Welcome to EA’s rookie reports for the Paramatta Eels 2025 season.
Firstly, I have heard people wanting the reports, so I have decided to increase the quality of these reports for everyone so thanks everyone for the support. Please feel free to comment and add your knowledge of the players too as there will be some that I do not know that well.
Squad List:
Before I release the first report there are few things that need to be considered. A rookie’s season can easily change before or during the season when:
- Our top 30 is complete (new signings or upgrading player contracts internally)
- Injuries or suspensions of any player results in vacant positions in lineups across all open age and junior grades.
So for the purpose of these blogs, I will be writing it based on the current state of the club. That is with no long-term injuries or suspensions and with a top 30 of 27 players (including Ronald Volkman since it highly likely) and 6 players on development (supplementary) contracts. As you can see below, these are the players on those contracts. I have also included some players who should feature in NSW Cup; however I am unsure on what type of contract they are on and how long their deal is. There are also some players that are not listed below which will be in the Flegg team that will be pushing for games in NSW cup. I will be speaking about some of those players anyway.
Reports:
Each rookie to watch will have:
- General information about the player if known.
- Player description (position and their traits)
- Potential rating from 1-5 (low to high) based on the position they play. Does not mean I am saying they will be that good.
- Potential achievements this year (junior origin teams, schoolboys)
- Progression prediction (what levels they will play for eels this year)
- Player comparison to a current NRL player
The report is going to come out in three different blogs:
- The first blog will contain our rookies to watch from the NRL, NSW Cup. These are the players that have a chance of making their NRL or NSW Cup debut or adding on to their minimal NRL/cup games. Expected Blog Release: 6/12/2024
- The second blog will contain players from our main Jersey Flegg team. These are players that are relatively new to flegg and may even be from the SG Ball team. Expected Blog Release: 13/12/2024
- The third blog which will come out later will be our rookies to watch from SG ball and Harold Matthews. These are players who are obviously very young, but some should break into the Jersey Flegg team this year. Some of the SG ball players could be possible NRL players in 2026 if you look how we had Talagi, Guymer, M Arthur and Sanders debut this year from our 2023 SG ball winning team. Importantly, the final squads for both teams have not been confirmed as the summer trial and train squad is currently in progres. Expected Blog Release: 20/12/2024
Please let me know if there is anything specific you would like to know.
EA
Replies
Fantastic EA- looking forward to the first write up
This is great work, EA. I look forward to your future rookie reports too.
Wonderful EA, i respect your voice here, quite a lot. Glad you are doing this, where i feel it will be very prevalent with the amount of kids i feel will debut in next two or so seasons.
Well EA, the excitement is ramping up for the arrival of your first blog on or about friday. It's bigger than picking up the latest edition of the Rugby League Week, when it existed, or even as a tot, trying to stay awake to spy Kris Kringle make an appearance to fill your pillow slip. It's that big.
Fantastic work EA 👍👍
Thanks everyone for the support. I do hope I can meet the expectations. I will try my best.
To try ensure I can keep a good quality on all players I have decided to split it up into 3 blogs instead to give myself more time. I have updated this blog to show it.
This is awesome. I assume you have some inside knowledge, because a lot of those contracts outside the top 30 haven't been publicised. Can I ask who your source is, and if you can't say, which ones (outside the top 30) are you certain of?
Most of them I got no idea. I should have been more specific. The players I listed in that section (except Brazel) either get upgraded soon or our doing a pre-season with the nrl team right now. That's why I put them there. So I am saving they are would be on train and trial contracts or some other type of contract. They are the ones that are likely to feature in cup.
Your list is certainly all plausible.
I know you have good knowledge on our rookies too so I will be interested in your comments.