Early in the 2025 season, with the Eels fighting tooth and nail to drag themselves off the bottom of the table, Jason Ryles spoke about seeing “green shoots” in their performances.
By the end of the 2025 season, the Eels have finished with 10 wins, including over finals bound teams in the Broncos, Roosters and Warriors.
The green shoots that were seen at the start of the year have grown into a burgeoning forest as the youngsters learnt their trade in the crucible of the NRL and Mitchell Moses returned.
The eye test has provided plenty of evidence to bolster those claims, but the stats back them up.
To start with, let’s look at the basics. The 2 below tables simply plot the points scored and conceded across the season per game.
No, your eyes don’t deceive you. Across the season, the average points scored has risen, while the points conceded have declined.
See below for a line of best fit.
What does this mean? Simply put, the longer the season went, the better the Eels got. Which is somewhat at odds with the Brad Arthur era, with Parramatta often flying out of the gates before hitting turbulence just after the Origin period and then limping towards the end of the season.
Now let’s get a little granular. These next sets of column graphs are going to break the season up into groups of 3 consecutive matches.
Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said he would usually watch his next opponent’s 3 most recent matches to get an insight into their most common tactics, personnel and approaches. Going back any further would likely mean he’d be looking at footage that was nigh on useless such is the nature of highly competitive professional sport.
You’ve read HoE talking about Kaizen throughout the year. The Japanese belief of continuous, positive improvement. It’s been adopted by the club as evidenced by a Kaizen banner that has been spotted in the sheds before games and which is on the walls of the Centre of Excellence.
In the 3 game averages, each golden column represents a 3 game period with at least one win. The blue column is a 3 game period without a win and the red column is 3 consecutive wins.
Following the opening month of the competition where the Eels went winless, they then became a somewhat more consistent team, winning 10 from 20. Only one period - against the Dragons, Panthers and Raiders just after mid-season, did they go 3 straight games without a win.
Juxtapose that with last season when the mid-point of the year was horrendous as the Eels lost 11 from 12.
The final 6 weeks of the season is perhaps the most positive for the Eels with their average points conceded dropping to 16 per game, while their attack fired as they averaged 27.8 points per game. The type of numbers that land you in the top 4.
As Jason Ryles said in his final press conference for the year, now it's up to them to return to pre-season and continue that improvement so the final 6 weeks of the season becomes the norm rather than the exception.
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TCT brought up that when they spoke to Sam Moa, he said he wished the season was another 4-5 weeks as the players are hitting their peak in terms of defence and attack. I wonder if the break will hurt us or we can pick up where we left off. Thankfully it seems out 17 wont have too much movement.
The likes of not only Ryles, but Moa and Wisemental are also another year more wiser in their approach. Those kicks to addo-carr cross field, though Walker's was adlibed, seem to be an idea from Wisemental. He was saying in pre-season that he would have these wacky attacking ideas and Nathan Brown would bring him back down to be more simple to start.
It would be interesting to see the trendlines without the first and last games. To me they tend to skew the results a little and by eliminating them from the data we might see a more true picture of how the season went. Also would be good to see the frequency of wins. As you say, in previous years we had extended periods without a win, but that was a bit more limited this season. You can have low scoring wins and high scoring losses, but what matters is the 2 points. That should be something the club needs to be aware of - success breeds success.
The reality is that even looking at trendlines over a season isn't long enough - as seasons are evolutionary outside of our system. By that I mean that all teams will/should improve on both attack and defence as the season carries on so even if we get better, if we get better at the same speed as those around us then the line remains flat.
Annoyingly we really need to compare seasons in full to each other to be a bit more apples to apples - which is a BIG lag indicator but why we won't truly know the impact of Ryles and his systems for a few years to come.
Right now for Ryles we have one comparible data point which is our finishing place on the ladder, which is higher than last year.
History tells us that momentum between seasons is more myth than reality, so next season we will start again and as our second full season data point evolves we'll see whether this trend continues. Anecdotally though, I like what I see with Ryles...he's doing a lot of the things we as fans wanted to see happen (youth, speed, club first juniors, moving the ball, solid sliding and edge defence).
Good blog, Super.
2025 has snapped a consistent and sharp four-year slide in our defence, the attitude barometer. From 3rd in 2020 to 16th in 2024. It’s evident in the improved kick chase. Loose ball contests. The line speed. Hunting in packs. The improved on-field communication and defence in sync.
Dr. Scott Goldman, think NFL, NBA Warriors and Stephen Curry , talked to James Graham on The Bye Round about the importance of the “Law of Averages.” No, it's not just stats. It's habits. Do the right things, often enough, and the performance eventually turns consistently. That’s Kaizen too. It's also interesting that we're starting to use Goldman's assessment tools in junior levels.
You can read a lot in that chart HOE. What happened in 03/04 to fall off a cliff, and how did we bring that back (albeit temporarily) in 05? Same in 22-24. It could very well be that the game moved on and coaches were slow to respond. Hopefully the coaching staff is well aware of key trends and will adjust accordingly over coming years.
Absolutely, Longfin. Shows a lot.
1. Ryles has reversed the direction of a steam train racing downhill full-pelt to rock bottom over four years.
2. How consistent we were, attitude wise, defensively, under Brian Smith.
Our recent era was Jeckyl-Hyde. If you don't believe the stats, listen to what Mitch Moses said earlier this year on Sixes and Sevens.
The Loss of Judas Lyon and Noel Cleal pissing off....hahaha joking. I think the 01 grandfinal team or those left probably had enough of Smith and these were rebuilding years we did bring on some good players Glenn Morrision, Tim Smith, Tahu, Piggy and brought Ian Hindmarsh back and some emmerging kids in Inu , Mateo, Tonga,PJ Marsh I think all come through those years, I think 2005 was Nathan Hindmarsh best year until the injury that spooked the time crashing down in 2005.
I picked us 25 26 spoons when baz took over and didn't watch many games .I'm happy things changed
Did anyone notice after the Newcastle spoon match, o'brien stole the "green shoots " line from Rylsey. Must watch so funny 😁
Actually the whole green shoots thing is funny , was never uttered before Ryles first said it and now it seems now made it mainstream where every person and their donkey uses the term
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