The letter someone in the club could be sending to all Eels members

Like all Parramatta fans, the team here at the Eels are bitterly disappointed that we have underperformed in 2010. We all came into this year, with high expectations after going so close in 2009 and we all full expected to be among the top eight and contesting the final series. Unfortunately, that’s not to be. I know there are no more passionate supporters than those who follow the mighty blue and gold, and I know you’re probably wanting to know what went wrong that resulted in the club not meeting its objectives this year. Over the following months, the club will conduct its annual review. However, following a disappointing season, this review takes on all the more importance. We’ll be looking at every level of the club and how it can be improved, because what we want is for every one of us to be working towards the same goal, which is to build a sustainable football club, which competes at the highest level week-in, week-out and ultimately brings home a Premiership. What I can share with you at this point, is complete recognition that no-one at the club believes that we did good enough this year. At a board level, we’ve been dragged into too many controversies and unwelcome headlines. That will stop. We want the Parramatta Eels to be the most professionally run club in the NRL and you can be assured that ultimately the board knows that the buck stops with it. While, results on the field were disappointing, I’m sure you will be heartened that the club is now in a far better position financially after strong growth in membership, merchandising, and sponsorship. We have you the fans to thank for this, and we hope that despite the disappointment of this year, you continue to show your support for the colours and our boys. Whereas, we were forced to implement cuts in many areas of the club’s operations this year, we’re now at a point where we can start re-investing in areas that are strategic to the club’s future stability and growth. Our CEO Paul Osborne, I know has learned a lot from his first full-season in the role. I’m sure we all have an appreciation for how challenging a role it is, but you have seen that the club has taken strong strides forward in areas like membership recruitment and the general professionalism of our marketing and communications. We know we’ve still got a long way to go, but Paul has us moving in the right direction. Recruitment has been challenging this year. We faced the most uncertain player market in the history of the game, in a year where we had a number of our high-profile stars coming off contract. Most importantly, we retained the services of our marquee player Jarryd Hayne on a long-term contract and we will continue to build a squad around our fullback’s immense talents. We were unable to retain some of our existing roster, and in the case of players like Feleti Mateo, Krisnan Inu and Kris Keating all of whom are local juniors, this was regrettable. However, we are working towards a bigger picture and its important that players fit in with the playing style we want as well as within the budget constraints of the salary cap. We were unsuccessful with a number of representative-quality signings that we were hoping to bring in to the club but each player that was released or chased, was done so with a bigger picture view of where we want the playing roster to be. One of the key elements, we wanted to bring to the roster was more aggression and that is something we’ve been able to achieve through the recent signings of Carl Webb and Reni Matuai. Clearly, we want to strength our halves and that is something we will continue to work on during the off-season. However, I will say we will not make a decision that will compromise our longer-term goals and if we go into 2011 without any marquee signing in those positions, we have invested in a number of promising juniors including NYC halfback of the year Brad Murray and we also have our 2009 grand final halves pairing of Jeff Robson and Daniel Mortimer. Coach Daniel Anderson is confident that a strong off-season will enable our players to learn from the problems we faced this year, and that we can develop a style of play that fits with next year’s roster. It’s worth noting that there are a number of high-quality halves coming off contract in 2012. Both the coach and players know we didn’t get the results. Too often we failed to carry out our gameplan and subsequently we were never able to build on momentum that winning brings and take our standard of play to the kind of level that is required to be in contention in September. The players will make an early start to 2011 and we will be focusing very heavily on improving our skill levels and on the structures coach Anderson has identified as being necessary to be successful next. One thing I’m sure you will all have been heartened by this year, was the quality of our defence which was among the best in the league and I want you to know that Peter Sharp, who is the member of the coaching staff with primary responsibility for that facet of the game, has recently agreed to extend his stay at out great club for a further three years. All of our coaching and playing staff are determined to make amends for this year’s result and I can promise you the one thing that none of us will allow to be called into question in 2011, is effort and commitment to the cause. Indeed, rest assured that goes for all of us who are involved with the club. We will be holding a Season Ticket Holders forum in the next couple of weeks and I welcome your suggestions to how we can make any improvements to our operations. It is the responsibility of all of us, the administrations, the players, the coaching staff and the supporters to continue to work towards making this great club even greater. Yours in Blue & Gold

Replies

EeLmatiC September 7, 2010 at 1:10pm

The letter someone in the club ~~could~~ should be sending to all Eels members
Amie_1 September 7, 2010 at 1:47pm

i agree with eelmatic
Sir Col "THE NODDY MUSHROOM" September 7, 2010 at 5:02pm

Yeah and I am about to mount up on my trusty steed and go tilt at windmills while singing - "To dream, the immpossible dream, to fight the unconquerable foe to.... etc etc etc."

Or as others have quoted John Caton in "The Castle"
"Tell em their dreamin' "
My Captain, My Captain BLOGGER September 8, 2010 at 12:23am

I Believe that its something that needs to be LOOKED @ as well.

Restructure and revolution have similar meaning especially around election time !!

This reply was deleted.

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