Players play and coaches coach.
But that reality has been warped by the recent salary cap crisis that has engulfed the Eels and left the NRL struggling to deal with issuing a fair punishment.
The Eels rushed through the retirement of Anthony Watmough on medical grounds, but still needed to offload playmaker Nathan Peats to come within the NRL guidelines.
Having done that the match against South Sydney tonight will count for points.
Eels coach Brad Arthur though won't allow the players to use all the confusion and uncertainty as an excuse.
"We expect that we give our best performance and if that's good enough to beat Souths, well great, but there's no shortcuts and there's no leniency. We've got a job to do."
In AFL tonight, second-placed Geelong can leapfrog North Melbourne with a win at Adelaide.
But one of the biggest issues facing the sport are the struggling Queensland teams -- the Brisbane Lions and the Gold Coast Suns.
Sitting in 11th and 16th place on the ladder respectively, the idea of losing a team in Queensland hit the headlines this week.
It was sparked by former Lions coach Leigh Matthews who publicly stated that there was no room for the fledgling Suns.
His remarks earned a strong rebuke from the Suns hierarchy, but even former Lions players have come out and supported the Suns which were only created in 2009.
Jonathan Brown won three Premierships under Matthews with Brisbane, but even he believes his former coach was out of line.
"Obviously Leigh's got his Brisbane Lions Football Director's cap on. But it is a challenging market at the moment because both sides are struggling but I think for the overall long term future of the game in Queensland I think it's important to have two clubs."
In Super Rugby the NSW Waratahs can take over from the Brumbies at the top of the Australian conference.
The Brumbies are in Melbourne to take on the Rebels tonight (fri) and a sllp up there would mean N-S-W can take leadership on Saturday against the Bulls in Sydney.
In netball action the seemingly unstoppable Queensland Firebirds are aiming to extend their winning run to 20 matches when they travel to Perth to play the West Coast Fever tomorrow afternoon.
The Rome Masters continues as the leading tennis players in the world look to find form ahead of next weekend's French Open championships.
While all the attention locally has been on the spat between the Australian Olympic Committee Chef de Mission Kitty Chiller and leading players Nick Kyrgios and Brenard Tomic, there's been a change at the top of the men's world rankings.
A resurgent Roger Federer has overtaken Andy Murray into second in the world behind Novak Djokovic.
The Serb will go into Roland Garros as a strong favourite to win his fourth straight Grand Slam.
This weekend golf's Players championship gets underway in the United States at the Sawgrass course in Florida.
The event is often described as the fifth major, and one man being tipped to do well to make up for his final day implosion at the Masters is World number two Jordan Spieth.
The American lost five shots over the last nine holes at Augusta to practically hand eventual winner Danny Willet of England the fabled Green Jacket.
But rather than feeling sorry for himself, Spieth has spoken up on Willet's behalf.
He says he doesn't think it's fair the way the Englishman has been constantly asked if it was Spieth's final round capitulation that won it for him.
"He 100 per cent earned his Master's win. It really bugs me when people are trying to take that maybe away from him or shoot it down. The questions have been asked to him ""do you think this will go down as you winning or him losing" That is absolute bull." **
American Rickie Fowler is the defending champion, after he edged out Sergio Garcia and Kevin Kisner in a playoff last year.
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