Round 8 Drink Of Choice – Jack Daniels & Coke

Margin Of Error – 5 Games

It wasn’t always pretty but after eighty enthralling minutes of football, Parramatta prevailed over the Wests Tigers in a brutal and thoroughly entertaining 24-22 slug-fest. If the entertaining 44-10 romp over Manly last week was the perfect tonic to arrest a six-game slide, yesterday’s victory was the ideal chaser. Wests made damnably sure that Parramatta earned their win yesterday and the tense and pulsating encounter that will serve the Eels well as they begin to tear into their early season six-loss deficit with vim and vigor.

Of course Parramatta still have a mountain of work to do to right their season but Sunday  was an important step forwards in that process.

Clutch Kaysa, Moneymaker Ma’u

It was supremely fitting that the two best for the Eels sealed the game with an outstanding play a piece in the championship minutes. A reinvigorated Manu Ma’u has torn both the Sea-Eagles and Tigers to strips in consecutive weeks and it was poetic that the rampaging enforcer stormed right through Benji Marshall to score the go-ahead try in the 68th minute.

It was a lead that the Eels refused to relinquish after previously seeing the lead see-saw a staggering five times. Enter Kaysa Pritchard.

This young man was not content with having knocked Luke Brooks into next week with a scything tackle in the first half. Nor was setting up Brad Takairangi with a clever piece of heads up play on the Tigers’ goal line enough. Even disarming the evergreen Chris Lawrence of possession in the opening stanza didn’t satiate the appetite of this terrier.

Pritchard saved the best for last against the Tigers with a beauty of a tackle that robbed Josh Aloiai of possession with just minutes left on the clock. The ferocious manner in which he launched himself at Aloiai was just typical Kaysa and the exuberant reaction from Kenny Edwards in the wake of that cracking shot was telling.

Brad Arthur cited a need to temper that aggression in the post-match presser, with Pritchard often serving as his own worst enemy due to self-inflicted wounds from such fearless actions. Finding that balance and honing that aggression is the key for Parramatta’s dynamic rake moving forwards.

Mind you, Kaysa wasn’t perfect. A poor option to run on the last tackle and a bad miss on Esan Marsters in the lead-up to the opening try of the game marred an otherwise outstanding day but there is little doubt that Pritchard is finally starting to make good on the immense potential that he showed back in the National Youth Competition.

A strip in time saves nine the defensive line

While Kenny Edwards may have gone fishing in the befuddling misread that gifted Matthew Eisenhuth a saloon passage to the try line he was wide awake to one-on-one strip possibilities not once but twice against the Wests. He was bloody unlucky to not effect a turnover on the first such attempt as the ball flew out with an advantage to the Tigers but the awareness from Kenny to make such a play under the new interpretations show a cerebral football mind.

In fact, the Eels seem to be keyed right on to the ball this week with Bevan French nearly making out like a bandit with a would-be sensational flying strip attempt on a kick chase in the first half.

Attacking in defence has been a key motif for the Eels ever since Arthur took over in 2014 and while that was certainly missing in the first six weeks of 2018 it is well and truly back now.

Gorgeous George Jennings

One man who has quietly gone about his business as the Eels awakened from their early season stupor is George Jennings. While no mortal can truly replace the peerless Semi Radradra, with three tries from four appearances George is going a fair way towards filling that yawning hole but more impressive for mine has been the well-rounded nature of his game.

A willing hand around the ruck and a steady presence under the high ball – George is finally resembling the talented prospect he was touted as back in his days as a Penrith junior. To be perfectly fair to the young man, it has taken him the better part of three years to fully recover from a brutal shattering of his leg in just his fifth NRL game.

At 24 years of age there is plenty of quality footy ahead for George and right now it looks like the Eels have hit pay dirt once more on another NRL reclamation project.

His 166m from 17 runs yesterday featured a number of bruising carries that unseated Luke Brooks and that brand of physicality is always welcome in my books!

Mannah War

In case you somehow missed it, ol’ Tim Mannah is on something of a tear over the last three weeks. Even before his shift to the interchange bench in Round 7, Mannah has hit something of a personal Renaissance with a 150m from 15 runs and 26 tackles (1 missed) against the Raiders. He has backed that up with 191m from 16 carries (!) with 21 tackles (1 missed) against Manly before churning out a cool 160m from 15 runs with a flawless 23 tackles. There was a costly error to start the second half but there is no coincidence that Parramatta’s resurgence has coincided with Mannah providing crucial go-forward through the middle.

Parramatta can certainly stand to further augment their back with an eye to the future but the efforts of Mannah, Daniel Alvaro and company will be the foundations for our (hopefully) long-running revenge tour this year.

Jurassic Era hopefully not ended

Sport can the the cruelest mistress at times; unfair and oblivious to the deepest efforts of any man or woman. So it was on Sunday for Tony Williams, a man that has poured blood, sweat and tears into his recovery from an ACL injury sustained in 2017. ‘T-Rex’ had settled into a terrific niche at the Eels and was beginning to feel at home playing the tough, uncompromising football that Brad Arthur asks of his men.

And just like that it was all over for the towering backrower after he was rolled up from behind in a regulation hit-up in the first half. He fought valiantly to get to this feet and try and fight through the injury, eerily not unlike Clinton Gutherson against the same team – the Wests Tigers – in Round 20 of 2017, but it was of course no good because the luckless bastard had done his ACL once more.

It is the kind of miserable injury that evokes a genuine emotional response from me. Williams had worked his arse off to take his career from the scrap heap back to the NRL and that sort of effort should never be ‘rewarded’ with such a pitiless end.

If Williams can take solace from one thing it is that he could not ask for a better companion to lean on in the coming tough times given that Gutherson himself has overcome two ACL reconstructions on the same knee. I sincerely hope that ‘T-Rex’ can fight his way out of that dark place that he is now almost certainly in and earn a new contract with the Eels.

The Final Word

Baby steps, folks. The Eels are certainly back but they have only just begun to ease away at the burden they placed on themselves in the first six rounds. The looming fixture against Cronulla shapes up as a pivotal moment for our season because a win on Saturday opens a path to a genuine run though the middle portion of our draw.

However Cronulla are a genuine road-block for the Eels because the two styles of the respective teams tend to mesh awfully for the Eels. A win in the Shire would speak massively not simply to a turning point in this crazy season, but an important break-through victory over a troublesome rival in recent years.

We are two weeks deep into the club’s master plan of running the table right through to the Grand Final and if you haven’t bought something from my man Parramatters yet then generations of selective consumer culture has been wasted on you.

Trust me folks, the market on supporter gear is amount to explode. BUY, BUY, BUY! THE FOOTBALL GODS DEMAND TRIBUTE, DAMN IT.

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