‘Fight and effort’: Ryles adamant Eels are on right path despite winless start to season

Jason Ryles believes Parramatta have shown promising signs, even without a win to start season 2025.

In a tight 16-8 loss to the Bulldogs on Sunday, the Eels played their best game yet this year, putting Canterbury under pressure in the second half.

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While they couldn’t quite execute that pressure into points, Ryles said the grit and determination shown was something he wants the team to build off moving forward.

“Not enough polish at certain times but much better in regards to our fight and our effort and what serving the badge looks like,” he said of his assessment of the game.

“The players spoke about making it personal just in regards to how they performed today. We’ve been talking about it the whole time but today we started to see a little bit of fruit.

“Unfortunately we didn’t get the result we wanted, but the fight and the effort that we showed today, if we’re able to reproduce that more often than not, I think we’re going to stand ourselves in good stead for the future.”

Leading into the clash at CommBank Stadium, Ryles dropped halfback Ronald Volkman for former Rabbitohs playmaker Dean Hawkins.

The move showed glimpses of promise, as the 26-year-old worked with five-eighth Dylan Brown.

But Ryles said it is that cohesion that the team needs as they get to know each other better.

“We’ll go back and watch it and it will tell us more of a different story and solutions, but on face value, just a little bit of cohesion,” he said when asked what they need.

“We have a lot of new players – Dean Hawkins’ first game for the year, his combination with Dylan (Brown), Isaiah (Iongi) fourth game of NRL, Joey Lussick first game for the year for us.

“In our key positions, whilst we have good players, we just need to build those combinations which will help us going forward.”

One of the standouts in the narrow loss was new recruit Zac Lomax.

The versatile centre finished with a whopping 249 run metres and Ryles said it’s what his team has come to expect of him.

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“That’s just Zac,” he said.

“He’s a quality player and one of his strengths is carrying the footy and contesting for kicks and that type of thing. We try to give him as many opportunities as possible.

“That’s just Zac, really. He’s just doing his job for the team and he’s actually done some things for the team that he didn’t have to, positionally. That’s a sign of his character.

“He just wants to help us win however he can.

“He defends on the wing and attacks at centre and – as you’ve probably seen – everywhere else as well. He goes on the left and the right and sometimes to dummy-half. We just want him involved at the end of the day.

“That was his best game so far by a mile.”