Eels Blogs

The Eels host the tough, street-fighting Raiders facing three-straight losses against them in semi-tropical Darwin where the Eels haven't won in four years.

Both teams had tight upset wins last week, but it's been over two years since the Eels last beat the Raiders back in the 2022 semi-final. 

The improving Eels are missing arguably their three most critical players outside the spine - Moses, Williams, and no Lomax (foot, circa 6 weeks).

For the Eels, the experienced Simonsson comes in for Lomax while Matterson comes in for rising-gun Tuivaiti. The constant shuffling and change hasn't helped cohesion. Currently, the bottom two teams with the worst defence, us and the Panthers, have used the most players in the competition (26 and 24 respectively). And other than this week, we generally field around 7 of the 17 whom are inexperienced rookies.

Team Lists

Round 7: Saturday 12 March 2025, 7.35pm AEST at TIO Stadium, Darwin

Weather: Light rain likely, humidity around 90%, winds 16kmh
Ground Conditions: Expected to be good
Referee: Wyatt Raymond
Touchies: Drew Oultram, Belinda Sharpe
Senior Review Official (bunker): Grant Atkins
Sportsbet: Eels $2.80 outsiders Raiders $1.44 warm favorites

Eels: 1. Isaiah Iongi 2. Josh Addo-Carr 3. Viliami Penisini 4. Sean Russell 20. Bailey Simonsson 6. Dylan Brown 7. Dean Hawkins 8. Joe Ofahengaue 9. Ryley Smith 10. Junior Paulo 11. Shaun Lane 12. Kitione Kautoga 13. J’maine Hopgood
Bench: 14. Dylan Walker 15. Luca Moretti 16. Charlie Guymer 22. Ryan Matterson
18th/Extended bench:  19. Dan Keir 
Cut: 5. Zac Lomax (foot) 18. Joash Papali’i  21. Ronald Volkman 17. Sam Tuivaiti
Head Coach: Jason Ryles

Raiders: 1. Kaeo Weekes 2. Savelio Tamale 3. Matthew Timoko 4. Sebastian Kris 5. Xavier Savage 6. Ethan Strange 7. Jamal Fogarty 8. Josh Papali’i 9. Tom Starling 10. Joseph Tapine 11. Hudson Young 12. Matt Nicholson 13. Corey Horsburgh
Bench: 14. Owen Pattie 15. Simi Sasagi 16. Morgan Smithies 17. Ata Mariota
18th/Extended bench: 18. Trey Mooney 
Cut: 19. Jed Stuart 20. Adam Cook 21. Pasami Saulo 22. Danny Levi
Head Coach: Ricky Stuart

Stat Attack 

• The Eels have lost their last three games in Darwin to Queensland-based teams (4-35 Cowboys, 16-26 Broncos, 16-44 Dolphins) - conceding 35 points per game.
• The Eels have lost their last two games to the Raiders - conceding nearly 30 points per game.
• The Raiders have never beaten the Eels at Darwin, with the Eels winning two-tight clashes against Canberra there but it was many years ago (18-10 in 2014 and 22-16 in 2019).

Raiders halfback Jamal Fogarty (above, Getty Images) will play his 100th NRL game. He is a key game manager for the Raiders that will put us to the sword if we aren't able to stop the Raider go-forward and on the front foot.

Josh Addo-Carr (above, Getty Images) has scored nine tries in his last nine games. 

The Fox should get some ooportunities. Eels left edge has scored (73% of its tries) while the Raiders right edge defence concedes almost half of its tries. The Raiders edges both have opportunities (Eels right edge has leaked almost half of its tries to be its achilles heel).

Raiders centre Seb Kris has scored five tries in six games against the Eels (Getty Images).

Last Saturday at Commbank

The Eels were gutsy winning 23-22 in extra time against the Dragons last week riding Lomax's clutch plays off his boot - that is now broken and is out for six weeks joining Moses and Williams - three key personel - to continue the cursed year to date. The Raiders also somehow found a way to upset the Sharks 24-20.

The Eels celebrate last week's thrilling win (Image by the Eels' club)

The now-injured Zac Lomax's (above image by the Eels' Club) requires one try for 50 NRL tries - but will need to put this milestone on ice.

