For an Eels fan, re-building is an all too familiar word to hear. We heard it from Daniel Anderson, we word it from Stephen Kearney and now we're hearing it from Ricky Stuart.
However, it is a fact of professional sport and in fact in any business. At some point or another, after turbid times, re-building will be required.
Parramatta's current position is due to the ineptitude of previous administrations. It started as far back as 2006 when Brian Smith left and Jason Taylor was not re-signed.
The constant de-stabilisation at board level and coaching level has meant a coach has not had more than 2 seasons at the helm since Smith left.
Results are expected before they should realistically happened. Now the Eels find themselves in an utter state of despair, looking a second consecutive wooden spoon directly in the face.
Ricky Stuart never promised a miracle and Parramatta Jesus has ruled a resurrection. The Eels are in a re-building phase, there's no getting around that.
Last season they bid farewell to more than 600 games of NRL experience when Burt and Hindmarsh retired, with no one near replacing them in this season's squad.
At many points in this year's season, the Eels' inexperienced roster has shown clear signs they truly missed an experienced campaigner.
Stephen Kearney, in his first season, purchased half a retirement home, looking for a quick solution rather than a long term one that was under his nose in the form of Parramatta's juniors.
I know you can't win a competition with a team full of local juniors. It's just not practical. But, some proper investment in the future by Kearney may have seen Stuart working with a slightly less inexperienced team than he is working with this season.
So what is a re-building phase exactly. Well, in rugby league terms, it's when previous coaches, administrators have either rested on their laurels or have had no foresight for their club.
This usually results in a lack of long-term success as well as a lack of NRL quality depth.
Stuart identified that he had both issues. He has since set about in recruiting players with top-line NRL experience with enough youth to be of long-term use for the club and with also a decent level of ability.
Englishmen Gareth Hock and Lee Mossop both add some size and mongrel to the Parramatta pack, Peats adds spark to dummy-half and Norman some class to the five-eighth position.
People harp on about Parramatta's cursed number 7 but few have realised that Parramatta has lacked a top-line five eighth since Brett Kenny.
Will Hopoate, the one good thing to come out of Kearney's tenure, will add a further touch of shine to a now competitive looking backline.
But re-building is something that takes time and is an art form, often missed by the arm chair critics. Brian Smith is perhaps one of the greatest re-building coaches rugby league has ever seen.
He re-built the Steelers, he re-built St George, he re-built Parramatta and he re-built the Roosters.
For the Eels faithful it has been yet another painful campaign. However there has been a focus on identifying talent in their own backyard with seven debutantes this season.
Whilst some people see coaches who say they are re-building as copping out, they are merely stating a fact.
You can't seriously tell me Parramatta isn't re-building. And while coach Stuart is working with the cattle he's got he will be expected to begin to turn things around next season.
For the long suffering supporters we hope it isn't like the past two seasons.
Replies
Hagan started the rot IMO, Ando was stuck with a lot of players on massive overs and was stuck in a rock and a hard place. Kearney took over a crap roster and made it worse.
100% agree. How can we have a stable team if we keep changing our coach. Kearney stuffed up big time, if you hand him a team like the Roosters he would probably go well but he was way out of his depth here and made things worse. Love it how it says "the only good thing that came out of Kearneys time here was Hoppa" SO true.
Obviously replacing that sort of experience with experienced players is near impossible with salary cap restraints,but the club let go of other players as well like Mateo,Williams,Horo,Inu all whom played alongside these experience clubmen,now I ain't no rocket scientist but this makes zero sense to me!
Your Post states Re-building but It seems the club does not know how to re- build their solution to rebuilding is to throw ridiculous amounts of money at a halfback without upgrading the engine room, this to me is like Recruiting a general in the army and giving him soldiers with no ammunition to fight with,and the soldiers he is given many should have been court martialed years ago!
Why do Parra need to rebuild when they have so many juniors? They should be consistently good.
I have made no secret in the past that Parra's main problems are recruitment and retention,we have kept players in the club way past their used by dates,we have kept chronically injured prone players at the club, and even signed players that were injured at the time,who could ever forget the diabolical signings of Carl Webb, Paul Whatuira and Hicks, all well past their prime chronically injured and only coming to pick appearance money for their retirement funds! I would love to have had an explanation from someone at Parra as to why these three players were signed? What qualities did they bring to the club and what motivated the person to sign them?
Until the club gets its act together and starts to forward plan in advance ,with recruitment and retention and have maintenance plans in place, by reviewing players performances continuously ,and blooding juniors at appropriate times instead of all together at once,we will find ourselves in the same situation again and again!
Carl Webb. 6 first grade Games
Paul Whatuira. 1 First Grade Game
Chris Hicks 7 First Grade Games
Value for money great Signings! LMAO
Parra got in a bidding war with the Knights over Webb and was reportedly signed for 2 years at $220k per year! not exactly loose change I would say ,don't know the circumstances of Whatuira and Hicks though hopefully match payments only, I would have much preferred none of them and seen them top up Mateos contract!
So effectively what we got was three washed up "has beens"and "never was beens" playing a total of 13 games we did NOT need them
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