Eels coach Jason Ryles has defended five-eighth Dylan Brown after he was ruthlessly booed by his own fans in his first appearance since signing a mega deal with the Knights.
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Brown was contracted with Parramatta until 2031 but a get-out clause allowed him to sign a historic 10-year deal with Newcastle worth at least $13 million.
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The 24-year-old said he loved his current club however the offer was “too hard to turn down” but that didn’t flush with the Eels faithful on Sunday afternoon.
Brown was booed heavily when his name was read out by the Commbank Stadium announcer before kick-off against the Wests Tigers on Sunday.
The No. 6 was then met with a chorus of boos again on his first touch but it didn’t last long as he made a strong run through the middle.
Parramatta are the longest-suffering supporters in the NRL with their premiership drought dating back to 1986.
They only just avoided the wooden spoon last year before rookie coach Jason Ryles showed club captain the door and now Brown is set to follow at the end of the season.
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In his post-match press conference, Ryles sound he couldn’t hear the boos through his sound-proof coach’s box, but fans had a right to feel how they feel.
“I can’t hear it up there, but that’s footy,” Ryles said.
“That’s just emotional fans and they’re passionate and that’s potentially the way they feel but it doesn’t change how we think of him.”
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When pressed on Brown’s performance in the 32-6 loss to the Tigers, Ryles said the five-eighth cannot reach his full potential unless things start to fall into place around him with his teammates.
“He’s improved on last week. We’re still working on some things with Dylan in his game but to point out Dylan’s performance… there’s a lot happening around him,” Ryles said.
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“He needs some things around him to go well to help him go well as well.
“He’s improving and there’s little parts of his game I’m sure he’d like to work on but there’s a lot happening before we can critique his performance too much.”
Ryles admitted he was very disappointed after his side conceded a massive lead for the second week in a row after the Storm put 40 points on them in the first half last week.
“Super disappointed,” Ryles said
“It probably doesn’t look like it but there’s a lot of good signs there in regards to some individuals.
“Some parts of the game we’re working on but we just have lapses in concentration and we need to work quite hard on our edge defence still. We’ll continue to work. My initial emotions are very disappointed.
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“We’ve set the game up fairly well early on and we couldn’t execute in good ball without the cohesion in attack.
“We’ve got a lot of younger players out there at the moment in key positions which are learning on the job.
“We couldn’t execute which therefore then gives you the rewards of the hard work you did to get you there. The other part is the lapses in concentration individually. They hurt us big time.”
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