Peter Gentle is poised to make a return to Parramatta to take charge of the club’s academy as the Eels plot a homecoming for former junior star Blaize Talagi.
Gentle, who was Manly’s head of football before quitting last month, was formerly an assistant coach to Brad Arthur at the Eels more than a decade ago.
He is now set for a return to the Eels, replacing James Shepherd at the helm of the Eels academy. Shepherd has joined the Bears as an assistant coach.
Gentle has a long history in the game and has had a multitude of different roles at clubs including being a one-time interim head coach at the Broncos.
His return comes as the club plots a potentially bigger arrival in Talagi.
Talagi still has another year on his contract at Penrith but is set to become a free agent on November 1 as Penrith devote their energy to retaining some of their biggest stars, chief among them Nathan Cleary and Isaah Yeo.
There has been a school of thought that Penrith could look to allow Talagi to move for next season, which would free up salary cap room to help them keep the bulk of their team.
An Achilles injury in Penrith’s final game has clouded that move, but the Eels are believed to be keen on adding Talagi back to the club as early as next season. The plan is to initially play him in the centres with Parramatta have a lack of depth in their outside backs next year.
He would then move to five-eighth in 2028 when Jarome Luai leaves for PNG. Talagi’s younger brother Ryda made his NRL debut for Parramatta this year.
The Eels will also make a million dollar play for Newcastle centre Bradman Best next month.
Replies
Why would we consider bringing back Gentle? Our Juniors were the worst under BA, and Manly's system is a mess as well. I really hope this isn't true.
I know this if I'm a team I'm not helping Riff out by getting Blaise early I'm not doing it I want to make it as hard as possible for Riff to j hold onto there players.Blaise is there problem not ours.Let them do the cap gymnastics and I'd love to see riff have to make some hard decisions.
Why do i feel like we will take the injured Blaze off their hands so they can buy Burton .
That's nice of us to do.
The old Ass to mouth trick
Many umming and arring, over Blaize is fair. But remember too, he just turned 21. He is 22 next year. There is much more room to grow to be decent to good or even great NRL player.
As for Gentle, yeah Manly's juniors are rubbish, though he was GM. His role now focuses only on pathways. Does he do better? Perhaps. But I also like to think he would have better access to certain juniors with out facilities. We also are one the biggest pathway spenders, as a club, in the comp. That helps too. We are slowly seeing the conveyer belt type pathways start to poke through. 2027 is when the first crop start to appear in first grade; Talagi, Koina, Petrus, Fletcher, Popo. Then in 2028; Bell, Trey-Stewart, Nunn, maybe Martin Bloomfield, Sorovi., maybe even Seuseu.
We lose Coinakis, replace him Trey-Stewart who could better. Talagi re-signed, though had he left we have Nunn coming through to replace him.
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