Eels Blogs

In The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan (1989; see 1993 movie), an inter-generational tale is told about four Chinese immigrant mothers and their four daughters. The story is structured like the game mahjong: four parts each with four sections. Similarly, as Round 16 commences, we see an inter-generational story unfold at the Eels: four young spine players. Hawkins (26), Papalii (21), Iongi (21) and Smith (22) have an average age of 22, the youngest in the NRL. Their combined total of 49 first grade games is the least of any spine combination. Three of the four spine (Papalii, Iongi and Smith) are still eligible for Rookie of the Year honours. By any measure, the Eels’ spine this week are inexperienced and seeking to establish their place in the big leagues. In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan explored a crucial inter-generational dynamic: how the four daughters spent their lives a bit lost and trying to find their place in society. What place in the history of the Eels going forward will this young spine of the Eels find? Yes, Mitchel Moses will return. But with Dylan Brown leaving (and suspended because the referee ran into him), is this week a glimpse of the Eels’ generational change? What will it produce? What can this game show about the shape of the Eels’ future? Welcome to Round 16.

Teams

Sunday 22 June 2025, CommBank Stadium, 6:15pm (AEDT). Lands of the Burramattagal People. Referee: TBA, but hopefully NOT Gough, Raymond or Gee, who each blow few penalties but top the list for awarding 6-agains. The Eels struggle with 6-agains to the opposition, as losing the 6-again count is correlated with less possession and unless the Eels evenly share or win possession they usually struggle for territory (and lose).

EELS: 1. Isaiah Iongi 2. Zac Lomax 3. Viliami Penisini 4. Sean Russell 5. Josh Addo-Carr 6. Joash Papalii 7. Dean Hawkins 8. Jack Williams 9. Ryley Smith 10. Junior Paulo 11. Kelma Tuilagi 12. Kitione Kautoga 13. J'maine Hopgood 14. Dylan Walker 15. Matt Doorey 16. Wiremu Greig 17. Jordan Samrani 18. Joey Lussick 19. Charlie Guymer 20. Dan Keir 21. Ronald Volkman 22. Samuel Loizou.

Head coach: Jason Under Pressure Ryles.

TITANS:  1. AJ Brimson 2. Alofiana Khan-Pereira 3. Jojo Fifita 4. Phillip Sami 5. Allan Fitzgibbon 6. Kieran Foran 7. Jayden Campbell 8. Jaimin Jolliffe 9. Sam Verrills 10. Reagan Campbell-Gillard 11. Chris Randall 12. Beau Fermor 13. Klese Haas 14. Jacob Alick-Wiencke 15. Iszac Fa'asumaleaui 16. Tino Fa'asuamaleaui 17. Moeaki Fotuaika 18. David Fifita 19. Tukimihia Simpkins 20. Sean Mullany 21. Tom Weaver 22. Brian Kelly.

Head coach: Des Doorkicker Hasler.

Notes: Dylbags was taken out by the referee and Moses by his own calf muscle. Otherwise, Luca Moretti remains MIA and the ‘new’ bench prop is the almost-forgotten Wiremu Greig. Is the Eels bench (with two middles) more balanced than the single-middle bench they took in against the Dogs (Walker, Papalii, Samrani and Doorey)? For the Titans, Jojo Fifita replaces Brain Kelly at centre, but the big news is the Titans will have both Tino F and Moeaki F after each missed the Titans victory over Moanly. Maybe David F might sneak in? Who hates ‘F’s?

Observations from Last Week 

Eels vs Dogs, 12-30 (L), 40% possession, 67% vs 90% completion rate, 2 vs 6 linebreaks, 26 vs 38 tackle breaks, 6 vs 16 offloads, 38 vs 26 missed tackles, 29 vs 16 ineffective tackles, 16 vs 10 errors, 6 vs 3 penalties conceded, 4 vs 2 ruck infringements, 2 vs 1 inside 10 meters, 0 vs 1 sin bin.

