Melbourne have a heavyweight ally in their corner for Saturday’s NRL sudden-death final against Parramatta in England rugby coach Eddie Jones.
While Jones, who also coached Australia for five years, is currently in Japan as the Rugby World Cup kicks off, he’s been keeping a close eye on the Storm at AAMI Park.
Storm assistant coach Jason Ryles has spent time with the England side since 2016, although the connection initially came through fitness guru Dean Benton.
“I certainly do learn a lot when I go over and work with the England squad – Eddie’s been around for a long time and he’s very, very experienced,” Ryles said on Friday.
“I still touch base with him now in regards to the situations we get ourselves in throughout the year.
“We’ve touched base with him again over the last couple of weeks just to get his outside view on what’s happening so it’s a really good resource for us.
“He’s has a bit of stuff that’s left-field but it gets you thinking.”
The praise goes both way with Jones crediting Ryles, a Test prop before switching to coaching in 2014, with adding an extra edge to England’s defence to help them to a 2017 win over the Wallabies.
The situation that the minor premiers are in are that they risk being the first Storm side since 2013 to go out of the finals in straight sets.
Ryles played in that line-up, who finished third in the regular season, but lost to the South Sydney and then Newcastle at home to crash out.
“We had a pretty good run leading into the finals but we ended up losing two games and that was my last game of footy,” Ryles said.
“It was very disappointing; it’s not something we’re used to down here.
“That hasn’t been touched on … but it was a completely different set of circumstances as we came off Origin and were a bit busted up and coming off a premiership the year before there was quite a bit of fatigue in the group.”
While much has been made of the clash of the game’s best wingers in both side, Ryles said the Eels forwards were also a huge threat.
“The strength of their outside backs takes a focus off their middle forwards but Junior Paulo is as good a front-rower as any in the competition so he’s certainly a pivotal part of their team,” he said.
“Kane Evans has come in and he’s started to reach his potential in the last month or so while Nathan Brown adds another dimension to their attack with his ball-playing and leg speed around the middle.
“It’s going to be a huge focus for our guys to stop their go-forward and try to limit the opportunities that (Mitchell) Moses and those guys get out the back.”
