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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Exactly, people knock him for this deal, he played us with using the Dolphins as a ploy for us to up our deal and we did. That is not his fault, he was doing what is best for him and it worked. We were dumb enough to do the deal. Though he did have a good 2022 season as well.
He looked like he was going to kick on in a second wind for his career, but unfortunately it didn't work out that way. There's probably a lot for the club to unpack there to find out why Matto's game plummetted. Ideally, our juniors would have been knocking on his door putting pressure on him to perform, but that system was still in its infancy, not yet producing NRL players. Would the same club officials resign him now in the same circumstance but with talented NRL-ready juniors? I doubt it, but they probably felt they had little choice at the time. I think most fans were are least neutral with his resigning too.
Longfin, kudos on the realism.
It's easy to be Monday Quarterbacks, and a dopamine-candy hit when it aligns with a narrative.
Yet in mid-2022, after a $2.5m offer by Bennett/Dolphins, most here were in favor of Matto staying. And he talked about how much he loved the club.
Matt Cameron nailed it: Some R&R deals are club losses, not win-win. Sadly, it appears Matto ended up being one such deal for most of it.
Foxpsort: I did consider leaving for Bennett's Dolphins
While Matterson was in awe of Bennett’s wisdom, he simply couldn’t refuse an offer that would keep him closer to family and friends.
The 27-year-old was shown around the club’s facilities prior to his Origin debut, with the NRL’s incoming franchise reportedly offering him a contract worth $2.5 million over four years.
While Matterson admits that he was impressed with the Bennett and the Dolphins it was a case of family first for the Eels forward.
“My family lives around the area and they come first.
“This club is home to me. I played my junior footy around here and I played under-20s here.
“It’s a good bunch of boys here and I love the joint.”
The Blues representative’s extension means he’ll be in Eels colours until the end of 2026 with fellow forward Junior Paulo re-signed for the same amount of time.
I know I'm on the tilt, but let's also not wear rose coloured glasses.
Matto had the same history in 2022:
Matto has run his career in a very specific way - he is a gun for hire and will say the things that work for him in that moment to land the next contract. No shade on him for doing it that way, it's been very lucrative.
For us to sign a person long term who has shown throughout his entire career to purely act in self-interest was not smart at the time or in hindsight. Re-signing him in 2022 was the right intent, and the moment that he started to hold us over a barrel playing us off against other clubs we should have held firm.
This isn't a bad luck thing, it's a bad negotiation thing, and it's been a recurring theme for 7 odd years now.
Some R&R is absolutely luck - you may sign Reece Walsh a day before he does both his ACLs. That's bad luck. But signing a player who has shown multiple times to have no club loyalty and to break contracts using whatever method needed if it's not working for him and his career...well, that just feels like bad management.
Matto has always done what is best for himself. That's his perogative and I don't blame the guy for doing it. We were naive for thinking that he'd be any different this time because he said some words.
2017 - Ryan Matterson:
“I’m really proud to be a Rooster. Since day one, everyone at the Club has made me feel at home, and this is where I want to build a career”
2019 - Ryan Matterson:
"I want to be a role model for the younger boys in the [Tigers] sqad"
2019 - Ryan Matterson:
Flakes on Tigers contract and signs with the Eels
2022 - Ryan Matterson:
Tests the market with the Dolphins, heads to Qld to meet with Bennett. Eels throw $$$ at him. Matto says the perfect PR words "I couldn't leave my family". Possibly a multi million dollar deal also helped...
Matto played his career well and maximised his income, him and his manager played the Eels after playing the Tigers.
R&R bad luck is stuff like Radradra - where we lost a generational talent because of allegations that were dismissed but understandably caused him to want to be gone. Unforseen, unpredictable, out of character...that was just bad luck.
Matto? This wasn't bad luck, this was bad management.
Fool me once...
Cap, I agree with you to an extent: Matto has a bit of the Tarzan-Jane syndrome.
But if signing Origin Matto in mid-2022 was prima-facie “bad management”, now in hindsight, why did Bennett want him?
At 27, maturing, he just debuted for Origin, and brought that rare mix of size, ball skills, and versatility, lock, edge, even five-eighth if needed. On his day, he could be a damaging runner with ball-skills. You can see why Bennett thought he could bring the best out of him.
And let’s be honest. When we made the Grand Final later that year, plenty of people would say it was a smart signing.
You can’t always predict how a player’s career will pan out, especially someone who looked like he was just starting to hit his stride and match the talk about the club being "home" one he "loves".
Frankly, I’m not sure Ryles would’ve wanted him re-signed either (nor would I), if he were in BA’s position. Ergo, he would not have re-signed.
So yeah, while most here will probably agree with you — winning an argument by "popular vote” and all that jazz — we both know how things go on 1EE and within those people in their close circles.
Not that there is anything wrong with that. 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.
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. 😁
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