Rd6: 735pm Eels v Raiders GAME DAY THREAD in Darwin 12/4/25

[Eelementary]

I don't care if they run around in pink G-strings, I just want them to win the occasional game.

Totally respect this opinion.

But the playing roster - especially in its current state, missing Moses, Lomax, Williams, etc. - is total garbage.

Shaun Lane is a shadow of the player he used to be.

Joe Ofahengaue is terrible, and his pre-season Antica show that he's not a mature presence at the club, despite being experienced enough to be.

Sean Russell I don't mind - he's solid. But the problem is, that's all he will ever be. He won't let you down, but he won't win you a game. We need more than that.

Dylan Brown is coasting.

Will Penisini is very young, but his form has taken a nosedive off a cliff.

Gideon Kautoga has promise, but he's not a First Grader yet.

We have a bottom 4 roster at present.

I am not sure that even the Great Man, Brian Smith, could extract more out of the players we have.

We will be in for a very long, and hard season - but we will improve when we get some quality troops back, like Moses, and Lomax.

Moses, and Lomax, alone make this side much better.

 

[Eelementary]

Lots of simple errors, dropping the ball in contact, kicks out on the full, staggered kick chases, balls hitting the ground out of dummy half etc

Unfortunately, signs of (1) inexperience, and (2) playing in those awful NT conditions.

Thank God the NT experiment is over.

 

[Gronk]

What’s ur take on????

The people wanted a new coach. The board agreed that change was necessary. They tried to get Bennett and Cranky from Storm, but ended up with THE most sort after rookie in the market.

Literally 6 games in, merkins are starting to hate on him.

What do I think ? I get that footy is emotional, but FMD some of you are not rational.

 

[DaveMc]

Because if it was 6 all with Hopgood at hooker, it's hardly an indicator that's where the "rot" started......

Plenty of issues we need to fix after that performance but Hopgood starting at hooker, isn't high on the list....

It absolutely is part of the story. His service is poor, it contributes to early errors (the Russell one being immediately obvious), it puts the team on the backfoot from early in the match doing more defending, and it contributes to the fatigue that f**ks them at the back end of the game.

Sadly though, you’re probably right that it’s not very high on the list of why we are so f**ked. Which speaks to what an abysmal position we are in.

 

[JokerEel]

For an edge forward to make over 40 tackles, he wasn’t being lazy. He might’ve been gassed at stages, doing all that defence, but he wasn’t lazy.

He was lazy if you watched the game

 

[Pazza]

Unfortunately, signs of (1) inexperience, and (2) playing in those awful NT conditions.

Thank God the NT experiment is over.

Yes inexperience definitely

But the raiders played in the same conditions, as did the dolphins and cowboys and they all did very well.

In fact given how many times we have played there you'd think we'd have an edge in preperation and game plan etc

Yet everytime we look like fools

I have to say it but this organisation from the HOF up has no idea what it is doing.

 

[DaveMc]

The people wanted a new coach. The board agreed that change was necessary. They tried to get Bennett and Cranky from Storm, but ended up with THE most sort after rookie in the market.

Literally 6 games in, merkins are starting to hate on him.

What do I think ? I get that footy is emotional, but FMD some of you are not rational.

I don’t think anybody is saying he should get the arse now or anything like that. But f**k me dead, it’s hardly been an impressive start, has it?

 

[Pazza]

The people wanted a new coach. The board agreed that change was necessary. They tried to get Bennett and Cranky from Storm, but ended up with THE most sort after rookie in the market.

Literally 6 games in, merkins are starting to hate on him.

What do I think ? I get that footy is emotional, but FMD some of you are not rational.

Not all of us are hating on ryles

MoN had got my goat atm, he's been here since 2019..... more than enough opportunity to build a competent football program

 

[Pazza]

I just want to acknowledge we were missing our two best players and our toughest forward

Thank you

 

[Delboy]

This forum seems to flip flop and blame one day the coach for our squad and the next person will blame the head of recruitment. Another will blame the RnR committee. There is even one person on here who takes aim at the CEO.

Who is right (rather than who thinks he is right) ?

