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Eels in the media

Poupou Escobar

Post Whore
Messages
84,160
The fact that we got beat 29-0 on that day made me so depressed for a while. Probably the quietest train ride coming home as opposed to the loudest coming into the ground. So much talk about us playing the Tigers in the big dance. I actually thought after 10 or so minutes when we attacked the line so many times we're a big chance. Then the missed tackle was the turning point and after that just weren't in the game.
Brian Smith's teams always lacked leadership. That's what happens when you drive all the genuine leaders out of your club.

Brilliant tactical and development coach but FFS. Under pressure footy teams need leadership.
 

hineyrulz

Post Whore
Messages
148,287
I still have nightmares about 2005.

I don't think I've been as much of an eels fan since that day. That performance did me in!
I was in the Foetal position sucking on my thumb for at least 3 days.

I had a BBQ at my place and my mates were all gone with about 15mins to go :neutral_face:

I didn't even blow up or anything like I did in 98 and 2001.
 

natheel

Coach
Messages
12,137
I was in the Foetal position sucking on my thumb for at least 3 days.

I had a BBQ at my place and my mates were all gone with about 15mins to go :neutral_face:

I didn't even blow up or anything like I did in 98 and 2001.
I was the same I was dumb founded my jaw must've been on the floor. I just remember getting up and saying 'well shit'
 

Gary Gutful

Post Whore
Messages
51,727
I was in the Foetal position sucking on my thumb for at least 3 days.

I had a BBQ at my place and my mates were all gone with about 15mins to go :neutral_face:

I didn't even blow up or anything like I did in 98 and 2001.
Back then I used to read every rugby league article and was much more into it than I am now.

I went cold turkey and refused to read anything after that game for the whole week leading up to the GF.

After 98, 99 and 2001 (they didn't shit the bed in 2000) I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up but I f**ken did. 29-0 to that f**ken team with the team we had that is easily one of our worst performances in the last 30 years.
 

hineyrulz

Post Whore
Messages
148,287
Back then I used to read every rugby league article and was much more into it than I am now.

I went cold turkey and refused to read anything after that game for the whole week leading up to the GF.

After 98, 99 and 2001 (they didn't shit the bed in 2000) I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up but I f**ken did. 29-0 to that f**ken team with the team we had that is easily one of our worst performances in the last 30 years.
Agreed, our 99 and 2005 sides were arguably our best teams and we choked both so badly in both games.

2005 just mentally turned me into a cheeseburger for months.
 

EelsFan05

Bench
Messages
2,759
Agreed, our 99 and 2005 sides were arguably our best teams and we choked both so badly in both games.

2005 just mentally turned me into a cheeseburger for months.

The 99 final against Melbourne was another mind numbing experience. What was the call for Jason Smith passing off the ground when we seemed to be mounting a comeback? Last things I remember is throwing my beer and regretting it, then trudging back to central.
 

jk13

First Grade
Messages
6,134
tenor.gif
 

Kornstar

Coach
Messages
15,556
I was pissed after 98 and took it less seriously for 2 years after that so 99 and 2000 weren't so tough.

Got back into it again in 2001 so was absolutely shattered after the GF.

Really got back into from 2002 and i was really excited (i even had confidence back then) for 2005 after the crappy 2003 and 2004 years and that game i was pretty sure we were playing the Tigers the week after in the GF......took me about 3 months not to feel ill when hearing about Parra after that game.

I was generally ok after the 06, 07 and 08 years for different reasons, not because i didn't care just knew we weren't the best team those years.

I wasn't so bad after the 2009 GF because i knew that we would lose from the second we made it. Conspiracy or not i knew the refs would ensure the Storm would win that game with their influence and they did. I don't care if i sound like a nutter but 09 we never had a shot because they couldn't have the Storm make 4 GF's in a row and only win one of them. My hatred for the Storm is so strong that if the whole club was blown off the face of the earth and everyone dead, i would smile..........i'm not normally that way but those merkins broke my spirit........

What broke me was when it was discovered that not only did the refs (imo) hand them the game but the f**king pricks had cheated to rob us of our first premiership since 1986! I haven't been anywhere near as passionate since then. I am still passionate but not the level i was from 02 to 09, i would travel a lot more and wouldn't even think of missing a game even for weddings or anything.

