Parramatta Eels forward Ryan Matterson had a deal in place with the Gold Coast Titans for a move there, however the deal has now reportedly fallen through. Details as to why the deal fell through are not available. It means the 189 NRL game veteran will remain at Parramatta for 2026 on a salary reportedly worth $700k.
The fact a team was interested shocked me but it is disappointing as we know Matterson will not feature in 2026, even if he did it would be in a very minimal role as Ryles moves towards the likes of Moretti, Tuivaiti, Guymer and Talagi as future middles.
https://www.zerotackle.com/out-of-favour-eels-forwards-move-to-queensland-club-falls-through-228476/
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HOE, it'd be interesting to review what us punters thought when he was re-signed. Maybe Super could post a link to the biggest blog of the time.
Yeah, it would, Badger. Off memory we were pissed when it was rumoured we couldn't afford Matto?
I don't think most of us were in arms when we resigned him. We probably wanted him cheap even though we call our club "cheap dopes" when we go cheap, then "desparate dopes" when we pay overs.
I'd guess by mid-late 23' — a year or so later — we would have started to turn on Matto and his resigning, after the team started to fall off a cliff.
This was the official announcement blog. All very positive to re-signing Matto in 2022: https://www.1eyedeel.com/forum/topics/ryan-matterson-re-signs-offic...
Thanks Super. Yeah, seems the comments are all pretty positive.
Surprised it's only 3 pages of comments.
I agree, the intent of resigning him was correct. He was in form, and his skillset is undeniable.
The difference is Bennett didn't get him - now we could say that Bennett lost, or we could say he was smart enough to list his worth and not budge from that number.
Having a punt at Matto was smart, locking him in long term when he was shown to treat contracts as "that thing you stick to when it's working for you, and walk away when it's not" was not the smartest move of ours.
This is part of what sucks for clubs negotiating with players - clubs are pretty rigidly stuck in these contracts once they're signed. Unless a player stuffs up and breaches contract, clubs have to honour the deals in good times and bad.
Players can just say "sure, I'l honour my contract, but I'm going to play badly, speak out in the press, have a toxic attitude and aggitate until you release me". And the clubs can't do squat.
Given Matto's history there should have been enough red flags for us to have favoured a shorter contract. However I do recognise if we'd lost him to the Dolphins I also probably would have been furious at that decision in 2022 so I do recognise there's a level of hindsight to all this.
But, we are the worst critics who throw the most poo at own club. Thousands of time worse and longer than anything Hooper ever threw. And one reason we went through the Dark Ages is because of self-cannabilization. Something the current regime are avoiding like the plague.
This I agree with 1000% and I am still a MASSIVE proponent of both evolution over revolution, and not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
We have done so much right as a club since the embarrasment of being forced into administration. We have established strong governance and that has resulted in strong leadership at the helm who have put us in an enviable financial position and have laid the foundations for success to come with the centre of exellence, the stadium and the Leagues Club performance as a whole.
Close to a decade on since those days we are a completely different club. One built on solid foundations.
I guess that's why I am so critical (maybe needlessly so) of the part of our organisation that don't operate at an elite level. We walked through the pain of those horrible years where our club was used as a machavelian tool for some power hungry losers and after coming from such lows and building to such solid foundations I'm beyond keen to see us elevate even more to be a true powerhouse off the field and on it.
We have most of the pieces of the puzzle in place, but to be the best we also have to be constantly introspecting and asking ourselves "What could we be doing better?".
Netflix had their original culture manifesto centred around the ethos of a professional sports team prioritising talent density and radical candor. Basically everyone is the best at what they're doing, and they're encouraged to call out everyone else if their standards start to slip. You're not expected to work at Netflix for 20 years, you're expected to perform at an elite level there for a few years and then be happy to go somewhere else and relax.
With so many elite parts of our organisation starting to really hum we did the hard radical candor thing and punted Brad Arthur (probably a year too late). It was hard, emotional, but it was needed. If we don't take this approach to our entire organisation - not to canibalise and hate ourselves, but to continually examine ourselves and demand excellence, we won't be an elite club.
This isn't about allowing power hungry morons back in charge - those guys weren't elite at anything but failure. It's about always keeping an eye out for our weakest link and politely tapping them on the shoulder and saying "It's time - let's look for the next elite person".
My personal opinion (which is just opinion, and we all have em) is that our R&R is the weakest link in our journey to elite status. But I do take your point in that the worst thing we can do as a fan collective is to ruminate on the negative and turn toxic against the club we all adore. Finding a balance between the two is the tricky part...maybe I just need a valium and a lie down. 😁
I've been critical of our R&R in the past, but I also think that as humans we naturally focus on the negative as we see it as a "threat". I think the R&R team does need the kudos though for the recruitment of and well-weighted contracts of the likes of Josh Addo-Carr and Dylan Walker. While some will say those players fell in our laps, we were ready to go and we didn't throw the sink at them to get them.
I'd also say the picking up of Iongi, Samrani, Kautoga and Papalii have also shown strong planning alongside the extension of our highly rated juniors.
Now you can talk at length about our recruitment of an external 5/8. But I would say that had we thrown even more money at Galvin he'd be a Matto-like recruit. Big money for a player who had openly agitated for a release almost as soon as he'd signed a deal with his former club.
And again, the 2022 retention of Matto was done under Arthur who was wielding more and more power by that stage of his career. Was it entirely on Arthur? No. But as I've explained previously, the coach often either identifies a player he wants and tasks the recruitment team with signing them, or provides a concept of the type of players he wants and the recruitment team goes looking. So Matto had to have been re-signed with not just the blessing of Brad, but likely an express desire of extending him.
Valid call out Super, and psychologically true that we "feel" losses more than wins (there are studied numbers out there but it's something like you have to win back 2.5 times your losses in order to feel psychologically on top again).
And I do agree that we have made some good signings. My concern is that even our good signings have been at least in some part fortuitous - Iongi as a response to losing Talagi (basically a forced swap), Fox after he was forcibly fired by the Dogs.
Don't get me wrong, we absolutely need the good luck with the bad and those deals were still landed either way.
It's just the big moments we have been unable to ice.
I will always give the benefit of the doubt, but I'd also be challenged by anyone who would consider our R&R elite, or Top 4 in the NRL.
I do realise there was a time for this, and that was during the transition from BA to Ryles. Obviously our leadership have chosen to back the horses we have, so with that I'll let it rest and won't take up airspace with this commentary anymore. Besides, it's the off season and I'm sure there are more exciting things to talk about.
Hopefully Matto plays like a $1m player and I am made to look like an idiot. 😁
Conversely many punters, especially on the pokies, feel the wins more than the losses
I think one fact we're missing is that in 2022 when we re-signed him, he was an Origin player. He was legitimately playing the best footy of his career. So while we could say he had a history of playing silly buggers at contract time, what would it have said of the club if it didn't do everything it could to re-sign a player who, at the time, was one of the best versatile backrowers in the game?
He wasn't just quality in 2022, he had been consistently good since his year at the Tigers. That's four straight years of being a consistent 60+ minute, high effort, high impact NRL quality forward. That he's declined so much is his fault, not anybody else's.
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