Eels Blogs

I can’t resist going out without one last blog, Last year with a week to go before season kickoff, I wrote a blog 2019. TEN REASONS FOR HOPE. It’s one of the pieces I’m most proud of because, in the face of what was looking like a bleak year, I think I managed to pick out most of the points that took us to the finals. This year, obviously everything in a lot more positive, but I thought I’d write a similar piece before I exit to the Chairmans Club.

Ten reasons to dream of glory in 2020

Bankwest Stadium

We’ve gone into seasons confident before, and seem everything fall in a heap - 2018 anyone? - but I think the advantage Parra has a Bankwest Stadium is perhaps the biggest, single factor that gives me confidence the Eels will be successful not just this year, but consistently moving forward. It is literally the best experience in Rugby League and we saw last year, how much the players respond to that atmosphere. If you look at 2018, we lost a lot of tight games, which resulted in a loss of confidence, but I think we’ll win a lot of games at Bankwest and that will help to ensure that confidence remains high throughout the season. If we can finish in the top four and get two home finals, that would be enormous.

Mitchell Moses

This is the year for it to all come together for Moses. He is so hard to contain because he is a genuine triple threat - can pass, run, kick - but having all those options means he often takes the wrong one, or gets his execution wrong. You saw last year, he’s getting comfortable with his game, that decision-making is becoming more automatic and he can put himself in line to become the games’ most dangerous number seven. That takes you a long way towards a Premiership.

Competition for places

One of the big factors in having a team that can go deep into September is having a strong collection of players who are battling to break into the seventeen. The way Parra has handled their cap in the past, we’ve had decent depth, but more so, that you had relatively experienced players who you knew could fill a hole. This year, we have younger players like Kaufusi, Utoikamaanu and Parry who have been through their tough, learning year and can legitimately challenge older, more established players.

Ryan Matterson

I identified Shaun Lane last year as a player who would a difference to our side, and I’m really excited about what Ryan Matterson is going to add to the team. We now have two big second rowers on either side, who can - and will - pass the ball. That ability means opposition teams have to ensure they put two bodies on the short runners and that opens up space for the centre and outside backs. The fact we’ll have that going, on both sides of the field is enormous.

Waqa Blake

There isn’t a more athletic outside back in the competition that Waqa Blake. He has always had enormous natural talent but this year, I think he’s going to take the competition by storm. He’s going to get plenty of room - as mentioned, inside defenders will be worrying about the short runner and wingers won’t want to be giving any latitude to Ferguson/Sivo so our centres will get plenty of opportunity to beat their man, and Blake can do that as well as anyone.

Prop rotation

You looked at Parramatta’s prop rotation in past years, and we always look to have a drop off when our starting props were replaced. This year, we can keep the foot to the pedal upfront for a full eighty minutes. The pack will again be led by Junior Paulo, but the addition of Reagan Campbell-Gillard and Kane Evans evolving into the player we all hoped he would be, the up-and-coming young props, as well as keeping some of our more experienced players means we have size, mobility and we’re not going to get bullied by any team this year.

Reed Mahoney

Let me first say that Reed Mahoney had a fantastic year in 2019. He’s a fabulous young hooker who will challenge for Origin honours in the coming year. BUT. He was also heavily targeted by opposition defences, which resulted in him having to make more tackles than any player in the NRL last year. The fact he was able to cope with that in his debut NRL season was, quite frankly, amazing. He will have had a full off-season to better prepare his body, continue to work on his technique and I think he will be much better at coping with being targeted this year. That will limit one of our biggest weaknesses from last year when teams rolled us up the middle. Having some bigger bodies around him will also help and if he has to make less tackles, that will also help his offensive game.

Andrew Johns

Parramatta has a fantastic, young spine with unlimited potential and I think it was a masterstroke from the club to bring in Andrew Johns and that it will fast-track the development of all our playmakers. It’s no good having a dominant halfback if teams can mark that player heavily to limit their effectiveness. The beauty of the Eels is that every member of the spine is dangerous. Overplay on Moses and Brown can create. Forget about Clint Gutherson and he’ll pop up on a short blindside and run amok. Mahoney is always a danger from dummy half. Having Johns, helping this quartet to understand their games and how to play with each other, can only bring good thing.

Marata Niukore

I’m picking out Niukore because he has developed into the kind of bench forward that every pack in the NRL would love. Because Parramatta’s second rowers play as many minutes as they do (and that’s tending to be pretty consistent across the NRL) you need a forward who can come in a do a great job on the edges if you do cop an injury, however, more commonly you need them to be able to do a job in the middle. Niukore is a natural second rower, but he’s added size without impacting his mobility too much and that means he is just as comfortable in the middle, and that’s a much underrated asset to have in any seventeen.

Experience

Parramatta has gone past the first week of finals twice now twice in the last three years, and the majority of the team has now played finals football. The finals games they have lost, you can certainly see they’ve been beaten by teams who just know what it takes when it comes to those finals matches. All of the squad is going to be much better for the experiences of those last couple of finals runs, and that could mean us going that little bit further to making the Big Dance, and then who knows. Every drought has to break, eventually.

As I said yesterday, I’ll be retreating now to my cone of silence for the time being. I’m super pumped about the year ahead, and it’s really nice to go into a season with such cause for optimism.

Go the Eels!