We coud be at least be 2 or 3 wins further up if we had some more astute work from the coach. Although many on here rave about Ryles - and personally I like him and the things he is trying to do - he is making as many rookie errors as any of the players.
What does "astute" mean? It means tactically aware, understanding weaknesses, communicating clearly and applying all the correct resources available.
One of the obvious things last night was that Ryles overplayed Moses role - we became so predictable. We need more tactical adaptibiity and creativity.
Farnsworth sat defensively on Moses when ever he went to the blindside he loves. Just about every set Moses got his hands on the ball (nothing wrong with that) but every time the variation was negligible. There had to be room for shorter kicks as well as the perenial long ones. Not once did Moses really take a run. Were there occasions he could have lifted the pace? Could Moses sometimes be used as a dummy with a point of attack coming from somewhere else?
Are we contestng the ball enough? Having your kicker back is one thing, but at no stage did we get into a position to really challenge the receiver. On the odd occasions we did, we did not contest the kick. It seems the players are under instructions to stand next to the receiver and hope he drops the ball. I do not understand this non contested kicks. The same applies with the drop outs and in some cases defensively where they allowed the attacking side to make the mistake. That's fine when it works, but bloody awful if it doesn't. Perhaps, it is in part the fear of being penalized or sin binned? It's an areas that is undermining us.
Another issue is Ryles' selections.
Matterson should have been playing last night and he would have provided a completely different drive from the "pigs". I thought Junior tried hard but he was a bit out of sorts, almost like him needing to be prodded to get moving (herding cattle). Nothing wrong with Hopgood and Williams games, they are the workers in the pack and the people on here do not understand that or more the point appreciate it.
Russell is honest as the day is long, just a second grader filling in and he stops progress by not creating anything. Does him being solid actually weaken our game?
This game was there for either team to win on the night. Unfortunately, it was a flick of the coin and we lost.
One final thing: people need to get over the constant BA bashing. The guy has gone. But it seems that anything the side does badly is laid on his shoulders. The other things we need to understand are that its fine to have plenty of money to spend, but unless the people we want want to come to Parramatta and play for us, then they won't come! Build it and they will come, selections and poor communication with players is not part of building anything. There are players in Reserve Grade that are going well that are not geting a look in, there are players in first grade that seem to being favoured, I don't no why?
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It's our roster. End of story. Too many rookies, forward pack is dominated each week.
The club deliberately gutted the roster (which is fair enough) but hasn't replaced with same or better quality and experience. It's men vs boys out there and whilst effort is admirable it doesn't necessarily equal wins. Apparently we need to be patient. Given that many in our 17 are rookies with 10 or less games I guess we have to wait another 40 games (2 years) or so before we have an experienced pack that can compete with most sides. It's been 40 years, what's another 2 or so?
Put it this way Mutts, Ryles has created so much cap space by moving on veterans. If he doesn't do anything with that cash that can get us at least 2 quality forwards then he deserves the sack at the end of 2026 simple as that.
But what good is the cash if the market is bare? How many players are currently available to hold contract talks with for the positions we need?
Even if there are players available, are we as a club able to get them to sign on the dotted line? Don't forget there will be a poaching raid for the Bears by seasons end too, so an already difficult task is made that much harder with that ticking clock
As i mentioned in other blogs, money talks with players under contract for 2026, not saying we are able to get it over the line as negotiations still need to be done well but money can talk and we have a lot of it. How many times have you seen a player with a year left go elsewhere and most of the time they got a big pay day? Plus, i hear media "They can't talk to them til November 1" what a load of BS, every club talks to players in someway, there are loopholes. Most of the time it is talking to the agent about other things and a player comes up and just slyley discuss the players thoughts and contract and the club shows interest that way. Leading to the manager rustling feathers.
That is how we spend the money, throwing money at players with a year left and/or those with big deals where the club that has them might want to cut loose and we can take them and their cap hit.
That is all we can do the get quality. If we rely on the market we get players who could be great but those diamonds in the rough.
As for the Bears, there will be a push from Perth, but Dolphins struggled earlier on, Perth will struggle more. It is a big move. Media have said Galvin and Da Silva will go there as a package, where James Galvin has said to my mate numerous times Lachlan will not leave Sydney and Tallyn will never leave Sydney too. Redcliffe is a big move but Perth is even bigger, on the other side of the country. Perth will be great for players looking for an opportunity, Sean Russell, Brendan Hands types that are young and do not have a young family looking for some FG time. Galvin and players like that will get opportunities in Sydney.
Not saying all top players will stick their nose up to Perth, some big names will go there for a challenge but it is a hard sell. PNG is even harder. I am not too concerned about the expansion, we have a lot of money. Yes Perth can start now technically approaching players (again all clubs do) but Redcliffe showed how daunting it seemed for players to take a chance on an expansion team, imagine one on the other side of the country.
Though with the moves being made already you'd think MON and Ryles have a plan on who they want. If they don't or are hesitant then they should be moved on. We have a great opportunity to make inroads.
Players don't need to be off market. Plenty of good players that are disgruntled and want out of their clubs.
Yeah, clubs are talking to players about 2026 right now, all of them are. Cronulla are ones to look at, Kennedy they want to keep but stuffed up their cap to only have $300k left to offer, he is currently on $500k. Not sure how they stuff up but they did, maybe signing Hazelton that they did so. Though i would be looking at Kaufusi or another forward of theirs so they can free up cap space for Kennedy.
Hold on, it's not he's fault we needed a major clean out. Talking about sacking him i find hilarious and dumbfounded.
So what if we'd kept the veterans, do you really think we'd be in a better position? I highly doubt it. With the Bears coming in we needed to act fast, or be left with a aging roster ready for the retirement village.
Talk about a knee jerk reaction. We've been close to getting the job done against the Dogs, Sharks, Cows and Manly. 4 very good teams. Ryles is doing all he can do with the shit sandwiches that the previous dope left him.
Talking about shit sandwiches you are too defensive "fcuknuckle" Serapy was making a point, he was not sacking anyone. LB was qualifying another point......get over it for christs sake.
Didn't say it was his fault Chief. I was saying Ryles has fast tracked getting his own team, he has fast tracked this rebuild by instead of 2027 being the year where he gets a lot of his players he has cash for 2026. If he fails to attract talent, more so getting them out of their 2026 deals, then we need to spend that cap elsewhere in the squad and that is not ideal, cannot just sit on that money for a year unless you do big one year deals and try again for 2027.
Yes well keeping those veterans wasn't going to change the results. We were a game from winning the spoon last season with them.
At least now Ryle is giving a few rookies a chance, then when we do purchase a couple of good signings, those players will have games under their belts
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