Dylan Brown, who have we actually produced and kept long-term who has gone on to be genuine rep level?
And Nanva would probably only be playing Ron Massey Cup at most other clubs.
Yes we love to pump the tyres of some of our juniors and that’s a fact.
How Nanva actually made it to the NRL level is a bloody mystery.
Just wouldn’t have made it at any other club.
Talaitana is another myth. If we really believe that hes going to be our main 5/8 next year we have rocks in our head.
He’s at least 3 years away.
We need major surgery.
Ryles is getting everything he can out of these players but our results and ladder position are entirely deserved, we are simply not good enough.
How O’Neill and Sarantinos have constructed a squad this poor and remain in charge is beyond me. The incompetence of our roster management is without peer – it simply would not be tolerated at a high performing club.
Our Cup side were awful today and some of those guys are locked into our top 30 in future years to replace players who are currently running second last.
If we are serious about our juniors being our future,
Cup next week should feature Bamblett, Nunn, Koina, Petrus and Popo. Start getting proper games into them and see what we have because there is plenty of dead wood to chop for 2027 and beyond.
The club has been spitting in the face of its fans ever since the 2022 Grand Final. Even that year, we couldn’t attract quality outside backs, forcing us to play Waqa Blake on the wing and move players around in the centres just to fill holes.
Losing players like Lomax and Brown has hurt us massively, and at this point, I genuinely don’t think we’ll ever see Mitchell Moses win a premiership at Parramatta. That’s the real tragedy. Having a halfback of his quality for the past few years and failing to build a genuine premiership-winning squad around him is a wasted opportunity.
I’m honestly sick of it. I’ll always support the Eels and watch every game, but I won’t be attending any matches this year. Not until the club starts addressing its issues and shows there’s a real plan moving forward—which, right now, doesn’t look like happening anytime soon
Didn’t make live notes but half time/Full time thoughts:
First Half:
Yep, we probably got the wrong end of the 50-50 calls. The no try at the end of the half, Galvin never regained possession – certainly not when you see that sort of thing ruled a knock on 99.95% of the time (this was the other 0.05%).
That said, we stink and its only that AOB runs the Bulldogs attack that we are in it. Yes, the effort is commendable. But stop me when any of this sounds familiar,
Bad off loads in our own half (and Kelly seems to always be around it)
We can’t make any yards (and today we don’t have a guy who can kick 60m on the fly).
Our middle is soft. JDB starts good defensively then drops off a cliff after 14-15 minutes. He isn’t fit enough to be a starting 13. He doesn’t make PCM’s, but he isn’t alone. Moretti is struggling to get back onside after a Dogs kick and I can’t work out why. What does he do?
Tuivati. Look. I am all for him getting reps and I hope he turns into a gun. But once, just once can he charge onto the ball?
Our attack is woeful. No structure, not hint of a line break.
We hung on, so that’s good. But all we seem to have is “effort” every week.
2nd half start was an embarrassment.
Kautonga shows what he is in the space of 3 minutes. Great try saver. Awful error.
3 errors in the first 5 minutes of the second half made it look like Newcastle all over again.
Volkman clearly didn’t think he could kick a 2 point field goal at the death.
The second half ultimately looked better than the first. Yep, few tough calls, but at the end of the day, the results don’t matter. Its about improving the process.
Highlights: Brown debut. Its all we can ask for. Get these kids reps. He looked good. If you could only pick 1 of Big Sam or Brown, you pick Brown and hope Big Sam realises what he could be doing with hard running.
Joash: his pass in the TDS try, he looked where he passed and rode the bump. Hopefully not just a one off.
But… how did we get the recruitment so right, Jim?
When hope …….dies
So in the 4 games that the eels have won this year they’ve completed at > 80%. In the other 9 games / 70% they’ve lost they haven’t. So on that basis this teams completion rate 7 times out of 10 < 80% = a loss. The same is probably true if looking at the number of missed tackles which are regularly over 30 or 40 a game and were 60 yesterday. The error ridden second half starts vs. Manly, Newcastle and again yesterday to name just a few keep on happening. But this squad is pretty much performing at their base level abilities most weeks and to expect anything more without an injection of better players is the stuff of dreams.
2024 was a write off with a change of coach. Not much was expected with a new coach in 2025 although the late season surge did raise hopes for 2026. We start 2026 minus Brown and Lomax and fail to replace them with anyone of near comparable talent, a failing made worse by some early season ending injuries.
In 2025 many were bullish about 2027 being the start of our real tilt for a premiership. I expect that is a much smaller group now. 2026 is already a write off and the prospects for 2027 and beyond at this stage is also the stuff of dreams.