Improvements, but

The Eels have shown improvement over the last three weeks.

They leaked 44 per game over the first two rounds, and 21 per game over the last three.

To help ease pressure on our defence we'll need to continue with the “high-speed grind”  as per Gus Gould's Six Tackles – defence starts with your attack. It's about what you do with the ball and where you give the ball to the opposition: having good go-forward, ball-control, support play, a kick-gaming on the front foot, supported by good kick chases; rinse-repeat. The Panthers were masters of this between 2020-24 but have struggled with it this year. We have been inconsistent with these fundamentals for years.

Last week's win was our best high-speed grind effort in a long time. We had our best go-forward all year (1811m-1610m). We had our best ball-control all year: highest completions (83%-73%) and least errors of the year to date (9-12). For the first time all year, we actually made less errors than the opposition. All of which helps Hawkins and a more on-the-front-foot kicking-game coupled with the best kick chases that we have had in a long time. All of that helps relieve pressure on our defensive line.

On that, Losing Lomax is a body blow and will hurt some of our go-forward and grunt.  Lomax is also the only Eels in the top-50 for post-contact metres per game (nrl.com) per game (5th in the competition). He is also the top Eel for total run metres (5th) alongside Isiah Iongi (8th). Will Penisini (23rd) the only other Eel in the top-50 for total run metres.  It's a sharp contrast to Arthur's era where our back five were some of the worst metre makers in the competition.

Last week, Junior Paulo stepped up in a captain's knock of the ages; with-and-whacking-without-the ball and with his talk. It was his best game that I can remember off memory since returning back to the club in 2019. He is playing more minutes than he has in his entire career (around 60 mins per game this year so far). Whether Ryles has found a secret anti-ageing Parramatta billabong or it's a slim-downed, small-balled Paulo at peak neural optimization - or is it just because of a different coach bringing out his best?

Dylan Walker's experience, communication, ruck-manship and go-forward was also a factor - making the most metres (143m, 52 minutes) of any forward outside of Junior (190m, 72 minutes). Walker also helped free up Dylan Brown (19 runs, 164m the highest all year) and outside men relieving pressure off Smith and Hopgood. Run Dylan Run. Is Dylan Brown Back? 

Ryley Smith’s terrrier-like pressure (above) was a factor leading to Dragons’ higher error count (12-9) and miscuing. For many Eels' fans he is a potential upgrade on the Reed-machine from out of the blue; a bigger motor, bigger brain power, plenty of much-needed mongrel without the pestiness. 

The team was one and so too were the coaching staff. Plenty of observers were impressed with the co-ordination and back-bending efforts of the coaching staff (e.g. Scott Wisenmantel) who showed urgency in managing interchange fatigue-factors and game plan execution.

Despite getting better at applying pressure on the opposition, we still are defensively vulnerable under pressure – occasionally drifting into bad habits of the past conceding more linebreaks that the opposition every week (18 – 34 overall) and on most weeks missing more tackles than the opposition (177-138). Herein, lies the warning. 

In challenging conditions at Darwin where we have struggled since 2021, well-below strength missing key personnel, in yet another shuffled squad, we'll need continue with the high-energy and high-speed grind. Be aligned. Stay on the same bus.  Or else we could be in strife. As we saw last year's round five 41-8 bashing, the Raiders have the strike and speed to punish us.

The Eels celebrate last week's R5 win over the Dragons (image by the Eels club).

R6 UPDATE: A bashing. Poor ball control (errors 16-8, 66-88% completions), poor go-forward (1393-2090m), losing the middle, ordinary kicking-game and kick chases, coupled with fatigue fatigue (362-250 tackles, 45-21 missed tackles, 44% possession) - meant we were no hope. Right edge was defensively fragile again continuing the trend. Poor refereeing ensured it was a blowout (handing out Raiders' tries despite wicked bounces not even close to being grounded). Positives - Simonsson's return. Last road trip to Darwin (4-0, big losses since 2021, 12-50 Raiders, 4-35 Cowboys, 16-26 Broncos, 16-44 Dolphins). The final hooter.

Footnote:  All stats in this blog come from either nrl.com,  Rugby League Project or Insider Stats.