Rumours and Stuff

[JokerEel]

They develop their skills in training. That's what training is for.

Arthur never picked Hands in the halves in first grade unless there was an injury. And then it was a good thing he also trained in the halves. Every one of Hands' starts under Arthur was at hooker. Arthur also never picked his son.

But you think he was sacked for allowing Cayless to pick Hands in the halves once last year? In 2023 Hands played in the halves four times in reserve grade. It had nothing to do with Matt Arthur who was in SG Ball. And it didn't stop Arthur picking Hands at hooker, because he's a utility.

I see you know nothing still Jon Snow

Its sad you have started making things up now Jon

 

[JokerEel]

So many players underperformed last year. Why were they so poor all of a sudden? We will never know, but the club appears to have attributed it to leadership. That's why the captain and the coach are gone. Curiously, MON said Ryles was impressed with the work ethic in the squad and praised Brad Arthur for it. It was a weird thing to say because the eye test showed a lack of effort. It's why public statements by club officials are generally worthless.

You really have a thing for the eye test

 

[JokerEel]

The blokes who would die for BA?
The ones who were on massive salaries?
The ones who were vocal advocates and nearly won us the spoon.
Obviously the stats proved the real story

I wonder if the club could f**k off some fan's as well

 

[JokerEel]

Yeah I didnt realise you had Nathan Cayless on speed dial.

Clearly you have all the intel and inside information into how the Hands to 5/8 in reggies decision got made.

Well if BA let Cayless pick his backup dummy half at 5/8 it's probably why he isn't an NRL coach.

Either way BA f**ked up and POU can take his tongue out of his sweet spot

 

[King-Gutho94]

Well if BA let Cayless pick his backup dummy half at 5/8 it's probably why he isn't an NRL coach.

Either way BA f**ked up and POU can take his tongue out of his sweet spot

NRL head coach gets full control over most operations.

I would say Ryles will as well when it comes to NSW cup just like BA did if he wants to look at a certain player at a certain position or wants to put a player up in Cup to see how he develops there.

I know for a fact and had it confirmed that Hands was seen as a dummy half from multiple people within the football operations of the club.

It just happened to be there was a younger dummy half coming through that was pushed to play there in cup instead because the head coach at the time wanted to fast track his development and saw him as a future first grader with more potential then Hands.

Which is all well and good but when that actual player is the coaches son it certainly pisses off a lot of people and can be seen as nepotism by certain quarters.

 

[Twizzle]

*as well?

*also

 

[Zoso]

So many players underperformed last year. Why were they so poor all of a sudden? We will never know, but the club appears to have attributed it to leadership. That's why the captain and the coach are gone. Curiously, MON said Ryles was impressed with the work ethic in the squad and praised Brad Arthur for it. It was a weird thing to say because the eye test showed a lack of effort. It's why public statements by club officials are generally worthless.

Not to split hairs but I think he praised the fitness levels.
Yes, one follows the other but it’s curious because our fade outs usually happened around the 50-60 minute mark last year, (highlighted by that super detailed analysis I wish I could find. The same one that included age analysis of our forwards vs other teams).
If fitness wasn’t an issue, then something else was going on in the team, which stretched back to 2023 and not just 2024.
Maybe they all got sick of BA and/or stopped believing in what he was saying, or he didn’t instill belief in the team, which was compounded by squad deficiencies and injuries.
When the team wanted it they performed (see last or 2nd last end of 2023 beating Penrith at Penrith, with Asi at #7).
Sacking the coach isn’t always the answer but sometimes it is. This time it was.

 

[King-Gutho94]

Not to split hairs but I think he praised the fitness levels.
Yes, one follows the other but it’s curious because our fade outs usually happened around the 50-60 minute mark last year, (highlighted by that super detailed analysis I wish I could find. The same one that included age analysis of our forwards vs other teams).
If fitness wasn’t an issue, then something else was going on in the team, which stretched back to 2023 and not just 2024.
Maybe they all got sick of BA and/or stopped believing in what he was saying, or he didn’t instill belief in the team, which was compounded by squad deficiencies and injuries.
When the team wanted it they performed (see last or 2nd last end of 2023 beating Penrith at Penrith, with Asi at #7).
Sacking the coach isn’t always the answer but sometimes it is. This time it was.

