Eels Blogs

This one may be long but i have things to say and unpack, if you do not want to read it as it is long then that is fine but do not comment that it is as i have admitted it. So late in 2021, BA was on a very thin tightrope that was losing threads each week and us fans were waiting for the rope to snap, it did not and finished the year reletively strong (Strong compared to rounds 19-23) and i said despite being a BA knocker that it is either one of two ways to deal with him; Sack him or extend him no inbetween due to his deal ending in 2022 and players off-contract. Either move on and let a new coach and his men decide who to keep and if players left well these coaches can try and start again with a rebuild, extend him for an extra year with some security with added attention of a make or break 2022. They decided extension but for two years til 2024.

Now at the time, to say i was livid could be very well understated by the fact they have put themselves over a barrel by giving him an extra more than they should have if he has a bad 2022 or 2023 is a rebuild you arent paying him out much on a 2 year deal, now it is 3 it is minimum 2023 we have BA. i digressed and admitted too that it is perhaps to make it easier to re-sign who we want to re-sign therefore using BA as a pawn in the negotiations. Turns out that was far from what i thought it was intended.

To having people saying we are going to lose one or two but not alot, and TCT stating we will keep whoever we want to keep, i.e. i paraphrase but "Niukore will stay as long as Arthur is here". Or we may lose squad players but not players we consider important. Two back-rowers and a top 5 hooker does not seem overly important at this stage. So i will preface this now and say this not a BA bashing blog, i will get into him later which may seem a knock but it is not in the sense of him being the main problem, this is the board being arrogant, out of touch and not being able to read the room. If we had no money in our cap then i think what has happened would be bitter sweet in the sense that it is sad to lose these players but our hands were tied to the money we have. But no this is not about money, we have cash for 2023, this is ineptness in its peak, this is walking in arrogant thinking we are a constant top 8 team that pushes top 4, why would anyone want to leave us they should be thankful we want them, towards covering wool over the eyes of fans saying nothing to see here it is fine to us fans saying "Hey this lot are better than the previous lot, so i think it will be ok".

Now there will be two things that will come up as counter arguments. First one being, "now we can have a warchest to sign world class players in 2023" the issue there is 1. there are no players worth splashing cash on for 2023 and 2. who is to say they would pick us over say the Roosters or Melbourne? If a Joey Manu was available and wanted 900K this board would still low ball him with a parramatta tax of to play for us becuase we are so good you have to take less.

The second one is, Penrith have lost players so it happens. For Penrith is it is a money issue but they have excellent juniors at the disposal who are ready for a next man up mentality and they prioritise players. Ask Bryan Fletcher at Penrith if they sign Kikau but lose Luai or Cleary in the process would he still sign Kikau, he would say no without hesitation. For us we lose Papali'i but hopefully to keep Mahoney, nope lose him too, but if Papa is going and Matterson is being phased out that must mean Niukore is being prioritised? nope. Now i will say Papa and Niukore got deals that we should not have matched and that is bitter sweet, but we should have said screw it let us match Canterbury for Mahoney now we have more money then we thought offering 1.5 mil should have been 1.8 then Mahoney would have considered it, to think an extra 50K which is 100K short of what another club offered him is arrogant, 550K would have been more realistic and reasonable offer, i wouldve respected them alot more for that.

The Roosters and Melbourne are prime examples of clubs that sign roughly 9 out of 10 players they want to keep without any bad news coming from negotiations yet we are inept enough to piss off agents to the point where pressure amounts on the board to do something. Pressure to sack Arthur, extend him (fair enough) pressure to re-sign players? lose 3 good players. The board have nobody to blame but themselves for how they approached this, nothing stopped them from doing these deals earlier, now not saying they didnt but how it takes nearly 6 months (if you believe what was written) to get Gutho done then they had no hope doing it earlier anyway. One other point to make quickly is the fact the original offers for Gutho, Reed and Papa were both 2 year deals, so let's say all three accepted it that means in 2024 all three are off contract again at the same time, now not as much as this year but you are practically repeating what has been awfull this year, could not space some out with a 3-4 year deal along the way?

Parramatta use the moneyball approach, in that sign players nobody wants on the cheap and pull a diamond in the ruff to gain some success. It has worked for like Lane, RCG, Cartwright they are going to try with Curtis Scott also. This works and however it is good for teams that are finding an identity and some relevancy, Parramatta needed it to get to where they are and that is where it needed to stop to go towards a more aggresive style of re-signing. We did not want to be a team that overpays to get our way to being a finals team, we preferred to get quality from proving it instead of reputation. It shows our team has developed but not our management our team has moved past the moneyball model though our management sees it as the only way forward.

Finally, i want say something quick in relation to BA. Now this is not as much of a what he should do but a question of what would you do. The way i see it is we are heading for rebuild, though the reason people are against changing Arthur this year was basically who would you bring in, that is a logical counter argument as yes who is better than BA who is available with a team that is still quality? However, now it seems more likely heading towards a sort of a rebuild it should not matter who takes us as long as it is a good candidate regardless of roster. Nothing against BA, just that i do not see how you can go with a rebuild with a coach that has been there for heading on 10 years, it is time to move forward in a new direction. If a rebuild is coming (despite having Gutho and Moses) would you continue with Arthur and this board? or do we blwo it up and start again in 2023?

This is not Arthur's fault, i actually feel sorry for him, though this club in my opinion with the approach they are taking in retention are delaying what could be an inevitable rebuild, keeping BA to squeeze out one more decent year here and there and it is not needed.

With 3 straight years playing out roughly the same on the field i was going into 2022 thinking well i feel no different as i can see a pattern, now i am thinking this will be the hardest year ive ever had supporting this club, supporting Reed who is my favourite player despite technically a Bulldog in the future, supporting Ice also. Yes you support your team not players but it is difficult and i blame nobody but the club themselves.

Sorry it is long, please do not chastise me for my comments it is simply a thought of mine i may be right or way off but if you disagree lets be civil.