By Adam Sheldon

Easts captain Eli Pilz says his side are full of confidence ahead of its clash this weekend against Souths, with the club winning its opening four games of 2025. 

Pilz spoke to Rugby News following Easts’ 45-7 thrashing over UQ at home on the weekend, where he played a starring role, scoring a try and landing four conversions. 

“It feels good to win games, but it’s early days,” Pilz said. 

Pilz said the playing group was looking forward to the next two weeks of footy, with a big clash looming this weekend against third-place Souths, before a potential top-of-the-table match-up against Brothers. 

“The goal is to win a premiership and we are really confident in our game and how much more we can grow. The next two weeks will show us where we are,” Pilz said. 

While it would appear on paper that Easts have had a near-perfect start to the season, Pilz was adamant the club had a lot of things it could improve on tactically. 

“We still have a lot to work on, we are a fair way off where we want to be to be honest,” he said. 

“We need to improve in every facet. We do heaps of video reviews and it’s showing us where we can improve – it’s everywhere. We have found a lot of room for improvement. We are yet to put in a complete performance.

“Each game we have done one main thing right like, defence, but the other areas are letting us down. The good thing is that the pieces are there, we just need to nail the details and put 80 minutes of quality together.”

One aspect which Easts appear to have nailed down is their wet weather game plan – led by the scrum half Pilz – which was again on show in the win over UQ.

“The good thing for us is we are quite happy to go to set pieces. We know we can dominate there, contesting balls and winning duels,” Pilz said. 

“We are happy to kick for the line and go to line outs and contest there. It’s easy when your forward pack is dominating, our jobs as backs is just putting balls in the right areas. It’s working for us at the moment.

“While I am keen for dry weather footy like everyone else in the league, if I’m being honest, we are playing well in wet weather and winning games, so I’m enjoying it.”

With so much momentum building at Easts, Pilz said trainings were particularly fun at the moment and added the main ingredient in the club’s superb start to 2025 and turnaround from 2024, was an extra year of playing experience for his young side. 

“We kept our core squad from last year together, and probably the main issue last year was inexperience. With the help of an extra year of experience under the belt, plus a few experienced heads which have come back to the club, it’s made a difference,” he said.