Eels Blogs

Our final SGA meeting has been held for the year. Some of the key points from the meeting are below incorporating football operations, merchandise, membership, game day and fan engagement.

Football operations

• The club is very happy with the Iongi extension and his management keeping everything quiet. The club prefers to keep player negotiations quiet for both extensions and external recruitment.
• Bailey Simonsson, is back training as normal with the squad and fully committed for 2026. I believe he's in the rehab group at the moment but he's expected to be fully fit.
• Ryan Matterson has returned to training, although permission for him to explore his options remains open. That said, he's training with the squad but is also in rehab at the moment.
• Jonah Pezet's deal worked out for all parties. The Eels identified a need for an NRL ready half for 2026 without blocking the pathways of Lorenzo and Fletcher.
• Everything reported on how the Zac Lomax situation went down is pretty accurate.
• The club scoring high in wellbeing and off-field support for players is apparently a big part of recruitment. Not in how members of the recruitment/retention staff work, but in how players themselves sound out clubs. Keilee Joseph, the representative lock and new NRLW recruit saw the Eels having the level of facilities she wanted after playing for both the Roosters and Broncos. It's not a case of the club walking a player through the facility, it's about how players talk to each other and sound out how things work off the field.
• The club continues to have a growth in junior league numbers in the Parramatta district, although much of this is driven by girls. Junior league is looking into ensuring the boys also continue to grow.
• Lots of talk about pathways players, it was pointed out that 3 of 5 NRL debutants this year were pathways players.
• Spots remain open in the top 30.

Interestingly, Keaon wasn't brought up at all really and that feeds into the fact the club doesn't like to engage on discussions about potential recruitment targets.

Fan engagement and membership

• The club is putting a lot of work into this area to both engage new fans and ensure members are getting a great experience.
• We have provided feedback throughout this year regarding membership and fan events, and the club has listened and acted.
• There is a huge slate of fan and members only events being planned for 2026. These events won't just be in Sydney but also for our out of Sydney matches. Details are still being confirmed, but the club will email members with a calendar when things are locked in.
• There will be more events in 2026 and 2025 including open training sessions.
• Membership recognition is a key pillar from the club at the moment, they are working on some more ways to recognise members and provide them exclusive benefits. More details to come on that, but nothing was put forward that would result in members having to spend more money.

Game day

• There is a big push to change up game days at CommBank and make the ground more intimidating.
• Specific details are still being worked out but it's focused on making CommBank a loud and intimidating stadium for away sides.
• We have been asked specifically to support this as the SGA and we have also provided input. Once details are confirmed, we will be sharing them.

Merchandise

• Club is continuing to look at options in terms of membership pack provider. 
• We got a preview of some more 2026 merchandise. I can't share more other than it looks good and there is no white jersey.