Rumours and Stuff

[Eelementary]

No time to dream, avenger. Having plenty of fun reading how you guys don't care about losing IP, how we've overpaid, and how he is destined to be a second year plodder . . . Mind you, every forum is filled with bitter jealousies in these situations.
Like I said, fun to read.
Also, there's a lot to be said for accepting the reality of your footy team. You guys had more joy than us watching parra winning lately, but that was once again cruelled by the shattering repeat of semi finals failure. I watched some mates nearly crying after you lost. I found that quite rude, it's hard to repeatedly say " I told you so . . . what did you expect?" to a grown man sobbing like a lil baby.

I think good on the Tigers. They need to take risks.
And the way we snatched Moses and Matterson was dirty. Its a victory to them imo and a deserved one.
Well said, Hindy.

I DON'T care about losing Papali'i, because he is simply not worth the money you paid, to our club.

He's a great talent, but $1.8m for three years for him is a huge gamble.

Good luck to him, and to you - we don't need to be paying that sort of coin for a player who isn't exactly a proven, year-on-year performer.

I've no doubt he will be good for you.

I also have no doubt that we will replace him, and be just fine.

 

[Eelogical]

Undoubtedly Ice and Marata were our best edges season past. In fact they were elite. If they stay they are back to being shuffled between edge and middle. It will be interesting to see if that continues in 2022.
Im guessing Matto will hunt a big pay day so our edges in 2023 will be Lane and Catrwright at this stage. No doubt another will raise their hand and Lane will be back in the middle. Its fascinating actually. Cant wait. Fingers crossed Ice and Marata "do a Burton".

Hopefully, BA can extract the best out of Ice and Marata before they leave. What do you reckon @hineyrulz ?

 

[Bandwagon]

Not happy to be losing Papali'i

But if anything BA seems able to improve a forward, so not the end of the world.

 

[Matty Bhoy]

Clearly the board have put a price limit on the players coming off contract and simply aren’t prepared to budge on that. For far too long our club has panicked and paid overs.

Rightly or wrongly, the board aren’t prepared to do that anymore and are obviously sending a signal to player managers and players themselves, that the Eels aren’t the place to go and pick up an inflated pay check anymore.

It might take more than one or two off seasons to completely change that culture and there might be a few more bloody noses like there was today, yet to come. But in theory… I can live with that. What it should mean, if we stick to it, is that we won’t be bent over and weaken our side overall in the bigger picture, for the sake of retaining someone. But the upside is that our “rebuilding phase” should be quicker than in years gone by.

As others have mentioned, we’ve got a huge crack at things next season and who knows what lies beyond that as things change rapidly in the NRL these days, especially when you’ve got room to move under the cap.

 

[Gronk]

 

[IFR33K]

Not happy to be losing Papali'i

But if anything BA seems able to improve a forward, so not the end of the world.

Yep. Everyone now saying the tigers paid overs. Maybe had we tried to offer him a decent amount 6 weeks ago, he may of stayed. And I’m not sure why people saying it’s a gamble for tigers. He’s young and will still have his best footy ahead of him. Hopefully BA can extract the very best from the next batch of ‘cheapies’ we come across.

 

[Gazzamatta]

Difficult to compete in the player market without TPAs which appear to be something our club is not interested in. Manu stayed for less at The Cooks why? We all know why. Surely there is desire within the ever expanding Parramatta region for businesses to become involved. Are we looking a gift horse in the mouth on principle? No point having this you beaut Board if they arent advancing our brand. Have I missed something here?

 

[The Eel]

I DON'T care about losing Papali'i, because he is simply not worth the money you paid, to our club.

He's a great talent, but $1.8m for three years for him is a huge gamble.

Good luck to him, and to you - we don't need to be paying that sort of coin for a player who isn't exactly a proven, year-on-year performer.

I've no doubt he will be good for you.

I also have no doubt that we will replace him, and be just fine.

I am personally not so sure, but of course I hope you are right. He will be a big loss. I am just about over all of this.

 

[I bleed blue & gold]

I don’t know what’s worse. Coming into another clubs forum to try to bait people or following a club like the Tigers.

 

[Eelogical]

Yep. Everyone now saying the tigers paid overs. Maybe had we tried to offer him a decent amount 6 weeks ago, he may of stayed. And I’m not sure why people saying it’s a gamble for tigers. He’s young and will still have his best footy ahead of him. Hopefully BA can extract the very best from the next batch of ‘cheapies’ we come across.

