Eels Blogs

Hello all! 

I'm just going to try and stay positive through the next few weeks. Hopefully some of you will want to go on a little journey with me.

Im choosing to look ahead at what we could do moving forward.

I'm a respectful and polite person so I hope that comes across with my post and future reposes. 

1) BA - I love him for what he has contributed to my football club. For so long I would be the laughing stock of my friends and colleagues as a Parra boy. The past 5-10 years have been a great period for our club. Not perfect, but I'm damn proud of the way we have gone about our rebuild.

BA no doubt has been a huge part of this. No one is perfect I understand that but I think if we look at him with open minds he has done more good than bad. 

Now, in saying that I think Head Coach is no longer the optimal role for either party. And not because of any one particular choice or call.
The best way to have Brad contribute to the club moving forward would be as a football ops manager. 

Have him lead our junior development programs,  develop our juniors and poach castaways from other programs. Have him protect and preserve what it means to wear the B&G. Focus more towards the culture, consistency, discipline, defense and hard work elements of Parra football. There is no doubt that broken men come into our program now and turn their careers around.
This is an incredible asset.
BA is the kind of coach that attracts a footballers footballer. He has a simple roll the sleeves up approach that I for one, would love installed deep within the roots of the B&G.
I can imagine that player managers with a wayward young gun can push him into the B&G system and they know they will end up with a better chance at cashing in. That works wonders for our ability to attract talent.

Before you pop off please hold onto your hats..

In saying all of the above it would be unfair not to address shortcomings in BAs coaching style, it seems as though we are missing that extra option or edge in attack, we all see this.
In my opinion we would be chopping our nose off to spite our face if we just move BA on, what we should do is bring in a successful ex player much like we have in the past (but only in a simple coaching role) that can focus on the creative offense side of the game and partner BA. A dual approach to the operations and junior development. We want this person to partner him at the Ops level, not a 5 week preseason training camp.
Make an offer to someone like James Maloney and give him 5 years. A simple goal and role. There are two sides of the brain, two sides of the game. 
Maloney is prolifically successful and wellknown 'cheeky bugger', avoids doing the tough stuff, and gets away with it! He is like a polar opposite of BA. I beleive and have experienced in my various jobs and in general life experience that hard nose blokes like BA actually love being challenged by someone who sees the world from a different angle.

A best of both worlds set up. A bit of ownership and accountability when it comes to the multiple aspects of rugby league. "I'll make sure we limite errors and turn up consistent and unreleanting effort in D and you put point on the board."

Now when I talk about these scenarios, with JM, this is just a name and a well known character of the game that we can all relate to as an example. But the double headed eel can work, play to our strengths. Establish an identity that we can implement long term.

2) 2023 contracts. This is where ya chuck on the visor and live out the fantasy of being in the front office. The super coach nerd in me coming out here.

Our recruitment for next year (at this stage) is a bit disappointing but again I want to support the club and decisions they have made. I hope, though, that they make moves similar to these:

a. Sign Matto to a 4 year deal, mid-high tier contract, give him the 13 and tell him to emulate Yeo. Matto has long been in my sights, a fantastic young man with so much versatility and ability. Everyone knows you need a good spine to compete but in this era of NRL, to win prems you need an elite 13 and 14.

b. With that in mind, the 14 role, Chanel Harris Tevita. Off contract next year and the warriors seem to be signing up a lot of young Halves. I see CHT as the perfect 14 in the modern game. He is a B&G type player too, he can put really good hits on and has that back line versatility. He is tough and skillful. He wouldn't look out of place in a 9 jersey and could afford to lose some speed for muscle mass because he has lots of speed!

c. Aitken, again another versatile player, huge wraps on him coming through the juniors. Benji used to talk about him a lot when he played with him. He runs very crispy attacking lines and competes on every play. This guy is a centre and is playing back row, he accepted the role from his coach and didn't throw a tantrum. He would take unders the play Centre and finals. 

d. Herby, seems like our style of back, clean cut and well manored. He is eeelectric when he has had moments to show what he can do. A bidding war has seemingly broken out for him but to me he is a future premiership winner. It's rare a game breaker has the consistency this kid shows. He would be my first choice for FB coverage as well.

e. Taane Milne, this bloke looks like he could play front row. I can't see him commanding a high price. Issues with consistency and attitude but given our track record, we could help him turn it around.

f. Talakai he is probably out of contention given his likely blown out price but he is Marata Niukore but twice as fast, explosive and skillful. Number 1 on the shopping list of the price is right, he might value length of deal and garuntees over $ value though!

g. Fainu from Manly, he has had off field troubles but again as stated earlier, we seem to have a great ability to turn these kids around. 2 year minimum insntive based deal, between BA, Ennis and Hodgson we could be a young 9s dream destination!

h. There are a bunch of good props off contract, I'd say try get both Fainu brothers over together, might have to pay on potential but we have consistently got the most out of our forwards. Franklin Pele could be another one that we get the best out of.

i. Nikora was rumored for a little while there. Hole running but definitely not a superstar, would like to see less errors from him but seems like he is mentally missing something. For what it's worth I'd sign him, sharks have a lot of off contract players this year and won't be able to keep them all.

j. I hope we move Waqa to wing permanently, can't believe how much of a change that made in his game. Haze will need the best part of a year in reserves next year to rebuild his knee and confidence. Rusty should be long term reserves fullback and let him fully develop his game. I call Rusty the prince (in my mind he is ready to take over from king Gutho in 3-5 years)

j.5. Sivo is our other winger for next year and tail end of this year if he can come back at his best. With the young lad Komolafe 2 years away from being our long term try scoring machine!

k. Long term ext for Penisini, I don't want to even want to think about him leaving. We will have to pay a bit extra to keep the roosters away but this kid is a 10 year NRL player.

The players above are all off contract next year so we could get them in theory. Our forward stocks are close to peachy ripeness in NSW cup. The likes of Rodwell Grieg and EEZ, not prefect but looking promising, I think we bring them in next year, accelerate development and prepare for another title shot in 2024!

The Moses dilemma, I love the kid, he is such a freak when it comes to ability. I've heard in the past that he grew up a Parra fan and I think it shows. He almost tries too hard and seems to mentally check out when his team is spluttering or falling behind (I believe that's because he is literally devastated) He needs to mature and unfortunately he hasn't quite got to where we need him this year. Hopefully his management don't ask for a million, he is simply not worth that. Moses has the skill set of a top 5 player but we really need consistency and stoic leadership. If we have to I'd take Flanagan and his old man for 450 over 4 years before Moses for 1 million. 
When it comes to our halves partnership moving forward, DBrown is everything for mine, he will win NRL premierships, i just hope and pray it's with us. DB can partner anyone in the 7 and the team would be a threat. *This would be a good idea to remind everyone that I'd love to steer the convo away from the team selection trouble of the past two weeks.*

I'm not interested in the past, so I hope you all enjoyed my thoughts. Please try stay away from topics that are so heavily addressed in other blog posts :)