‘Imagine breaking that drought’: Jason Ryles lays out his vision for Eels

At a meeting at Sydney’s Star Casino 16 months ago, Melbourne chairman Matt Tripp convinced Jason Ryles he would be better off turning down the head coach’s job at St George Illawarra in favour of becoming the heir apparent to Craig Bellamy at the Storm.

“I got there and within a fortnight, I was like, ‘Wow, Craig’s not retiring’,” Ryles admits inside the Chinese restaurant at Parramatta Leagues Club earlier this week.

Watching Shane Flanagan rebuild the club he once represented with distinction only added to a nagging sense of what could have been had he chosen differently in that sliding doors moment.

Ryles, in his pursuit of an NRL head coaching gig, has always lived by the “right opportunity, not any opportunity” philosophy.

After turning down the one he was guaranteed for one that came with no guarantees, Ryles sat down with his manager, George Mimis, to discuss when the next “right opportunity” could present itself.

New Eels coach Jason Ryles poses for a photo at Parramatta Leagues Club.Credit: Edwina Pickles

Mimis, aware of the disharmony – or at least the murmurs of disharmony – between then-Parramatta coach Brad Arthur and the club’s management, made Ryles aware of a potential opening at what he described as “the Broncos of the west”.

A team with the longest premiership drought in the NRL - 38 years and counting. A football club steeped in history yet seemingly burdened by it at the same time.

“I find that exciting and part of this big opportunity,” Ryles admits. “Imagine breaking that drought? You dream about that sort of stuff. That’s where my head’s at. I don’t see that as intimidating or daunting at all. All I do is just see that as an unbelievable opportunity.”

Ryles has done his homework. Not just the numbers he crunched about the playing group when deciding to apply for the job, but every little detail of the club’s history.

Like the history of the Parramatta Fruit Pickers – the nickname commonly used when the team entered the competition in 1947, until it was changed in the mid-1960s.

How the Parramatta area was once renowned for its orchards and the hard-working culture of the people that was instilled by the manual labour of those who called Parramatta home.

Or the fact that Parramatta city has the third-largest economy in the country (we’re going to trust his homework). Its connection with the Polynesian and Indigenous community.

“That’s a Parramatta person,” Ryles said. “It’s what I will build our values on. For me, that’s the soul of where it all began.”

The future of Clint Gutherson

At a Concord cafe earlier in the month, Ryles met with Gutherson’s agents, Sam and Liam Ayoub, to introduce himself to the duo who represent both the No.1 and prop Junior Paulo.

With speculation about Gutherson’s future swirling, including interest from the Dragons, Ryles told the pair that, despite having brought in Penrith young gun Isaiah Iongi as the long-term fullback of the club, he saw Gutherson as an important part of the “reset” he was undertaking at the Eels.

“I couldn’t speak highly enough of Clint from when I sat down and spoke to him and his buy in,” Ryles said.

“I see him as really good coverage for all positions on the field, especially all our backs, and then even at 13 and nine and that role there. I see it as an enormous advantage for us to have someone like that on the field as that player.

“It is a massive advantage for us and the fact that he’s willing to buy into it and wants to do it – and Mitch [Moses] is across it as well – I just think that we will be able to play differently to a lot of teams when he’s on the field.”

Gutherson is a free agent on November 1. The Eels are not in a position to offer him an extension without knowing how successful the positional transition will be. It’s also difficult for the club to put a price on his value.

Eels captain Clint Gutherson expects incoming coach Jason Ryles to put his stamp on the club’s roster.Credit: Getty Images

His availability on the open market in six weeks has the potential to be one of the stories of the summer.

“At no stage did we discuss Gutho moving before the end of his contract,” Ryles said.

“That’s one thing that’s never been discussed before. Then the next part is, ‘Let’s just see how things go and let’s just see what the future looks like’. If this role works out for us, then I don’t see why he can’t be part of Parramatta for much longer.

“We’ll just keep being open and honest with them. Then we’ll deal with it as it comes. That’s genuinely what’s going to happen. We sort of said we’ll speak more towards Christmas … and then we’ll just let it evolve that way.”

Isaiah Iongi in, Blaize Talagi out

The first blow of Ryles’ tenure was the club’s failure to retain Blaize Talagi.

Instead, the rookie sensation signed a deal with western Sydney rivals Penrith. While Ryles only got involved in negotiations at the late stages, he took the positives from a disappointing situation while taking a veiled swipe at the three-time champions.

“I think one thing that you can get out of it is that Penrith is cherry-picking from our backyard,” he said.

Penrith bound Blaize Talagi.Credit: Getty

“Isn’t that supposed to be the best nursery in the country? So there’s a compliment to come out of it somewhere. But at the end of the day, if he’s earmarked himself as a five-eighth, we have Dylan [Brown] – so there’s probably a little bit of a blockage in the pathway for him.

“If I’m a parent and my son has got Blaize’s talent and wants to play six, I’d go and play with Nathan Cleary if Mitch Moses was unavailable. You know what I mean?”

Ryles was willing to give Talagi the club’s No.1 jersey and held a candid conversation with Gutherson about changing roles at the club to accommodate Talagi.

But when Talagi decided to take his talents to Penrith, Ryles didn’t change his thinking around bringing a new face to the custodian role.

