We salute each and every fan that persevered through the painful conclusion to the 2026 season for the Parramatta Eels in a game where the Blue & Gold repeatedly and fundamentally showed a lack of Footy IQ. The Eels completely dropped their bundle in Round 27 as they let slip a 12-point lead in the second half to allow the Dragons to steal a victory in the final minutes despite having a man in the sin bin. The Tip Sheet is here for all to vent as the season wraps up on a particularly bitter note with the Eels serving up some of their worst footy in months.
Lazy, careless performance
#1 No pressure in defence. They let the Dragons run at them all day.
#2 Can we get rid of Tallyn DaSilva? He can’t pass from dummy half and he can’t tackle. Forget the opportunistic tries, he’s a liability.
#3 We won’t miss Sean Russell, he’s already gone.
#4 Jack Williams can’t catch. He needs to spend the next 5 months working on that.
#5 The penalty count was probably the difference but I’m not blaming the referee. Lack of discipline was embarrassing.
#6 We started brilliantly then switched to a negative attitude with the ball for the rest of the game.
Despite all this, I think I might buy a ticket to Las Vegas.
Call me a tragic.
Well. That everything you expect.
Middles that just time after time after time lose the ruck defensively. I’m sure people will whinge about the ref, but actually watch our middles defend. They lose the ruck too often. TDS. He’s young, I can deal with it if there is growth. But Moretti. Enough already. JDB!… I’ll have more to say there.
Kautoga. With Kelma out Kautoga is the worst defensive backrower in the game. Constantly crashes in when he shouldn’t. And the one time he doesn’t today, it’s when his prop has to chase out on a fast fullback… He has learnt nothing. Can not be a first grader in a team with finals aspirations.
Other player observations:
Probably Walker’s best game in the second half of the year.
JAC went pretty well at fullback given he never plays there. Showed his physical endurance.
Moses and Volkman dropped off in the second half.
Ryles/coaching staff. So on what planet do you make an interchange (of a middle) when penalised on your own line?!
And playing JDB. I get giving a veteran a send off game. If it were Jnr, no problem. But Ryles played JDB (a 4 hit ups a game for 25-30m) 1 season, not even regularly picked despite all the injuries, player over blooding a rookie today. I like Ryles, but today had some poor decisions in it that lacked strategy and any sort of vision for 2027, which has been evident since we were no chance of winning the comp 2-3months ago. It was a really bad day for Ryles.
The Club needs fresh blood on and off the field to try and change the culture.
Another Eels podcaster thought there was real progression this year, not regression cause we won about the same number of games. “Winners” believe if you are not showing progression, then you are regressing. We regressed this year. Plain and simple. If someone thinks we are where we were 12 months ago and haven’t gone backward – Great. But that’s still regression. Samrani and Volkman are better players than they were 12 months ago. That’s it. That’s the list. Our roster is no better for 27, our coaches are still making rookie errors and back of house… well maybe it will be a case of addition by subtraction with the CEO going, but we’ll wait till we see who the replacement is.
Sums up 2026, at least we have the best juniors coming through next year, replacing all the other great signings they purchased in the last year or two,