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.
Replies
Brilliant blog Super!
Ryles has done a great job. Kudos to him!
Talking about green shoots.A couple of months ago all the talk about us signing a lock/second rower of good standing. Any further news about this or was it all chatter without substance.
Hopefully we can build on this. In 2018 after taking over from Des Hasler at the Dogs, Dean Pay ended the rebuild year with momentum winning 5 from last 6 games. But the team started poorly in 2019, however they again won 5 of their last 6 games. But again this didn't translate into the following year because in 2020 after winning only 1 out of their first 9 games Pay was sacked.
The new defensive system can only be maintained by a fair amount of youth, fitness and speed. 2026 when expectation will be higher will be these young kids test. It just has to be a play-off year, I know form and injuries to key players are difficult to know and also some luck and pickups in recruitment are vitally important , but we have a fit moses and middles for 85% of matches we should make the 8.....Please Kevie let Mitch warm the Bench or organise the after parties.......cant afford another year of injury.
Consistency week to week has to be our mantra.....
Just a side note on our juniors. I obviously spoke very highly of Popo throughout the SG ball season but after his injury that talk from me died down a bit. On the weekend for our Jersey Flegg team he made 46 tackles and ran for 187m. Will be in NSW Cup very soon. Athletic, mobile middle with a big motor. Does not stand down either in a push or shove. Always makes sure he speaks shit back lol.
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