We were drinking the Kool-Aid from day one of the pre-season. Big gulps.
Every little thing in the off-season felt like proof we were onto something. The Lomax stance? Finally, we’ve got a backbone. The club stands for something. Love it.
Pezet on a one-year? Sneaky smart. You start talking yourself into how that could actually be a Ryles masterstroke.
De Belin, Kelly… yeah alright, maybe.
Then all the Moses chat kicks in. This is the year. Breakout. Leader. The media and Journalists start backing us. Everything starts lining up nicely in your head.
Then the season starts… and it hits you.
We weren’t building anything. We were just talking ourselves into it.
All that “identity” stuff? Turns out we suffer from multiple personality disorder, and none of them are good.
Classic. Cheers for the Kool-aid it tasted better this year.
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Dave Riccio tried to spin it that the Lomax case somewhat derailed our season as we got nothing out of it. But nobody said "what did you want Parra to do?" What happened was best case scenario and glad they did it as opposed to just letting him go to Melbourne for nothing as well.
Agreed. The question is are we improving or are we going backwards?
We haven't played finals since 2022 when the club allowed the roster to be picked apart. People mention rebuild when they talk about the Eels but if you're not improving, can it be called a rebuild? Or is it more accurate to say the club is going nowhere?
You can tread water for a long time, unfortunately it dosnt mean your swimming towards something. Our recruitment is exactly like that. Its like we are waiting for that 1979 and onwards era where we had a number of juniors and signings come through at the same time. Gave them the greatest coach ever, listened to him and got out of his way. Bingo a dynasty. We have been trying to find the start of one ever since, with too many people in charge that have never experienced being champions at an elite level.
You’re right about the Storm. But their story’s coming from a very different place.
They’re a club built on winning. A guaranteed top four. So when expectations drop, it feels like a shock. It stands out because it’s not who they are.
Us?
We’re nowhere near that.
We’re not adjusting from success. We’re still trying to figure out what success even looks like.
Storm have also lost 0-5 (with margins shown) vs Broncos (-4),Cowboys (-4), Panthers (-40), Warriors (-24) and Raiders (-4). Aside from the mercurial Cowboys, everyone is predicting those others to be in the Top 4 mix. Nobody expects the Storm to just fall away. Years of success means the Storm know how to play to expectations?
Eels? Flogged by Storm and Panthers (expected) but then also by Titans (unexpected). Everyone expects the Eels to just fall away. The Eels seem to wait until the pressure valve of expected wins has been released before anything like a dominant win is within their capacity: see 60-26 vs Tigers in R27 of 2024 (Tigers got spoon) and 66-10 vs Knights in R27 of 2025 (Knights got spoon). Eels don't know how to live up to hopeful expectations, only to shy away from them?
For the last 40 years our experience has been of a losing culture. Until we get more people in management positions that have winning experience at elite levels we will always be on the stairway and never reaching the top.
I think even the club and everyone involved drank it too. That's where after last week Ryles looked the most dejected I've ever seen him. As if it was a pure reality check of "shit, their effort says injuries aren't the only concern"
Ryles definitely had that thousand yard stare in the presser. Mitch just looked annoyed.
It was an uncomfortable watch.
Imagine being an elite halfback, that could anchor a premiership side and be given juveniles, over the hill fowards, players that wanted out of the club, as the men around you. The players we are recruiting in the main just don't cut it. Most would struggle to play first grade in a top 4 side. We are wasting Mitch's talents. If we are not going all in and breaking the budget to sign elite players we might as well let Mitch go. He is no use to us if we are not going to surround him with at least some origin players, some real speed and some mongrel go getters. I have only ever wanted the head of recruitment to get better. I'm now starting to wonder if those that employ him now need to be looked at. P.S the signing of Su'a may be the start of his improved performance, jury is still out but it needs to be acknowledged.
Admittedly some kool-aid-drinking was a bit rational: the Eels had a 5-4 W/L record over the last two months of 2025 after their R18 bye, including wins over Broncos, Chooks and Warriors (Top 8 teams) and a close loss to the Storm. Going 2-0 in the pre-season with enough entertaining play to maximize the silly points in the Witzer Cup (vs Sharks and Chooks) was promising.
Maybe many did talk themselves into being (mildly) confident. But have we now switched to talking ourselves into "it's a total debacle, the gloom is forever"? Like we're drinking poison now not kool-aid!
A good example here is - and apologies to Chiefy for singling him out here - all the ranting about the Eels' head of athletics performance (Matthew Jay). It all strikes me as performative cherry-picking. Chiefy, for instance, seems to be applying for head of athletic performance? Chiefy had previously opposed the prior head of atheltics performance (Blair Mills), and had declared the new one (Matthew Jay) to be 100x better, but is now also criticizing the new one despite having previously defended his apppointment. The new one is apparently suspect because he came from the Knights, and we can easily establish he was previously at the Tigerrs and Sharks. Here is Chiefy when Jay replaced Mills:
Now Chiefy says Jay came from the Knights and that's enough to say the club is run by clowns. OK, some quick search unveils Jay's NRL record, aside from multiple forms of credentials and being part of the Kiwi set up etc. Here is the record:
Knights 2025 (17th), 2024 (8th), 2023 (5th)
Tigers 2022 (16th), 2021 (13th)
Sharks 2020 (8th), 2019 (7th), 2018 (4th), 2017 (5th) NRL; previously Sharks pathways system 2010-2016
If we take this 9-season record as head of athletic performance (across three teams) as the data sample, Matthew Jay has been at the helm of 6/9 finals-making teams, or 66% of the time his team made the finals.
I'd like to hear what experience and credentials Chiefy is drawing upon that leads him to cherry-pick 1/3 of Matthew Jay's time at the Knights as "the indicator", ignoring the 66% (finals) track-record?
And lest it go unsaid, I am asking whether critiques of the club on thin and flimsy grounds truly advance discussion? Who doesn't remember 10-15 years ago when the site was dominated by partisan hacks for "Club Factions"? Those were the times of entirely boring POLITICAL talk, ostensibly about the team but anything about the team really masqueraded as political talk about the club. It seems to me the site is going back off the cliff back to that and I am saying that is mostly unproductive.
Yes the team currently stinks. Yes most of us sounded warning bells, for instance about lack of depth in the outside backs. Most of us admit the forwards have not held their ground this year. Though most of us temper that critique with the fact we also admit the style of play by the forwards in the last two months of 2025 had shown promise and that we cannot ignore the R7 team is missing three props and two backrowers normally in the 17.
But if the issue with current poor form and an injury-ravaged side is reduced to "heh look the head of athletic performance came from the spoon-winning 2025 Knights", and some basic checking reveals that to be pretty wild cherry-picking, then I am just asking how does that kind of selectivity really help?
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