The penultimate round of the regular season of the NRL is here and it feels like there is more news than ever to discuss. The Tip Sheet is set to power through a massive Parra docket headed by the news that Ryda Talagi will debut against the Sharks on Sunday. There is plenty more though from Jason Ryles unloading on the Bunker to the potential retentions of Junior Paulo and Ronald Volkman as Sixties and Forty20 break it all down.
The NRL section is headlined by some genuinely heart warming news as the code is set to make special provisions to allow Jai Arrow to take the field in South Sydney’s final two games of the year to reach his ton as a Bunny. There is some big time signings news with Joey Manu joining the Chiefs while Jacob Preston and the Bulldogs finally reached an accord for a 4-year extension at Belmore.
Great gesture by the NRL and the Players Association ( and Souths opponents) regarding Jai Arrow and him achieving 100 games
And another young Eel on debut – good to see. And your influence from last weeks podcast has got Saxon into the 13 jersey – well done
Your balanced on your comments on refs?
Sorry, respectfully while i don’t listen to every minute of every pod – but unless your balance includes pointing out every call that goes our way – your not balanced.
We rank 10th for ruck infringements and 15th for penalties against. We’re not hard done by, the ref’s forced to try an dmake sense fo the rules that they are being told to enforce on any given week – they’re the one’s (most) hard done by.
We should absolutely sign Volkman to play next year and back up or play in 2028 and give him th eoption to leave if the youngsters kick on.
We have (apparently) paid little for Luai – recognise what a terrible decision it is and cut him loose now – we weren’t going to spend the cap anyway so who cares if we burn a few hundred K. Volkman has outperformed Luai this year with a rotating core of centres and a backrower who is Cup standard. He will play better than Luai next year.Volkman is on the up, Luai is on the decline and has his career sorted financially, so isn’t motivated.
That said, if Fletcher is good enough he should be being pushed. We have seen mulitple halves elgible for Flegg, move into the NRL this year – and we won’t even play Fletcher in Cup.
Pleased to see Ryda get a start. Re Jezia, I am all for blooding the kids but agree with Sixties that it is hard to blood them all at the same time – all the more reason why we should have seen them start to get blooded a few months ago when the season was clearly lost.
Moses never plays a full season. Everyone complains about depth, having Luai gives us that depth while we see how the others progress.
I haven’t seen a performance yet that gives me confidence in the new breed to win a tight game.
If we got him cheap I think it’s a great idea.
Can’t say I’m shocked the hear our young talent aren’t locked up (Lincoln fletcher, Ryda etc) long term. We are playing another young player (Ryda) who is off contract soon (like his brother was). We have our young halfback fletcher not locked up so he is susceptible to overtures from other clubs sooner or later (especially if we re-sign volkman). I don’t think volkman is a smart resigning given Luia is coming and that time for fletcher and talataina should be prioritised. We can’t get caught up in his current decent form if the long term picture risks being disturbed.
Tuivati is yet to be resigned. Pryke is off contract soon. Much of the take of eels about being a development club is lip service when we can’t even resign our young talent to protect our future in a game with new teams coming in. Why do you think other good clubs are scrambling to do club terms deals to 2030 for young talent. We seem to advertise our young talent to other clubs. If ryda has a good game this week what happens? Bears links? PNG links? Penrith links? It’s a very dangerous (and silly) game.
A development club develops young players with potential in to quality NSW Cup and then NRL players. That seems to be something we are doing reasonably well. Don’t confuse development with retention, they’re not the same thing.
I’m not confusing them, I’m saying if we can’t enjoy the fruits of our labour we aren’t an effective development club; we are a glorified feeder club. And that’s problematic when the club success model is seemingly contingent on development and retention of young talent. We are doing an okay job of developing forwards with little outside back development and poor retention. It’s not working well – hence we are 4 years into a rebuild.
I largly agree with what you are saying. I think you might be giving our administration a little too much credit to suggest we have a model we are working toward. There is little to suggest there is any sort of strategy to our pathways, retention or recruitment, or that there is any thought into how they all need to integrate strategically.
Agree – the word seemingly is doing a lot of work there. the facts are we have little to no plan of success other than repeating empty slogans and pointing to a centre of excellence. It’s all outcome based rather than process based. Nothing to give confidence about a plan. New ceo will be important but a rather clean out seems required
Thats what happened when you’ve got dope Sarantinos and buckets running the club.
With the last 3 seasons in mind, we need a back up 7- Volkman will spend more time paired with Luai than Moses, if we let Volkman go then who is partnered with Luai when Moses is unavailable?
Our most important signing will be the next CEO.
That is true Joe….and i hope we are not waiting on this till February. We have seen other clubs all active in the player market…..
We need to have a new CEO in place before November 1 – ideally at least a month before.
https://www.facebook.com/nrl/videos/541543815700216
2024 Eels44 Dragons12 with 10 minutes to go
I was at this one Big Bob; not a good ending tbh
Someone mentioned the game on the dolphins post game podcast and it came up on my feed yesterday, I remember the game well, for sure I would have had a bet on and I remember knocking back the beers in the first 70 minutes and being on the edge of my seat for the last 10
Why did the Eels stop playing when Gutho came off, I think it showed how big the king was to our side, the leadership and the effort from Gutho was inspirational and we still have a hole from when he left. Williams is definitely getting there though.
I haven’t seen Will Latu on a team sheet nor on the injured list in what seems like months. Does anyone know what’s doing with Will?
As to retentions and recruitments, I was disappointed at the loss of Toni Mataele, who I saw as an outstanding defensive prop. Next retention hope? Saxon Pryke. In playing and personal style he reminds me a lot of Pebbles Laurie who in my opinion has been undervalued for his contribution to our golden age. I would hope to read soon of Saxon’s placement in our NRL 30 (he is neither there nor on our development player list at present.) I see him as a future NRL captain; losing him would be a massive blow to a club whose major challenge is in defence.