Eels Blogs

Replies

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  Jack May 17, 2025 at 12:10pm

  I love Dylan but it's not the end of the world his gone. If Galvin comes it's actually an upgrade but if he doesn't it will hurt us short term
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  EA May 17, 2025 at 12:41pm

  A quick report on JF. It was meant to be a bye but they played their game against Manly that was postponed in rd 4. At HT Manly lead 10-6. Eels bombed 3 tries. 

  • Twiddle threw a cut out pass to an unmarked Moey who had to go 10m to score. Would back him to score that but he dropped it when trying to catch the pass.
  • Alamadine was away down the wing and offloaded back inside to his centre who just had to catch the ball and fall over the line like Iongi last week. But dropped it.
  • Dom De Stradis ran a great line from a short pass to split the manly defence. Just had to pass to Spencer on the inside when drawing in the fullback but for some reason he decided to kick it and he absolutely shanked it.

  Eels have gone close a couple other times but Manly scrambled very well including right on HT. Both teams completiton rate has been poor.

  Very interesting was LORENZO is listed at the utlity on the bench and has come on and played hooker.

  The bench is all SG ball players. Lorenzo, Shane-Tapau, Funa-Luta and Summers
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    EA > EA May 17, 2025 at 1:04pm

    Eels ended up winning 24-16.

    • Lorenzo was great at 9. He had one shocking pass. But he reminded me of Nikorima at 9. Just electric acceleration whenever he ran from dummy half. He scored one try going from dummy half himself. He nearly set up one try too by running from dummy half. His defence was strong too in the middle. He is just a footballer
    • Twiddle is too good for JF. He looked like prime Tedesco out there at stages as he would toy with the defenders breaking tackles and getting line breaks. I am sure his TB would easily be in the double digits for the game.
    • Lynn stepped up in the second half. A dummy and run to score one try and dummy and run to get a linebreak and set up Lokeni for the final try of the game.
    • I thought Hunter was disappointing.
    • Funa-Luta ran hard when he came on in the second half.
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      HKF > EA May 17, 2025 at 1:49pm

      Whilst on the topic of juniors my nephew played on the wing for city U16 v country today and grabbed a couple of tries.  He is a parra fan but contracted to penrith. 
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        EA > HKF May 17, 2025 at 2:39pm

        I was meant to watch the game but saw Hayden Bell was the only eels in the team so I decided to watch the JF game instead. 
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          HKF > EA May 17, 2025 at 2:51pm

          My sister said it was a boring game won 44-0
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            EA > HKF May 17, 2025 at 3:27pm

            City will always smash country in these games. The blokes in the city team are from the country but the eligibility rules are just stupid. 
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          Richard Jackson > EA May 17, 2025 at 4:37pm

          I bet you're dirty on yourself now EA. Watching those errors we made was unbelievable. Still knowing you, your devotion to describing the game for us was paramount. As you say Twidle was outstanding.
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      Joel K > EA May 17, 2025 at 3:04pm

      

      Lorenzo at 9 is very interesting, should get him a few reps at lock could be our Walker replacement at 14
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  Nightmare Off-Season May 17, 2025 at 1:07pm

  Good read, Pops.

  Agree that DB doesn't look overly settled in his decision.

  Also agree 100% with you that he is not, and likely wont be, a halfback. He is laid back, off the cuff, and that is fine, if you have Moses there to execute the game plan? We are seeing with Jahrome Luai in 2025 why genuine 5/8ths aren't automatic halfbacks.

  DB as a player for us? 6 weeks ago, I would've agreed, but not so much in the past month, where I feel he's been one of our best with Mitch Moses back.

  That has to be a massive concern for Newcastle, right? He relies heavily on his halfback, like Munster, like Luai, like Cody Walker.

  Against the Fins, DB was literally involved in every attacking play - every line break, try etc. The way he created space by attacking the line & used his outside men, plus his support play was excellent, and that the player I am concerned we lose?

  But no player is bigger than the club, and with the Eels defence improving & less reliance on our one cover defender of the past, im less worried defensively.

  1.3m is crazy, we all agree on that, and next year he wont be able to just 'walk to the beat of his own drum', that coin brings expectation & pressure most players don't have to deal with?

  Even us DB fans stood by the club in standing firm on the offer, and that hasn't changed, but who replaes him is still vital to becoming a contender again, or middle of the road, just opinion though.

  Good stuff, Pops. Another good edition & merely mentioning DB on this site should increase the hits by 1million percent.