Maybe MON was out playing a round of golf with Gary and totally forgot about it. Maybe he played his cards as he saw them. Time to move on. There's a 2022 season to worry about first.

 

[King-Gutho94]

Difficult to compete in the player market without TPAs which appear to be something our club is not interested in. Manu stayed for less at The Cooks why? We all know why. Surely there is desire within the ever expanding Parramatta region for businesses to become involved. Are we looking a gift horse in the mouth on principle? No point having this you beaut Board if they arent advancing our brand. Have I missed something here?

Beats the hell out of me how we cant lure TPA's or bigger brand sponsors.

We have the biggest membership in the game.
We play in the best world class stadium currently in NSW.
Our TV ratings are one of the best in the game.
Channel 9 are desperate to have us on FTA like the broncos even when were down the bottom

Our brand is no longer tarnished and have become a regular finalist.

Maybe they are simply just scarred after what happened in 2016

 

[Soto]

Yep. Everyone now saying the tigers paid overs. Maybe had we tried to offer him a decent amount 6 weeks ago, he may of stayed. And I’m not sure why people saying it’s a gamble for tigers. He’s young and will still have his best footy ahead of him. Hopefully BA can extract the very best from the next batch of ‘cheapies’ we come across.

Completely agree. He wins our best and fairest or whatever the award was, a player on the up. His best years are ahead of him.
Understand we can't pay everyone $600k plus, and i don't see the rush to sign a contract now. If he regresses next year probably doesn't get offered anywhere near that. Will be very interesting to see how Guth, Mahoney, Jnr Paulo all play out now.
Not sure if its also been mentioned but is he going to play exclusively middle at the Tuggers? It's where he has stated he wants to play so maybe that carrott was also dangled in front of him too

 

[Bandwagon]

Difficult to compete in the player market without TPAs which appear to be something our club is not interested in. Manu stayed for less at The Cooks why? We all know why. Surely there is desire within the ever expanding Parramatta region for businesses to become involved. Are we looking a gift horse in the mouth on principle? No point having this you beaut Board if they arent advancing our brand. Have I missed something here?

I get the vibe that probity is numero uno with our board, as it should be in a perfect world.

But unfortunately that aint all that common, which maybe puts us at a disadvantage.

Maybe in going from incompetent corrupt merkins, to competent straight shooters, we've placed too much emphasis on straight shooters vs corrupt merkins, rather than competent vs incompetent merkins.

 

[SneakyEel]

Looking from our point of view we all probably want to keep Papali'i but I'm with the club and respect that they have a max price we make an offer take it or leave it. It's a lot easier than many think to replace players like Papali'i and Niukore and I personally don't want all of our salary cap tied to two back-rowers when we can spend money on our spine. Papali'i really hasn't proven himself, look at Hess for the Cows was absolute dynamite in his first year now his bog average, teams start working them out. Cows paying him a big salary as well, think we may have dodged a bullet.

 

[Eelogical]

I don’t know what’s worse. Coming into another clubs forum to try to bait people or following a club like the Tigers.

That's a hard one. But I'm going with their forum members option as being the hardest. I mean, 5 regular posters holding their forum together would be a task in itself. I can understand them visiting other club's forums. I mean, who wouldn't. It's easier to follow the club for them. They know what's going to be usually served up to them on game day. Unlike us, we never know what we're going to expect.

 

[Delboy]

Looking from our point of view we all probably want to keep Papali'i but I'm with the club and respect that they have a max price we make an offer take it or leave it. It's a lot easier than many think to replace players like Papali'i and Niukore and I personally don't want all of our salary cap tied to two back-rowers when we can spend money on our spine. Papali'i really hasn't proven himself, look at Hess for the Cows was absolute dynamite in his first year now his bog average, teams start working them out. Cows paying him a big salary as well, think we may have dodged a bullet.

Extending the spine becomes the real story and probably now we judge MON and the Retention squad. Given how we lowball too many players, it’s how that is concluded which shows how smart they are. Time is of the essence.

 

[T-Boon]

probity

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Not because they struggled to keep him. It was because of non football related issues.

Well we also let Papali'i go for non football related issues. He wanted to be overpaid.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

. . . hates winning wooden spoons, too.

It's called a rebuilding year, maybe you merkins should try it. We've made the finals every year since our last spoon. We'll be unbackable to make the finals again next year.

 

[T-Boon]

who was the last player that went from Parra to Tigers and continued on a good trajectory. Brett Hodgson?