The Parramatta Eels have learned nothing from last season - The Rugby League Eye Test

Another round, another second half flame out by the Parramatta Eels. When they found themselves behind against Manly in the second half, they doubled down on some incredibly poor discipline and let the game slip away from them. Unfortunately, the team hasn’t learned the first law of holes – when...

www.rugbyleagueeyetest.com

This paragraph was quite damning on BA - Round 8 after we lost to Manly at Brookvale and went 3-5.

We were ahead 14-6 at halftime similar to the game before against the Dolphins in Darwin

And after eight rounds in 2024, it’s clear they’re not even the under achieving 2023 Eels, they’re much worse. Yet they’re still chasing a style of play that the rest of the league has left behind. For a club with so many inherent advantages over the rest of the competition off field, it’s becoming embarrassing how little they’re using them to help the on field product.

 

[Pazza]

I don't think there was any fitness issues with BA coached teams. The game changed and BA didn't. I dont think we were getting gashed due to fitness but due to a lack of speed and mobility.

 

[Zoso]

I might see if I can do something different in here today. Here goes….
I was wrong.
When the club sacked BA, I criticized the club management saying I thought they were play it safe, middle manager types, more likely to make a conservative decision on a replacement coach.
The process was clunky but they’ve taken a risk with a new and unproven coach.
Time will tell if it was the right choice but nonetheless, and yeah the choice of experienced and successful coaches was limited, but they at least made an ambitious and brave call.

 

[Glenneel]

I also think Penrith will drop off. Storm are unbeatable unless injuries. They have close to 2 million worth of talent as back ups tho so it will take a lot of injuries.

I also like Brisbane. On paper it's a gun side.

You're right. Look at Faalongo, Wishart and Pezet as backup spine players which are all very good NRL players and they're stockpiling them so where is the money coming from? Not one article about this from journo's or the NRL apparently. And they keep signing good players from other teams as well. Nothing fishy here!

 

[King-Gutho94]

I might see if I can do something different in here today. Here goes….
I was wrong.
When the club sacked BA, I criticized the club management saying I thought they were play it safe, middle manager types, more likely to make a conservative decision on a replacement coach.
The process was clunky but they’ve taken a risk with a new and unproven coach.
Time will tell if it was the right choice but nonetheless, and yeah the choice of experienced and successful coaches was limited, but they at least made an ambitious and brave call.

If they truly wanted Bennett they really should have pursued him after 2023 and made the ruthless call on Arthur then.

Was he really hard done by if we sacked him after 2023 missing the finals off a GF appearance.

The Broncos have done the exact thing 12 months later.

We weren't the right fit for Michael Maguire i think Brisbane is a bit different and that roster ready to win a premiership suits his style.

Was there anyone else experienced available we could have got.

Ryles has shown early on he can make the hard calls as tough as they maybe.

I dont think many rookie coaches would have had the balls to be so ruthless to Gutho for example and tell him your days at FB are over were moving you to another position.

Buy in or ship off.

 

[Zoso]

The Parramatta Eels have learned nothing from last season - The Rugby League Eye Test

Another round, another second half flame out by the Parramatta Eels. When they found themselves behind against Manly in the second half, they doubled down on some incredibly poor discipline and let the game slip away from them. Unfortunately, the team hasn’t learned the first law of holes – when...

www.rugbyleagueeyetest.com

This paragraph was quite damning on BA - Round 8 after we lost to Manly at Brookvale and went 3-5.

We were ahead 14-6 at halftime similar to the game before against the Dolphins in Darwin

And after eight rounds in 2024, it’s clear they’re not even the under achieving 2023 Eels, they’re much worse. Yet they’re still chasing a style of play that the rest of the league has left behind. For a club with so many inherent advantages over the rest of the competition off field, it’s becoming embarrassing how little they’re using them to help the on field product.