Titans vs Moanly, 28-8 (W), 51% vs 49% possession, 90% vs 80% completion rate, 7 vs 4 linebreaks, 45 vs 41 tackle breaks, 7 vs 10 offloads, 41 vs 45 missed tackles, 17 vs 14 ineffective tackles, 5 vs 11 errors, 6 vs 7 penalties conceded, 5 vs 1 ruck infringements, 0 inside 10 meters, 0 sin bin.

Eels/Dogs R14 Highlights HERE.

Tigers/Knights R15 highlights HERE

Who remembers the line speed metric? Remember the Pre-Contact Metres Per Run (PCM/run) statistic? This is a measure of how far a player ran before anyone even tried to tackle him or her, and is one means to assess line-speed. The formula is total run meters – post-contacted metres and divide that by all runs.

What we want to see is differences, but generally, the less the PCM/Run the greater the line speed of the opponent. I use Fox Sports Lab (foxsports.com.au) instead of NRL.com because Fox Sports Lab breaks down stats by halves.

The PCM/run, all-game, was Eels 5.75, Dogs 6.45. By halves, the PCM/run for the Eels was 6.05 (H1) and 5.25 (H2), and for the Dogs it was 6.85 (H1) and 6.07 (H2). The Dogs had greater line speed all game. The Eels did well to keep to 12-12 at half time despite losing the line speed, possession and territory battle. In the second half the Eels’ low possession (36%) and lack of territory (21%) saw the line speed of the Dogs just suffocate the Eels. It’s fair to complain about some ordinary referring decisions and what looked all game like two different rules applied to 6-agains. But we must also be honest: 30 to 0 tackles in the red zone, 3x offloads, 6x our linebreaks, 1/3 our errors and 60% less missed tackles than us and both despite twice as many runs. The Eels were just dog-handled out of the game.

What style is Ryles building?

As the Eels enter Round 16, they are cellar dwellers: 12 points from a 4-9 W-L record and -105 differential. The only worst team is the Titans, almost a carbon copy 12 pts, 4-9 W-L and -122 differential. The Eels are 2-2 W-L the past month, the Titans 1-3 W-L. The Eels, we know, have improved since Moses returned. Simplifying the first 14 rounds into pre- and post-Moses, in the first 6 games sans Moses the Eels were diabolical. The rot started with an 0-4 streak, conceding -130 and scoring just 44 for a -84 differential, followed by a 1-1 streak where they still conceded -73 overall and only scored 34 (-39 differential), for an overall 1-6, -123 differential without Moses. Since Moses returned against the Tigers in Round 7 the Eels have a 3-4 W-L record and a +18 differential (Moses missed one of those games, the 30-10 win over Moanly).

I doubt any Eels fan is confident the Eels can avoid the spoon, especially with Moses again absent for 4-6 weeks. But selecting data from FoxSports Labs, and from The Rugby League Eye Test comparisons of teams up to Round 14, the following points can be food for thought and hopefully topics of discussion.

1) The Eels have got younger. JR cleaned out older forwards (RCG, Ofa and Cartwright; and Matterson and Lane have been out of favour or on leave). The idea is clearly to have more mobility, and we have seen some evidence of greater ball movement in the form of short passing amongst the forwards. But we have also seen the team appear lead footed sometimes, and unable to break the shackles of stiff defence, and maybe what happens with the development or lack thereof of Williams, Kautoga, Tuilagi, Moretti and Tuivati will shape playing style?

2) The Eels are a relatively "clean" team. The Eels are in the 'top' or cleaner half for net penalties and net set restarts. Note this is NOT correlated with winning. Most of the Top 6 have net negative penalties and net negative set restarts. Will the lack of correlation between conceding penalties and restarts and losing (teams conceding are winning) see a relaxation of this clean skin approach? Or is the clean skin approach a strategy to mitigate that the Eels struggle to retain a good share of possession and tend to fall behind on the scoreboard rather than defend errors or penalties?

