He said the Eels would enter their opening-round clash against the New Zealand Warriors with no genuine gauge of their form or style.
Hindmarsh led Parramatta to a maiden win under coach Stephen Kearney with a 30-10 shut-out of Wests Tigers on Saturday night.
It was an impressive turnaround after the 24-4 loss in New Zealand last week.
But Hindmarsh cautioned fans not to read too much into the result and said the Eels might not find their mojo until they play the Gold Coast Titans in round seven.
Asked to measure the Eels' trial form, the former Test back-rower said: "We're not going to know until after the first game against the Warriors. We've proved nothing yet. Until we've actually played some comp games, we really can't see where we're heading."
Hindmarsh said the Eels' final trial match, against the Panthers on Saturday, would provide a clearer picture of where they were as a team - especially with limited interchange and 40-minute halves. But he said the club had placed no expectations on itself for the season.
"We said at the start of pre-season to train as hard as we can," he said.
"We haven't really thought about where we're going to be heading once the comp starts.
"There's no 'we're going to be top four or we're going to be top eight'.
"We're just going to try and work as hard as we can, wait for the first round and just see where we go from there."
Hindmarsh said the Eels wanted to play with more structure this year after often appearing to have no direction and being too reliant on off-loads and ad-lib play in the past two seasons.
"Until we actually get into the comp and probably play half a dozen games, it's a bit hard to see what style we'll play," he said. "Things change from trial games to comp games."
Hindmarsh said the players knew they had to work together to ease the pressure on Jarryd Hayne, who last year didn't reproduce his scintillating form of 2009.
"It's a job everyone has to do, not just a certain few," he said. "Everyone has to lift this year and take a bit of the workload off Haynesie." Hindmarsh praised former Test, Origin and Cowboys back-rower Carl Webb, who has trained the house down.
He said Webb was in the best condition of his career and keen to prove himself.
"I remember playing against him when he was fit and ready to go. I didn't want to tackle him," Hindmarsh said. "He's got great footwork for a big guy, he's got a big fend and he knows how to offload, so he's a very dangerous player.
"He played for his state and country, so he knows what he's doing and hopefully he can do it for us."
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Keeping under the radar?
Great Aussie tradition - "We are the underdogs" now we gonna belt you. lol
50/50 for first 6 games would be good result.