Obviously we sucked until last year and then we were screwed over by the past and last year meant nothing.

This year i am so broken that i cannot believe we can win tomorrow, not because i don't think they can do its just can't convince that voice inside to get enough hope in case i get too far ahead of myself........then the pain will come back.......expecting a loss helps me cope much better.

Let's see what they've got for us tomorrow........
 

Gary Gutful

Post Whore
Messages
51,727
I want to see us rip gonads and snap bones.

Just absolutely belt those dopey toothless wonders from Townsville to within an inch of their lives. Then when they are lying on the ground, barely breathing and wondering what hit them, I would love to see Kenny Edwards lay a 7 day old beef stroganoff shit in their mouths...
 

T.S Quint

Coach
Messages
13,729
I was pissed after 98 and took it less seriously for 2 years after that so 99 and 2000 weren't so tough.

Got back into it again in 2001 so was absolutely shattered after the GF.

Really got back into from 2002 and i was really excited (i even had confidence back then) for 2005 after the crappy 2003 and 2004 years and that game i was pretty sure we were playing the Tigers the week after in the GF......took me about 3 months not to feel ill when hearing about Parra after that game.

I was generally ok after the 06, 07 and 08 years for different reasons, not because i didn't care just knew we weren't the best team those years.

I wasn't so bad after the 2009 GF because i knew that we would lose from the second we made it. Conspiracy or not i knew the refs would ensure the Storm would win that game with their influence and they did. I don't care if i sound like a nutter but 09 we never had a shot because they couldn't have the Storm make 4 GF's in a row and only win one of them. My hatred for the Storm is so strong that if the whole club was blown off the face of the earth and everyone dead, i would smile..........i'm not normally that way but those merkins broke my spirit........

What broke me was when it was discovered that not only did the refs (imo) hand them the game but the f**king pricks had cheated to rob us of our first premiership since 1986! I haven't been anywhere near as passionate since then. I am still passionate but not the level i was from 02 to 09, i would travel a lot more and wouldn't even think of missing a game even for weddings or anything.

Obviously we sucked until last year and then we were screwed over by the past and last year meant nothing.

This year i am so broken that i cannot believe we can win tomorrow, not because i don't think they can do its just can't convince that voice inside to get enough hope in case i get too far ahead of myself........then the pain will come back.......expecting a loss helps me cope much better.

Let's see what they've got for us tomorrow........

This is pretty much exactly like me.
 
Messages
42,876
Eels go from dark times to become NRL’s shining light

Parramatta chair Max Donnelly takes you back to the day he walked into a club which appeared on its knees. Almost immediately, he was confronted by three major decisions. The first was to sort out Corey Norman and the fallout from his ill-fated night at the casino. The second was to deal with Jarryd Hayne and the prospect of re-signing the cross-code superstar. The third was to determine the future of the wayward Kieran Foran.

“A lot of things happened,” Donnelly said. “Corey Norman, we had to deal with him. The coach basically said this season is gone, we don’t want any punishment that goes into next year.

“I go to the NRL and said as long as it doesn’t go into next year I am OK with it. They ended up dishing him out eight weeks but then I learn later that I could have got a lot less. So you live and you learn with the NRL.

“That was the first one. The second one was Jarryd Hayne. I said Jarryd Hayne is a great player and I will look at it. In the end we made Jarryd Hayne the best offer we could — I think it was $2.5 million over three years.

“But we didn’t want him to play last year. We didn’t need him (straight away) and we had no cap space. For the Gold Coast Titans it was a great pick-up.

“I totally got how Jarryd Hayne went to the Titans. That was the most logical decision I had seen. But he came out in the press and said the (Eels) administration had never made him an offer.

“Then he clarified it the next day and said it wasn’t in writing, it wasn’t formal. I got thinking maybe things have changed since the days I ran Cronulla and the (North Sydney) Bears. Everything was verbal until the day you produce a contract. So that pissed me off. The next thing was Kieran Foran. They go, ‘he wants a release’.

“(The NRL) said if you pay him the money he is owed under the contract — $150,000 — we won’t put it under the cap. Then everyone abused me but they didn’t know the real story. They were the decisions we were getting at the start.”

