Where does Zac Lomax fit into the team?
Lomax was signed under the Arthur regime and was given the impression that he would play in his preferred centre position.
Ryles has been in regular dialogue with the St George Illawarra winger but was unable to make any guarantees about what position he would play in 2025.
Zac Lomax is moving to Parramatta next season.Credit:Kate Geraghty
“My conversations with Zac have been, ‘Let’s get back to training, let’s work on combinations and let’s see what’s best for the team’,” Ryles said.
“He’s super open to that. He’s not said he prefers any position, so we’ll work it out once we get back to training. My understanding was that he came here to play centre. But I’ve just been really open with him in regards to his form over the last six or eight months.”
The coaching staff overhaul
Ryles will bring with him an entirely new coaching staff, hiring former Dragons coach Nathan Brown, former Roosters teammate Sam Moa and rugby union coach Scott Wisemantel.
Having served an apprenticeship under Bellamy, Eddie Jones and Trent Robinson, Ryles has taken certain qualities from each and incorporated them into his coaching.
He will bring with him Bellamy’s mantra of consistency and demand for effort, and Jones’ unrelenting desire and pursuit of excellence.
“So me little mate in Japan, Eddie, one of the first texts he sent me was ‘Players, staff and environment’ – in that order,” Ryles said.
Jason Ryles (right) and Eddie Jones together during their time with English rugby in 2020.Credit:Getty
He also spoke about Robinson’s willingness to buck the norm. The appointment of Wisemantel – a rugby coach with a background in league – to oversee the team’s attack with Brown is case in point.
“One thing I’m super clear on is I’m not any one of those three guys, I’m myself and I’ve got my own little personality and my own little take on it,” Ryles said of his coaching mentors.
“What does the club need right now? For me, it’s a reset. In particular, just from what I see, I want to work really hard on our culture and make it a place where people want to come to work every day.
“And then the biggest part is, like I said before, ‘What’s the strengths in the group as a playing group?’ And then that’s what we’re going to play to. We’re not going to play like Melbourne, Roosters, Penrith. We’re going to play like Parramatta. To the strengths of that group.”
Ryles has a long-standing relationship with Eels interim coach Trent Barrett, who applied for the head coaching job but missed out.
Barrett is leaving to assist Kevin Walters at the Broncos next year, but Ryles paid tribute to the way his former teammate handled an awkward situation.
Trent Barrett took over from Brad Arthur as Eels interim coach mid-way through the year.
“He made it easy. He kind of led me into it,” Ryles said of the tough conversation with Barrett about his future at the Eels.
“Basically, I just said if you’re at another club and I was in this situation, I’d be ringing you right now to come and work here. With everyone that has moved on, it was nothing personal, was just part of my mindset of resetting everything.”
There was a widely held view among Parramatta bosses that the players, under Arthur, had too much power. It resulted in a perceived cultural shift that left management questioning if the coach was too close to his troops.
“My philosophy is I’m there to serve them,” Ryles said.
“I’m a servant to the players. So I’m there to do whatever it takes for those boys to fulfil their dreams and to get better every day. That’s my job. Through my experiences watching the guys that I work for, you can have a strong relationship with them but you just got to be careful not to be best mates with them because there’s going to be a day where you’ve got to give them some feedback where it might not be what they want to hear.
Mitchell Moses and Dylan Brown are yet to hit the rare heights scaled in 2022.Credit:Getty
“And being a servant to the players isn’t telling them everything they want to hear. You’re serving them by telling them what they don’t want to hear and how they can get better. There’s obviously ways of doing that. So I’m going to probably handle Mitch a little bit different to how I handle Dylan because they’re just different personalities.”
The enormity of the task at hand hasn’t been lost in Ryles, who admits giving up hope of the Eels job after convincing himself the club was going to hand the keys to the castle to Sharks assistant coach Josh Hannay.
While ending the drought remains the dream, his inner Bellamy takes over when talking about how he goes about resurrecting the fortunes of a club that, in the space of two years, has gone from an NRL grand final to a wooden spoon playoff.
“How do you eat an elephant?” Ryles asked. “One bite at a time.”