It was a tale of two seasons for the Parramatta Eels who shook off a poor start to the 2025 campaign to finish 11th with plenty of optimism around the future.<\/p>\n
It was a tough start for rookie coach Jason Ryles who suffered a 56-18 loss away from home against the Melbourne Storm. The Eels would have the last laugh with a final round 66-10 victory over the Newcastle Knights.<\/p>\n
In a year that was largely predicted to be a rebuilding season, SEN\u2019s Justin Horo praised Ryles for his unwavering vision of the team and bold selection calls.<\/p>\n
Ryles opted for young fullback Isaiah Iongi over club captain Clint Gutherson. The former proved to be a revelation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first and last game of the season best represents the feelings of everyone at the Parramatta Eels,\u201d Horo said on SEN 1170.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat first game looked gloomy. It was rough and a tough day for Parramatta fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cMelbourne put up the handbrake at half time. They didn\u2019t come out properly after the half.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was then a shellacking of the last placed Newcastle Knights with a full deck of cards and players.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought Jason Ryles did an excellent job. He made tough decisions early before the season had started.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe got rid of a lot of popular players at the club who still had some footy in them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIongi had been plying his trade at the Penrith Panthers and he exceeded my expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a superstar and the part I love the most is that his offensive stats are awesome (but) how work around the backfield defensively reminded me of Dylan Edwards and James Tedesco.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt tells me that Iongi really cares about that part of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they are in for a big start to the season next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Parramatta were 5-10 when they had their third and final bye of the year in Round 18. The Eels went 5-4 down the stretch including wins against eventual premiers Brisbane at Suncorp Stadium, the Warriors in Auckland and a comprehensive victory over the Sydney Roosters.<\/p>\n
Despite all the improvements, the Eels finished well outside of finals calculations and with the departure of Dylan Brown to Newcastle, there is a vacant playmaker spot in the roster.<\/p>\n
Horo believes the Eels should chase Melbourne Storm half Jonah Pezet in order to make the next step into a finals team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m Jonah Pezet, you want an opportunity to be the guy and be in a position where (the team) looks to be on the rise,\u201d Horo added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you leave a system like the Melbourne Storm, you want to tick some boxes.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have a premier playmaker and experienced veteran in Mitch Moses to pair up with.<\/p>\n
\u201cPezet played really well at the back end of the season. I think Parramatta tick more boxes than any other team that\u2019s been linked to him.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a tale of two seasons for the Parramatta Eels who shook off a poor start to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-228719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}