Safe to say the decisions have got a lot easier. Donnelly has presided over the rejuvenation of the Eels, a job he insists wasn’t as difficult as it appeared from the outside.

Where others saw a basket-case, Donnelly — at least as far as the football side was concerned — viewed a club that simply needed some tweaking.

Donnelly had no interest in holding sway over football matters. He was happy to leave that to Brad Arthur, his belief in the coach fuelled by the reaction he saw to the salary cap sanctions which had decimated their season.

“The management team was reduced so I said to Brad, ‘you handle the football and I will handle everything else’,” Donnelly said.

“I don’t run on the field. Those players, they play for Brad. Apart from Tim Mannah, most of them don’t know who I am. That’s the way football clubs should be run. That’s not the way they have been run.

“If I had to talk to Corey Norman, I don’t know what we would talk about. He might talk about who you meet at the casino and I would be talking about the Corporations Act.

“Tim Mannah is a different sort of guy. If I go in the dressing room he will always seek me out and talk to me. When I came in they had seven or eight games to go and we couldn’t play for anything. I said to Brad, ‘I don’t care how the team goes, but for the fan’s sake I want them to give 100 per cent’.

“The first week I think we had the Tigers. The injuries were shocking. The Tigers beat us by about 12 points but the team tried. Lot of injured players, nothing to play for but they were winning games.

“That was all Brad. They were entitled to drop their bundle but they won four of the last seven.”

Donnelly hasn’t had it all his own way. Only this week, his plan to overhaul the club’s governance structure was rejected by the members, the old guard holding sway. Yet the Eels have made remarkable headway over the last year and despite his protestations, Donnelly should take much of the credit.

When the club needed a stabilising influence, having felt the sharp end of the stick from the NRL and the state government over salary cap issues, Donnelly stepped in and provided the steadying hand.
He wasn’t foreign to rugby league. In his role as a financial guru, he had occasion to dip his toe back in the rugby league waters. He grew up a Western Suburbs supporter and his closest friends backed South Sydney and Balmain.

His weekends were spent on the hills at Redfern, Leichhardt and Lidcombe Ovals. But Donnelly had no pretence when it came to coaching the football side. That was Arthur’s area of expertise.

“I would like to think I have run the club in a way that gives the coach the best opportunity,” Donnelly said.

“I have come into a club where there is a good coach. Yes, I extended him for two years and that’s as a pretty early decision. There was no one else.

“If I got rid of him I would be coaching the team. He does his job and the whole team does their job. I just saw the team giving 100 per cent effort in a situation where they would have been justified being half-hearted.

“I don’t have anything to do with who should play halfback. I don’t get involved. I don’t tell Brad who he should or shouldn’t buy and I have never, ever made him go to a board meeting.

“When we have a board meeting, the first thing we talk about is finances. That takes a long time to go through. The board shouldn’t be there talking about football ... you don’t need more than 20 minutes on it.”

Arthur’s signing aside, Donnelly believes the best piece of business he did was securing Bernie Gurr to take the chief executive’s position.

Gurr could easily have slipped into the top job at the NRL. His appointment has been another watershed for a club that has had its fair share of cathartic moments over the past 12 months.

They now find themselves only two wins from the grand final. Eels supporters have spent nearly a decade waiting for another opportunity to get to the big dance.

Their wait for a premiership is even longer — more than three decades. Arthur and the Eels have supporters believing again as they prepare to face North Queensland at ANZ Stadium tonight.

The club is a long way removed from the entity that Donnelly was parachuted in to save in July last year.

“It wasn’t a basket-case,” Donnelly said. “As soon as we signed Brad, all the big players signed. They all followed Brad. They weren’t following Max Donnelly. The most important person in this day and age is the coach.

“When the coach is doing the job, let him do it. Let him sink or swim on his efforts. Parramatta had the ability to be a dominant force in rugby league. I think it has the ability to be a powerhouse club for years to come.

“Do I want them to win? Of course. Am I a Parramatta fan today? Of course. Am I going to be a Parramatta fan tomorrow? Of course because I want the work I am doing turn Parramatta into a strong and powerful club.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...t/news-story/69302bf4b2c6b3adc91c2ca59a60a6ec

f**k off Max you f**ken merkin!! Nah, you're alright.
 

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