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It was the furthest thing from a polished win but the Parramatta Eels secured an important 28-20 over the Wests Tigers in Round 17. Sixties and Forty20 get into the thick of the breakdown as they balance the frustration of a sloppy win against a stellar effort from Mitchell Moses.
Parramatta’s star halfback answered the call against his old club and with Isaiah Papali’i providing some quality support, the two spearheaded a critical win. While those two were the stars of the show, the Eels struggled for long passages in a heavily stop and start game against the Tigers. Sixties shares his qualms while Forty20 finds some peace in the win if only for the sake that the team might remember that is okay to win ugly.
A tight loss in the Flegg and a big win in the Cup rounded out the triple header at Leichardt. Hayze Perham had a huge day as he bagged four tries while a couple of young forwards impressed in a strong allround team performance.
I enjoyed this game. I was in the hill at Leichardt with some good Parra supporters and some good natured Tigers fanatics. Plenty of banter but no malice. And quite a few disappointed with the decision to deny Lane’s first try as he was a popular first try scorer.
Moses was definitely switched on. It was obvious watching him change sides in attack and cleaning up in defence. And Sivo seems to be getting back into the game after his layoff. He was popular even in enemy territory.
But yes that was an ugly win. I don’t thinking I’d have enjoyed it as much watching at home.
Glad you had a fun time at the “8th wonder” Shaun. Your namesake in the Eels team is having a very consistent season.
He is and it is good to see. As per tradition I had RCG as first tryscorer but there were a few Parra fans near me that had Laney. You can guess what they thought about the cruel decision by the bunker.
That win reminded me of the win against the Cowboys in 2021. Not clinical but was the catalyst for a turn around for the rest of the season
The interesting thing about the late Nofoluma tries was you couldn’t tell the difference between them. A failure of learning, awareness and adjustment. By us that is.
100 %.
The tigers were absolutely diabolical. Any serious team should have put the cleaners through them. It was a shambolic performance from the Eels. Gutho is making a habit of throwing in a try scoring Clanger every game or so now.
BA has dumbed down our offense so much to minimise mistakes that it borders on pedestrian.
I could cop the tries we conceded if it wasn’t the tried and tested weakness on the wings. Even the most ardent optimist may forgive the first try on the wing but to concede another in exactly the same way a few minutes later is simply unforgivable but again, not surprising.
Yes we won but honestly, how could any fan be happy with that performance?
We have to fix our defence up as a matter of urgency.
How can you concede 20 points to that team ???
We are miles away.
Hopefully it reminds us even more so over the next couple of months!
Definitely thought Lane had a good game and is having a great season overall. Was impressed with Rodwell off the bench, and even thought Nathan Brown may have won himself a spot back in the 17 (maybe over Maka?) I thought RCG had good effort and intent, but he clearly had a target on his back and was aggressively gang tackled every time he had the ball.
Glad to see Moses being so controlled and polished through the game. While he may not rate across the NRL as the “best half”, I think he’s the most exciting to watch as a footy player.
On the downsides, two things stuck out to me:
1. Gutho really struggling for impact this year. His running game with the footy is just so far behind the best 1s in the game, it’s not funny. Then when you blend it with errors (usually he’s a mark of consistency), we are really starting to lack class in one of the most important positions on the field.
2. Our defence is still not good enough. When we had the ascendency in the game, our defence was solid with good line speed. But for the most part we were far too passive and let the Tigers bring the game to us. These bad teams that beat us have confidence to dictate game speed and happily give away penalties and 6 agains by pushing the limits on 10m and ruck speed, knowing that in most circumstances it will get under our skin and we will implode. Didn’t happen tonight, but that seems to be the formula. The good teams this season, rather than imploding, will punish those teams for ill-discipline.
Tks for point 2 Mick, saved me stating the St George 2021 formula again. The Dragons got the benefit of no whistle for 40 minutes, but even with the whistle it works, we become patchy and sitting ducks.The Roosters didn’t do it for 40 minutes then Robinson reminded them at the break and bingo, our fun stopped.
Gutho must be playing injured I believe. Would not be the first time an Eel carried an injury into a game.
He has not had a good year
He has had a mixed year for certain.
I agree with a chunk of what you’ve noted Mick B. Your observation about teams pushing the limit with the refs is something that we’ve spoken about even last year.
Tks men. Shaun Lane’s left hand was never mentioned by the bunker, you can see the top part of it on the ball with no evidence of separation, it may well have separated but you don’t see that, does benefit of the doubt, on field decision matter here? Also, was I seeing things, did Nu Brown advance the ball slightly with an elbow push not momentum? Maybe he was adjudged as over the line on first grounding. Also the quickness of call on the Laurie grab on Gutho was puzzling, it was worth watching again to check.
He definitely wrapped around him before Gutho caught the ball, but did his hands actually grab Gutho’s arms and cause the fumble? We won, so not grumbling, just curious.
Great podcast boys.
I think the refs have been reading our form lines and expected us to get upset by a lesser team and refereed accordingly. Very poor display.
I’m ecstatic about this victory. It seems in these games that we’ve lost to lower placed teams nobody has given much credit to the opposition. Tigers in game one and game 2 against us were head and shoulders above the team they have been for the rest of the year. Canterbury against us were head and shoulders better than they have been in most of the games throughout the year (souths too). After each of these games that team went on to win the following week. There was no shame in losing those games. yes we could’ve played better but the opposition got the momentum and kept the foot on the throat.Scoreboard pressure meant we played a little more risky to keep up which also caused gifted tries in all three games.
Bring on spring footy so Ryan ParraMattersons offloading can destroy teams.
Luke I agree with you about the opposition lifting. My concern is why? Do they see themselves as a genuine chance? Are they seeing the Eels as a quality team to mark themselves against? We need to keep winning these games so that we eliminate the likelihood that it’s the former.
BDon I agree with your sentiments on the Lane try. The referee had already awarded the try. It is incumbent on the bunker to find clear evidence to overrule the on field decision. I also thought the no try ruling on the second try was also harsh.
Nu Brown did advance the ball from short of the line but there was very little quality replay to be able to judge it.
Don’t start me BDon. I’ve done my best to reduce my focus on the officials!
Terrible WIN…BA has to go!!! He cost us four tries – Lane, Penisini,Sivo and Mahoney….
Well noted!
The two points were crucial but can someone please tell me what has gone wrong with Reeds game.He never looked to run once and was double pumping a number of passes.He failed to ice that try from dummy half.I seriously think this is what’s stifling our attacking play he needs to put doubt into the minds of the defenders.
I think that we’ve found someone who could nearly rival Calvin as being the worst referee to ever blow a whistle. It was criminal what he & the bunker tried to do to the Eels last night. Thank God we stuck to playing football instead of going to pieces due to this man’s gross incompetence. I hope that Annesley looks at this game & apologises for what surely was attempted murder on Parramatta. But then again pigs might fly & I didn’t win Tatts Lotto last night.
Michael, the calls weren’t good but those disallowed tries were the fault of the bunker and the touchie. That touch judge call of forward pass was diabolical.