Well, at least I’m consistent, the recruitment team continues to underperform by any metric. They put the players under contract, if they weren’t strong enough with either the player managers or coaches, then they need to be replaced and actually should be.

Received enough fluffy emails with no improvement, who makes the decisions on internal positions , they need to be upgraded. DeGois and Shepard have put the juniors on the way up as they seem to scout everywhere and have improved the junior reps over the last 3 /4 years, then there’s the NRL team - not in the same postcode given the size etc of the club.

Where’s the accountability when signings and extensions since at best 2021 has been awful and underwhelming.

 

[Gronk]

Literally nobody in the club in any senior leadership position has demonstrated any ability to build success at the place.

That doesn’t really answer my qn. The club is actually going gang busters and providing the NRL coach with every resource he needs to be successful. They are doing the same with pathways.

I think merkins just need to be patient.

What happened with “In Ryles we trust” ? FMD

 

[The Predictor]

I guess people are sick of being humiliated every year, and even for a rookie coach, I do believe most people were quite optimistic of at least a better year than last, which should have been a given, clearly that’s not the case, to me he appears all at sea…. same goes for the pressers, just my opinion

 

[Delboy]

That doesn’t really answer my qn. The club is actually going gang busters and providing the NRL coach with every resource he needs to be successful. They are doing the same with pathways.

I think merkins just need to be patient.

What happened with “In Ryles we trust” ? FMD

They still have the same recruitment gurus at NRL level that have failed for 5 years, Ryles has not had the chance to succeed given that problem. They failed replacing the players in 2021/2022 and haven’t improved the roster since. If you and others want to accept such poor outcomes in that area so be it. Not saying they don’t work hard and want to succeed, the real issue is they are failing the club, district and fans

 

[DaveMc]

That doesn’t really answer my qn. The club is actually going gang busters and providing the NRL coach with every resource he needs to be successful. They are doing the same with pathways.

I think merkins just need to be patient.

What happened with “In Ryles we trust” ? FMD

Not sure that I agree Ryles has been provided ‘every resource to be successful’ at this point while the roster is in the shape it is, but I do agree that that will only be remedied with time and patience.

The problem is that merkins are sick of being patient - it’s been 40 f**king years.

 

[Avenger]

Ok I slept on it, took some advice and even had a nice Guinness as a night cap.

I get that we’ve had some injuries, but when it comes to the whole “next man up” mentality, we’re easily the worst. I know it’s still early days, but after six rounds, it’s clear we’re on track for the wooden spoon — and that’s a shock, because no one saw this coming.

We were promised a reset: faster tempo, more mobile forwards. How’s that working out? Honestly, this is giving me serious Kearney flashbacks. As for Ryles and the new defence coach — they’re making our old setup look like Jack Gibson and Ron Massey was running it.

 

[Zoso]

I just want to acknowledge we were missing our two best players and our toughest forward

Thank you

Yep.
In Simmo, Mitch, Lomax, Foxx, Walker, Smith, Hopgood, Williams (maybe), we have quality players who really compete and give their all, pretty much every game.
Unfortunately we haven’t had them on the field together at all once. Best we’ve had is 4 of those, against the Dragons.

The quality + attitude combo has been missing for a while, we have it out back, we need a bit more in the forwards.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Yes. He did that by not triggering (and instead giving up) the PO.

No he did it by signing a new contract that was more favourable to him than the PO.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

he was the only forward who played 80 against a team who had 56% of the footy with an 88% completion rate

ofcourse hes going to make a lot of tackles

joe made 32 tackles in 37 mins

Ofahengaue also worked hard.

 

[Avenger]

Ofahengaue also worked hard.

It will be interesting to see if he is re-signed. My guess is he won’t be.

 

[Soren Lorenson]

I don’t think anybody is saying he should get the arse now or anything like that. But f**k me dead, it’s hardly been an impressive start, has it?

It’s the small things that I hoped would be high priorities of where to start getting back on track. Kick chase. Discipline. Ball handling. You don’t need to have stars to get those things right. For example, the last 3 weeks we have given away a pen in either the first or second set of the game. It’s not good enough.