Since arriving at the Eels, Ricky Stuart has played it safe. Straight bat. Few risks.
It’s time for that to change.
On face value, you might say Stuart has taken risks. He promoted youngsters Vai Toutai and Kelepi Tanginoa out of nowhere to the first team. But he didn’t tread on any toes to do so.
In general, the senior players have been pandered to. The captaincy selection kept everybody happy. Jarryd Hayne got an extra notch in his belt, the players were kept happy with Reni Maitua’s co-captaincy while Tim Mannah - the prior Captain in waiting - was placated with club captaincy.
On the selection front, none of the club’s senior players have had their positions jeopardised.
Jarryd Hayne got to keep his favoured number one jersey. Captain tick. Fullback tick. Happy Jarryd.
And players like Ben Roberts and Ben Smith have held their positions despite underwhelming performances and being shown up by the likes of 18 year old Tanginoa.
There are other more subtle, safe decisions I believe are holding the side back. Jacob Loko is potentially the best second rower in the club by a country mile but he’s been kept in his safe and familiar spot in the centres. As such, we remain a toothless tiger on the fringes and ironically Loko himself gets little space to work in as a centre.
Tonight, Stuart chose to go into a match against the big Panthers forwards with just three props. Matt Ryan, the player who came into the side got just 25 minutes, 2 hit-ups for 15 metres. Meanwhile in NYC, Pauli Pauli took 15 hitups for 126 metres and Junior Paulo ran for a huge 149 metres from 16 hitups, coming fresh off his junior Origin performance.
I look at Parramatta version 2013 - and at its eseence it is basically identical to Parramatta version 2012. You know the side that won the wooden spoon. Minus the Hindmarsh.
Ricky, if you were waiting for it - you now have a mandate. Judging by your look at the press conference, that lack of enthusiasm, direction and creativity was surprising to you. To us long suffering fans, it was all too familiar.
It’s time to do something. Clearly, we are not going to compete for a finals position this year - we all know that - and most rational supporters will suffer some of the growing pains that might be involved with blooding new players or trying players in new positions. But in Penrith tonight, we also saw that hungry, enthusiastic young players can trump old-heads who seem to be doing nothing more than going through the motions.
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Im a big fan of Ricky, but he is known to be a stubborn bastard in relation to selections and sticking to players when everybody else say drop them, i appreciate his loyalty to his players but this time a few players need to go for good and others need to be dropped to get the hunger back.
Players that need to go for good are ROBERTS, BEN SMITH.
Players that need to be dropped are MAITUA, SIO, Matua is boarderline being let go of for good, sio prob deserves another go at a later point.
Hayne needs to be kicked in the ass, his lazy positional play in defence was a disgrace tonight.
Sandow needs a kick in the ass, although i dont know if its his fault, he is just not an organiser, he just lacks so many of the qualities that makes a good 7, yes he can be brilliant, but never consistant, its never been in his nature, he was good for many games this season, but he will never be able to give a guy like ricky what he wants, and thats structure from 7 and a half you can build a game around, sandow will be the downfall of Ricky.
This year is over, the season crusher was last week, we will be spooners or in the last three, now is the time to blood young players.
Mannahs injury will open the doors for a young bloke and i think thats great, im hoping Tim will heal well and be back, the world works in strange ways, maybe tim needs a break anyway.
The big worry is that Ricky has stated now in two press conferences that there is no body to promote to 1st grade and looked hopeless when asked, what does that say about our juniors or what does that say about Ricky.
Its a real worry
You forgot Paulo as well snake. what has he done to deserve his spot in the 17 this last 7 games? Jack shit thats what.
I agree with you about Maitua, he seems to have escaped much criticism but in my books he needs to be hooked. There is just no impact play from him. Watching Smith play in recent times has me reaching for the port and razor blades. He needs to shake hands with the NSW cup coach.
Please. No one at the Eels for three years has shown any sign of being inspired. Hindy was not a leader he was a great role playing forward. Mannah may be a great off field role model but he is not an on field leader.
Stop over hyping the worst team in the NRL for 2011-13. Pandered players with limited skills.
Well said. Further to that, I'm over the so called 'expert' commentators who continually say that "the talent is there", or, "it's a strong roster". Andrew Johns said it again last night. Clearly, it's not. There is no talent. And if I hear it one more time come from the club "We are better than this", well, I'll just puke..
Whilst I don't agree with that strategy I understand its philosophy. The problem however is that a) I'm not sure there are too many players available to be signed and b) We could potentially be hindering the development of a few of our own juniors.
But yes clearly if you are interested in results in season 2013 then it is certainly time to shake things up with positional and player changes.
If you don't care about results in 2013 and merely want to get through the season using the minimum amount of salary cap then you will keep picking this 17 every week and crossing your fingers that it all comes together in 2014.
Kelepi would have earned $8k on his debut and add a further $3k x 7 games, his total in bonuses so far amount to $29k.
Vai earned $8k on his debut. Not sure how many games he has played - say 4 games so his total is around $20k.
It works out so far around $73k out of next years cap and rising depending on how many games the young fellas play and how many more debutants.
Pressed on how he would react to the heavy loss, Stuart said: "It's hard to make changes when there's not a lot underneath putting pressure on.
Kind of a double insult isn't it? On the one hand he's acknowledging that some of his players are rubbish, but he also thinks the alternative players are also rubbish seeing as he doesn't want to pick them... Good way to get all the players offside!!
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