Bluey made a post about whether we are over the top in judging our current performance's based on where we are on the competition table.
Mmmmm. I think you are too pessimistic Bluey, and that's after my own tirade following the Canberra performance in Darwin.
I said at the time all I had left was hope - without a reason to support Ryles any further.
Hope is of course eternal, so nothing changes there. But I have seen a definte improvement in the teams performances and this can only be put down to Ryles and the strength of his perseverance.
So he has turned me around and am very comfortable being in that position than sitting on the sidelines and sniping him. We are also seeing some comforting vision of his assistants and the upsurge of our pathways, including the women as I believe a strong all round club is important at every level when it becomes to self belief.
Take the form lines between Dragons, Tigers and now Sharks and you could rationalise we could/would be competetive against any team in the comp. Throw in our game against the dogs and we are not far away, even if it turns out we have a middle of the road finishing position this year. I am even going to say we could have a big finish yet if injuries are kind to us.
If you add Lomax to that side on Friday, I have little doubt that we would have won. The Moses /Lomax combination has not been put in place yet and it is one of our weaknesses to say that we are not competitive chasing high kicks from Moses at present. It was a fluke that Russell kicked 3 out 3 on Friday night as well. When Lomax is playing that hope becomes delivered.
Finally, there is no doubt our forwards are our achillies heel at present. The short show that Samrani put on gives me some hope, while the exclusion of Cartright and Matterson is something I hope can be resolved. If those two were happy campers we would also be better.
So in general terms onward "Christian Soldiers" and don't write us off yet! If your not Christian don't worry, you will get over it! LOL
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Great to hear, Pops. Well said.
Thanks NOS, I haven't reached your par excellence yet but incisively in your comments you make reference to our defence in 23/24. I agree with you, maybe even better than 22, its just the errors that let us down and they are part of the inexperience that is inherit at this stage of our development. My feeling is our backline is definetly better than 23/24 (I will leave 22 alone). There is no question the forwards are not at prior levels but I think they will be. I can see the "honing" taking place every game since Canberra.
I am a little bit excited with what's ahead for this season, the one proviso is I dont want to see more than a couple of backwards steps. They will only happen if injuries are cruel to us going forward IMO
Exactly, Pops.
Errors are key, we are gifting too much footy & opportunities, and in turn heaping way too much pressure on our defence...
But, id much prefer our big issue to be errors rather than defensive issues, attitude issues, no resilience, no fight?
Agree, with Lomax, this is the best backline we've had in a long time. JAC's ability to finish opportunitites the halves are creating, finally, is huge.
We obviously need forwards, and need them yesterday. Also feel we need more from our centres in attack, thought they did a pretty good job defensively against the Sharks back 5 (outside a few moments), but weren't really a threat in attack? Again, Lomax back, will help there.
One concern right now is if the Eels can't get results, despite fighting really hard, it might start to impact them mentally & take some of that fight out of them?
For that reason, and obviously because we'd love to see it, I do feel a result against the Fins is important.
It's all well and good to see something (anything) in our last few weeks. Net result is we are still last at present. There is nothing to be positive about that.
Once we start winning a few games (2 in a row would be nice) and start to climb off the bottom, then I'll see the positives. Until then, we are simply a work in progress with a speck of light at the end of the tunnel.
Plenty of dark days ahead, I reckon.
MON needs to pull his head out of his arse and put the club back into the mix for a premiership, or fuck the hell off. He has literally done as good as job as anyone on this forum could have done. Coach says buy this guy, or retain this guy, MON gives said player any clauses and dollars their manager asks for. Job done!
Well badge after a couple of games this year, I could have seen us sitting on the bye only. 4 more points are higher than my expectations after Canberra.
The thing's I am optimistic about are two fold, our competitiveness against teams rated as top 4 hopes, Dogs and Sharks, their respective/ related performances against Wests and St George and finally I cannot stress this enough, because they rarely say these things, but coaches of Tigers, Sharks, and Dog's made specific points about how much we have improved.
These things are not normal for coaches to comment on opposition.
Maybe you need to be a little less critical, I am labelled as a supporter of MON's but believed he needed to go, but I see no current responsibility on his shoulders in the current environment, but we should note he is the so called "head of Football" and football outside of FG is doing very well.....boys and girls and FG is definately showing some green shoots.
He is the head of football for the NRL only. He doesn't have a board position in the juniors.
https://www.parraeels.com.au/junior-league/our-board-and-staff/
However, he may have outside influence of some kind. More likely it's Ryles and/or Nathan Brown influencing things.
Can anyone give any insight into how Haze Dunster is progressing? I have been following his stat's in NSW cup and he seems to be throwing up some good numbers. Has he regained any pace?
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