That’s the one! Cheers

 

[84 Baby]

I don't think there was any fitness issues with BA coached teams. The game changed and BA didn't. I dont think we were getting gashed due to fitness but due to a lack of speed and mobility.

Kind of hand in hand though. Because of our size we had to manage energy levels during games. If that meant not shifting as far or rushing up in defence, or jumping up to get to market, or making a hard run in support off the ball, or doing a proper kick chase, then we didn’t do those things.
I call the last 2 BA years (really even before then) the mixed message years, because while we talked about frontloading, we usually played more like we were managing energy levels in hope we’d have a chance to use our “fitness” to run teams down at end. This despite a lot of our wins coming from when we explode teams with a bunch of points in short timeframe. It was like all the players were on different wavelengths then occasionally they’d all align and we’d look like world beaters.

 

[Glenneel]

Iongi is an unknown quality, at least to me and many others I suspect. All I've seen is a small highlights package which tells us nothing really. Whats he like at organising D, creating breaks, backing up breaks, or stopping breaks, etc? What I have seen is him being run down twice by Dean Hawking I think so his speed is not electric. So is he going to be better than Gutho? Certainly cheaper so allowed us to buy the players we now have so some benefit.

All we know is Ryles appears a good judge of talent and he thinks Iongi will benefit us so that is all we can go on. All we need now are the systems to allow our players to thrive and hopefully we'll see that in about a month's time in the trials.

 

[Glenneel]

So many players underperformed last year. Why were they so poor all of a sudden? We will never know, but the club appears to have attributed it to leadership. That's why the captain and the coach are gone. Curiously, MON said Ryles was impressed with the work ethic in the squad and praised Brad Arthur for it. It was a weird thing to say because the eye test showed a lack of effort. It's why public statements by club officials are generally worthless.

I've come up with a theory that once a political party has been in power for 10 years they become stale and out of ideas. Maybe this 10 year barrier also applies to coaches? Any stats to support this? Bellamy obviously the outlier but maybe reinvents himself every few years- but also came up a new dirty tactic every few years now banned by NRL.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

So far you have said the following:

- Public statements are worthless.

I did.

- Private information is bullshit or it would be said in the public domain
- what people see on the field is meaningless
- coaches are responsible for almost nothing that happens at a club
- but only coaches have enough information to really know what’s going on and
- anything BA did was right and justified by the mere fact that he did it

Where did I say any of this shit?

You really change your bullshit positions with the wind to suit whatever circular tack you want to take at the time

You need to stop making shit up.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Well if BA let Cayless pick his backup dummy half at 5/8 it's probably why he isn't an NRL coach.

Either way BA f**ked up and POU can take his tongue out of his sweet spot

He picked Hands as a bench utility. That means when he came onto the field he might've had to play in the halves.

 

[AnonymousLurker]

I've come up with a theory that once a political party has been in power for 10 years they become stale and out of ideas. Maybe this 10 year barrier also applies to coaches? Any stats to support this? Bellamy obviously the outlier but maybe reinvents himself every few years- but also came up a new dirty tactic every few years now banned by NRL.

They also vary the way they attack every few years aswell. Style of play that storm play is chalk and cheese now compared to say smith/slater / Cronk years and even during that time slater changed his role in attack

 

[TheCrowe]

I

Iongi is an unknown quality, at least to me and many others I suspect. All I've seen is a small highlights package which tells us nothing really. Whats he like at organising D, creating breaks, backing up breaks, or stopping breaks, etc? What I have seen is him being run down twice by Dean Hawking I think so his speed is not electric. So is he going to be better than Gutho? Certainly cheaper so allowed us to buy the players we now have so some benefit.

All we know is Ryles appears a good judge of talent and he thinks Iongi will benefit us so that is all we can go on. All we need now are the systems to allow our players to thrive and hopefully we'll see that in about a month's time in the trials.

Ive seen Ionghi get rundown as well. Explosive speed but not high end speed. In watching other peoples highlights Ive seen Blaize get burned by speed time after time. Blaize at fullback would have been a disaster. Ionghi is a way better option. We definitely won that exchange.