The club’s recruitment manager Ben Rogers earmarked Iongi and a meeting was locked in for the following week. Panthers coach Ivan Cleary handed the fullback his NRL debut that week, reaffirming the Eels’ his opinion of him on the eve of their meeting.

“I watched a heap of vision of him and then did a bit of background research on him with some people that I respect. That that all checked out,” Ryles said.

Isaiah Iongi debuted for the Panthers last month.Credit: Getty Images

“He’s been playing fullback at the club that’s won the last three premierships and he’s going to come into his third pre-season with us. He’s sat behind Dylan Edwards and basically learnt off him nearly every session for two years. Then the other part is I think a lot of the younger kids now that come through generally tend to miss NSW Cup.

“So you look at guys like Nicho Hynes and Harry Grant – those guys came through playing a lot of Cup. They made a lot of errors there. Isaiah may have hit 60 games in Cup, so that’s a big apprenticeship. There are a lot of lessons learnt playing against men.

“Then he made his NRL debut and what we saw, we [knew] this kid’s ready to go. Obviously we don’t think that we’re signing Dylan Edwards, we don’t think that we’re signing the finished product. But we know that he’s well and truly on the way to being a good first-grader.”

Where does Zac Lomax fit into the team?

Lomax was signed under the Arthur regime and was given the impression that he would play in his preferred centre position.

Ryles has been in regular dialogue with the St George Illawarra winger but was unable to make any guarantees about what position he would play in 2025.

Zac Lomax is moving to Parramatta next season.Credit: Kate Geraghty

“My conversations with Zac have been, ‘Let’s get back to training, let’s work on combinations and let’s see what’s best for the team’,” Ryles said.

“He’s super open to that. He’s not said he prefers any position, so we’ll work it out once we get back to training. My understanding was that he came here to play centre. But I’ve just been really open with him in regards to his form over the last six or eight months.”

The coaching staff overhaul

Ryles will bring with him an entirely new coaching staff, hiring former Dragons coach Nathan Brown, former Roosters teammate Sam Moa and rugby union coach Scott Wisemantel.

Having served an apprenticeship under Bellamy, Eddie Jones and Trent Robinson, Ryles has taken certain qualities from each and incorporated them into his coaching.

He will bring with him Bellamy’s mantra of consistency and demand for effort, and Jones’ unrelenting desire and pursuit of excellence.

“So me little mate in Japan, Eddie, one of the first texts he sent me was ‘Players, staff and environment’ – in that order,” Ryles said.

Jason Ryles (right) and Eddie Jones together during their time with English rugby in 2020.Credit: Getty

He also spoke about Robinson’s willingness to buck the norm. The appointment of Wisemantel – a rugby coach with a background in league – to oversee the team’s attack with Brown is case in point.

“One thing I’m super clear on is I’m not any one of those three guys, I’m myself and I’ve got my own little personality and my own little take on it,” Ryles said of his coaching mentors.

“What does the club need right now? For me, it’s a reset. In particular, just from what I see, I want to work really hard on our culture and make it a place where people want to come to work every day.

“And then the biggest part is, like I said before, ‘What’s the strengths in the group as a playing group?’ And then that’s what we’re going to play to. We’re not going to play like Melbourne, Roosters, Penrith. We’re going to play like Parramatta. To the strengths of that group.”

Ryles has a long-standing relationship with Eels interim coach Trent Barrett, who applied for the head coaching job but missed out.

Barrett is leaving to assist Kevin Walters at the Broncos next year, but Ryles paid tribute to the way his former teammate handled an awkward situation.

Trent Barrett took over from Brad Arthur as Eels interim coach mid-way through the year.

“He made it easy. He kind of led me into it,” Ryles said of the tough conversation with Barrett about his future at the Eels.

“Basically, I just said if you’re at another club and I was in this situation, I’d be ringing you right now to come and work here. With everyone that has moved on, it was nothing personal, was just part of my mindset of resetting everything.”

There was a widely held view among Parramatta bosses that the players, under Arthur, had too much power. It resulted in a perceived cultural shift that left management questioning if the coach was too close to his troops.

“My philosophy is I’m there to serve them,” Ryles said.

“I’m a servant to the players. So I’m there to do whatever it takes for those boys to fulfil their dreams and to get better every day. That’s my job. Through my experiences watching the guys that I work for, you can have a strong relationship with them but you just got to be careful not to be best mates with them because there’s going to be a day where you’ve got to give them some feedback where it might not be what they want to hear.

Mitchell Moses and Dylan Brown are yet to hit the rare heights scaled in 2022.Credit: Getty

“And being a servant to the players isn’t telling them everything they want to hear. You’re serving them by telling them what they don’t want to hear and how they can get better. There’s obviously ways of doing that. So I’m going to probably handle Mitch a little bit different to how I handle Dylan because they’re just different personalities.”

The enormity of the task at hand hasn’t been lost in Ryles, who admits giving up hope of the Eels job after convincing himself the club was going to hand the keys to the castle to Sharks assistant coach Josh Hannay.

While ending the drought remains the dream, his inner Bellamy takes over when talking about how he goes about resurrecting the fortunes of a club that, in the space of two years, has gone from an NRL grand final to a wooden spoon playoff.

“How do you eat an elephant?” Ryles asked. “One bite at a time.”

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