I'm tired of the eels being a laughing stock. Over the weekend I half caught an ad for the CBA. A group of people sitting in a room and the voiceover saying something like this man thinks the Parramatta eels can win this year, a pause of a second or so ….win the wooden spoon!
Harsh decisions need to be made around this roster and those who are assembling it. Waiting for cards to fall for a Michael Jennings type signing, or picking up Dylan Walker due to a compassionate grounds release can't be the R&R blueprint for securing good quality NRL players. Topping up the squad, hell yes, but not the basis or for keeping a few spots open.
As many have said the only constant is we fans. The players, coaches and club officials come and go but the fans stay loyal so give us something to repay our faith.
My concern about the defence is that clearly it’s getting worse. I thought Ron Volkman did better in defence yesterday; Papalii defended pretty well when we got on a roll at the end of last year; he had some unfortunate moments yesterday. We continue to pick a couple of forwards who are no doubt brave and often effective carrying the ball but who have regrettable defensive records that don’t appear to be getting any better. Still unsigned for next year are Volkmann, Mataele and De Belin who, in my opinion, have been among our better performers.
Our next challenge is to stop getting worse. We have had, well documented, the worst run for injuries in the NRL but several of those affected now are back and, a rarity, we’ve had Mitch for most matches this year.
When Mitch is available I’d be picking out strongest possible defensive side and relying on his kicking game to get us home, even if that meant experimenting a bit with positions, maybe Saxon Pryke in the backline.
Gol sort of nailed it in the preview: worst attacking team in the NRL versus the worst defensive team (sans Dragons on both counts). The game lived up to that, or is that down?
The only thing that kept me watching was the closeness of the score.
I’m tired of saying I’m frustrated, I’m tired of saying I can see the effort but the execution is poor, I’m tired of hearing the anger/frustration/disappointment in Sixties voice as he says exactly how I feel, I’m tired of not hearing Ryles arc up post match even if it is only to see what difference it makes to officiating, I’m tired that most the 50/50 calls seem to go against us, I’m tired of family and friends telling me there is always next year, I’m tired of the fact I was still at school last time we won the comp, I’m tired that less resourced teams seem to manage better. I’m just tired of it all.
Thanks fellas for again putting out an instant reaction.
Pretty much sums it up. We are all over it mate. I was 3 when we last won a premiership. Fair to say I don’t remember it. Plus all the other sporting teams I support (ex Aussie cricket), suck too. Golf occasionally provides some joy, but you lose much more than you win.
Too true.
I’ve just had the opportunity to listen to the presentation by John and Craig.
They have copped plenty from fans including myself for being overly positive, almost unbelievably so.
Therefore I must give them credit for the fact that they called things out.
The Cup side exists purely to be a feeder to the NRL side and there are players in that side who will never play NRL.
They also discussed changing the set up regarding Sam starting etc.. yes yes yes.
The side is far too comfortable.
Well done lads.
+1 on the overly positive / now addressing the reality comment.
On Sam starting. I dunno. On the one hand you have a starting prop and a starting lock who can’t give you 30 minutes over the course of 80 minutes. On the other hand, again yesterday, Big Sam, 10 runs for 55m.
I’m open to the notion of changing things up, but one of the (many) issues we have is players starting in an Eels jersey without earning it. You have to earn a starting jersey in order for you to respect and value it. I truely hope he becomes a starting prop and a rep level player one day, and i am happy for him to be in the 17 the rest of the season as he learns his game. But a starting prop needs to set the tone. Come off the back fence and knock a few people over, get attackers nervous and draw in defenders to give his edges more room. Big Sam is, for mine, looking a little too comfortable at the moment and not taking steps to say “I’m going to change the flow of this game”. Maybe it is unfair to expect that of him, but it was what Brown did yesterday.
But I don’t have the answer. Its like a multiple choice question on the test, and which ever letter you circle, the answer probably isn’t correct.
That’s a decent call re Sam. He does look too comfortable but then who doesn’t ?
Let’s hope Ryles knows the answer here.
Maybe we should go completely left field and ask Nathan Brown back for a cameo ?
You want to go off-field Spark? I’ll give you off-field – let’s sign Adam Reynolds for two years! He’s currently significantly younger than Dally Cherry-Evans, he’s playing terrific football for a faltering side, him at 7, Mitch at 6 – what a kicking game! And you’d reckon at least one of them would be around for most of the time.
Desperate times…
Good call.
Unfortunately I think he wants to retire up there in Brisbane.
I reckon he could play on.