We welcome back Mary Kaye this week for the second instalment of her weekly blog. Like what you read? Remember you can find more of her work on Ladies Who League!
Round 2 of the 2014 NRL Telstra Premiership marked Members Round. In the wake of a tremendous weekend of football (though perhaps not for our Eels), I wanted to take some time to acknowledge the 15,068 Members of the Parramatta Eels. I was so pleased to hear the news on Tuesday that the Eels had reached a tremendous milestone - 15,000 members for 2014 so far!
The Eels are a club with tremendous history and pride in the jersey of blue and gold. Whilst it is our players that take the field for us every week, our fans are the backbone of our club.
This year, the Eels have more than 15,000 Members and this number keeps growing. Without the support of Members, it is very unlikely that we as fans would have a team to call our own.
Our Members are crucial to making sure that our club survives - it ensures the continuing financial viability of our club and helps us to continue to protect another one of our most valuable assets, our junior nursery.
Being a Member means so much more though.
Personally, I could not be prouder to call myself a Parramatta Eels supporter and more importantly, a Parramatta Eels Member.
I decided to become a member in 2009 and have never looked back. I value financially supporting the club and being able to have a say in how my club is run and administered. More than anything else though I love to feel part of the Parramatta Eels family and to be able to call myself an Eel for life.
So to all the Members out there - thank you for helping to make our club what it is and for your continuing support of the Blue and Gold. For those who you who aren't members, I would encourage you to consider joining, if only so we can beat the Bulldogs in the #raceto20k!
It will be back to the drawing board this week for our boys following a heavy loss to the Sydney Roosters. Despite a disappointing score line, I was really pleased with the efforts of Will Hopoate and that our boys continued to try things in attack and did not let the score line prevent them from taking risks.
I can only imagine the confidence we would have had in the second half if we had scored that ‘try of the year’ just before half time and gone into the dressing rooms only 6 points down.
I know many of you will be disappointed with the result on the weekend, but please remember how early it is in the season. We still have another 24 rounds of football to play and I am expecting big things from what I believe is an extremely youthful, energetic and talented squad. We will learn from this experience.
As our halves combinations begin to grow in confidence over the next few weeks, I am very excited about the prospect of some sensational football from the boys.
I know that the boys are training hard in preparation for a big clash at Brookvale this weekend. It will be great to see Nathan Peats back, raring to go (come on Peatsy!!)
I hope that you'll all be there to cheer our boys on. Let's turn Brookvale Oval into a sea of Blue and Gold.
