Eels Blogs

Reed Mahoney is a great player, he is an Origin quality player had Grant not be playing. Signing for Canterbury a year and bit out from the 2023 season was heartbreaking for Eels fans, crucifying the club and BA for letting him walk, low balling him to only 500k a year when Canterbury gave him 600k and a 4 year deal, later captaincy. We saw it as possibly one of the worst gaffs in the clubs retention history. Fast forward 18 months and we as a squad look better without him and he is stalling as the leader of the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, who are on track to be worse than last year. Threw the kitchen sink at big money signings like Mahoney, Kikau, Sutton then spent a fee to obtain future star Karl Oloapu. 

Then they got a massive signing in coach Cameron Ciraldo, the most sought after coach in the coaching carousel. The Wests Tigers threw the kitchen sink at Ciraldo, though it seemed Ciraldo wanted the 'right job', he had a good job at Penrith sitting under Cleary who may in a few years drop back to a GM role opening the pathway for Ciraldo to take the Penrith job. Though a succulent chinese meal from Gus tempted Ciraldo to take the Bulldogs job on a 5 year deal. I said when he took it this was the wrong job due to the pressure and the way the club was being built by Gus would've suited a veteran coach to guide them for a short term. Ciraldo is making dumb decisions in desperation. Karl Oloapu is a talent from Brisbane, giving him a debut then moving him to 6 when i feel he should be 7, then yesterday bringing on Khalad Rajab, another half, onto the field for some impact but has no idea where to put him, so he puts Rajab into 6 and moves Oloapu to the middle??? an 18 year old half adapting to NRL moved to play as a middle forward? Wow. Ciraldo the way he is going wont last past 2024.

Gus built this squad with a 'win now' mentality. He throwing the war chest at big name players, getting Crichton next year and maybe Hunt, Kikau and Mahoney. It is all well and good, hell if they have all those players on the field they would be top 8. The issue is, injuries and Origin makes you rely on depth, if your cap is eaten up by big money players then your depth will suffer causing your team to be not balanced. Remember Gus saying he was going use 7 spots in top 30 on minimum wage players? How has that worked? Getting players like Kurtis Morrin, Sam Hughes, Fa'amanu Brown, Hayze Perham, Reece Hoffman and Josh Reynolds ain't going to do anything for your squad if they are all in the team at once like they have been. Our depth was challenged and we adapted; Doorey, Murchie, Momoisea, Moretti, Ogden, Russell all depth players but most have done a role for us. We are a balanced squad. Gould's philosophy is to win right away, get a title in 3-4 years than start again and walk into the sunset of a job done reaping the praise and credit. He knew there was no junior base like Penrith have that can be relied on in the future and built around. He needed to buy players to win and it will work to get top 8 but wont win anything without depth.

Mahoney went there to be a leader and do things his way from dummy half, it obviously has not worked. No RCG or Paulo to lay the platform, no Moses, Brown or Gutho to call for the ball to take the pressure off. He also showed, especially in the Round 7 clash at Commbank, he is not mature enough to lead a squad. As we go about our season, we see Hands who is cheaper perform the same as Mahoney, his pass not as good but every other area is very similar but a bit more of a running game, showing how BA wants his hookers to play though with Hands given him that freedom to move around if he wanted to. Reed i think overall would be regretting the decision he made to move, he will still be a good player in 2027 when his Bulldogs deal is done but his career progression and achievements would be not reaching the heights expected. Once it comes to 2027, Canterbury will be rebuilding again due to the cap space most of their players are taking up and their ability to not be able to develop their talent currently (Alamoti, Casey, Oloapu) is a concern. I am now confident to say Canterbury will have either the same amount of less premiership wins than us in the next 4 years.

Reed gets what he deserves and hope he enjoys his season of hope that turned out to be worse with him there and then year prior when he was at Parramatta.