Eels Blogs

Oddly enough, unlike most, I had no problems with player options.

Sure, they're instruments to get players across the line but they're misunderstood. People on here do not understand them or consider the bigger picture. Options were offered in lieu of more money. And players that ended up taking the options did so because we were having our guts pulled out after the 2022 grand final, and even before then.

Context matters. Living in absolute idealism and playing the game like it's Supercoach is one for the fans. Average punters with fists of fury screaming to the clouds,  finger fighting with their keyboards. Matterson was being offered big money by Redcliffe. We had already lost Reed Mahoney and Isaiah Papali'i before that. Nikore also left through this period for different reasons. The club could not to see anymore players walk. Brown and Moses were just unconditionals. They could not be lost under any circumstances. Enter options.

The timing and mismanagement of the maturities was basically bad luck, management were bending over barrells but were in a no win or balls up position. 

We as a club were too inexperienced to combat this. Off the back of the enquiries and shit of 2014, the wooden spoon 2018 no one which included Mon, BA, and the executive board group were capable of standing up. I would go far as saying any club in our position would have done the same.

The dictatored clubs Easts, Broncos, Melbourne would maybe (qualified by alternative ways of beating the cap) have held their ground. But it should be noted than even the Storm and Roosters entertain player options. Think Harry Grant. Cheese. Even for their best up-coming rookies. Think Pezet. Sualauiv Faalogo (spell checked).

Penrith have amazingly stood out in this situation, mainly because of Matt Cameron and the stability of the Coach and the worlds best player being anchors in the Storm (no pun). Manly and Broncos stand out for wasting the value they had accrued. The Dogs under Gus Gould are another who don't use player options.

Look at the clubs in the same position. They are not much different in return. Cronulla, Canberra, Gold Coast, Tigers, Cowboys, Titans, Dragons. Look at that list and they have all come from similar positions to us.

Actually, we maybe doing it better now. At the least financially we are. And I have had no problems with any of the players we lost under Ryles. None of them. Not until now with Simmosson. That one is hard to read. It might be personal reasons we are yet to understand. And it's yet to resolve under a cloud of speculation. It is no so much the value of the player as the type of player and what he offers the club in terms of player commardie his said "love" for the club and the perception we are moving forward as one.

Brown is a burnout and as such a significant loss as the player he once was. The fact that Knights came out with their rediculous offer was a prayer answered.

I have never seen this site 1EE as dumb as we currently are with the supposition and judgements being made. By all means make it speculative as to what happens and throw in ideas but you would swear the NRL is on the brink of a major War breaking out and the game in disrespect. 

The game has never been rated higher or been financially more succesful.

Yes there is plenty of reason's for things to improve, rules, refs, judgements etc. But the amount of people that overall look at their club soley and only because that is their bias is a ongoing concern. A bit like the famous John F. Kennedy adress of 1961: "Ask not what our country can do for you but what you can do for your country." That year we won our sixth-straight spoon. And you think times are tough now. Snowflakes.

It is stunning in that we are not recognising that if the game doesn't grow, neither will their club, and sections they want to see improve.

Whilst not everyone needs to be supportive of the NRL and what they are doing, they should at least aknowledge the sucess they have achieved.

I know myself that it doesn't seem that long ago that I was sitting on wooden plank seats around the perimeter of Cumberland Oval getting splinters out of my backside watching a game on a mudheap with the players reward being cold showers in the dressing room. I was 10 years old then and we have come a long way. A long bloody way.