3) The Eels are a "safe" team. Less offloads. From offload leaders at this time in 2024 to bottom 6 for offloads. Are the Eels playing safer? Heat maps show that under BA the Eels were offload maniacs in the opposition red zone. Whereas Ryles has them, if they do offload, do so around the middle of the field between the two 30m lines. Is the curtailing of offloads a strategy, or just because those senior forwards like Matto, Lane and Cartwright were big offloaders but they have gone or are out of favour?

4) The Eels play for longer. The Eels don't pack up and go home after 49 minutes (as in 2024). Their average margin of conceding points in the final 30 minutes has dropped from -15 to -5. This literally means they have gone from conceding 2-3 to 1 net try in the final 30 minutes. Note in some recent losses the Eels were competitive at half time but lost the second half: Sharks 16-12, Dolphins 14-10, Panthers 12-6 and Dogs 18-0 (second half scores). Only the Dogs game has matched the 2024 49^th minute fadeout pattern, with the Dogs scoring their 18 points in the final 20 minutes. The Storm scored almost all their points in H1 and the Raiders scored 26 points in the final 20 minutes but had scored 24 before then anyway.

5) The Eels still play on the back foot. The Eels spend 60%+ of their time in a game behind on the scoreboard. But since Round 7 when Moses returned the eye test of improvement is matched by stats, with a +18 points differential and the Eels competitive even if not always convincingly threatening.

6) The Eels' percentage of play the balls in the middle of the field is the lowest in 5 seasons. The Eels are shifting wider early in sets, like most other NRL teams. That said, look at the Dolphins, Panthers and Dogs game particularly. The eye test says the Eels struggled to move the ball through the ruck, so against better teams their execution drops?

7) The Eels have vastly improved in stopping run metres and in stopping post-contact metres. But the Eels still concede too many complete sets. That is, the Eels have got better at stopping the run but have not really improved in stopping their conceding of extra possessions. This was on display against Panthers (48% overall, 39% H2) and Dogs (40% overall, 36% H2), where possession of less than 40% in the second halves meant the Eels were just ground out of those games. It seems the Eels have not yet managed to convert better defence (at stopping runs and maintaining a better line out wide) into the kind of defence that can force turnovers or hold a team in their end (thereby creating better field position (see Dolphins and Dogs games where the Eels simply lacked quality field position)). 

Overall, JR has changed to a younger, cleaner, safer team that has improved its run-stop but not its ability to avoid conceding too much possession or concede too much territory.

The Bottom Line

Everyone will have their ready-made excuses should the Eels lose this weekend. Moses was out. So too Dylbags. Of note regarding Dylan is that if we ask “when was the last time the Eels played without both Moses and Dylan Brown”, I refer to you to Rounds 1-6 of 2025.

There will also be references to “inexperience”, and this is fair. Our young spine is 22 years old on average: 26 (Hawkins), 22, 21 and 21. Hawkins has the most experience, at a measly 19 games (5 at Eels), and Iongi has 14, Smith 13 and Papalii 3 games experience. This quartet has never run onto a field together as a spine, reserve or first grade. But Papalii is auditioning for the soon-to-be vacated #6, and Hawkins to secure backup #7, and both Smith and Iongi will want to show they can do what Dylan Brown never quite managed to do (“step up”).

For experience the Eels are going to have to look to their (named) middles. Paulo (14 years, 252 games), Williams (8 years, 134 games), Walker (14 years, 241 games) and Hopgoode (5 years, 58 games) need to, you know, lead. Our backrowers are journeyman players Kautoga (15) and Tuilagi (65), with the bench featuring middles Doorey (38 games) and Greig (26) who have never established themselves as starters. Samrani is in his 8^th FG game and only now deciding backrower or winger.

Maybe, like the four daughters in The Joy Luck Club, our spine quartet will finish the game still not knowing their place? Or, like the Fantastic Four from the Marvel Comics, our spine quartet will gain superpowers in the act of being exposed to the obligations of running the team and save the bloody world? Where ‘the world’ is the collective sanity of Eels Fans, thirty nine years into a premiership drought, dredding it hitting FORTY years, and happy just to get to FOURteen after this round.

Go Eels. Stay strong my Eels brothers and sisters.