The battle for the West wages on from Friday to Saturday as the Eels host the Panthers in the Jersey Flegg. Parramatta have overcome a nightmare start to the season to almost irrationally surge into finals contention but today’s game is close to must-win as the Blue & Gold tackle another team aspiring for the title.
Parramatta have bolstered their side this week with a number of players recalled from the NSW Cup. Mohamed Alameddine, John Lynn, Jock Brazel and Saxon Pryke are all massive inclusions across the starting roster. It shapes up as a legitimate blockbuster clash in the Flegg and you can catch it live right here on TCT from 3:00PM!
| 1 | Apa Twidle |
| 2 | Mohamed Alameddine |
| 3 | Devonte Vaivela |
| 4 | Araz Nanva |
| 5 | Ollie McCarthy |
| 6 | Matthew Hunter |
| 7 | Josh Lynn |
| 8 | Sam Tuivati |
| 9 | Ryley Smith |
| 10 | Teancum Brown |
| 11 | Jock Brazel |
| 12 | Dom De Stradis |
| 13 | Saxon Pryke |
| Interchange | |
| 14 | Max Tupou |
| 15 | Tyrese Lokeni |
| 16 | Damascus Neemia |
| 18
20 |
Raff De Stradis
Dom Farrugia |
Match Updates
First Half
Terrific to see Arthur Miller-Stephen, Boods Arthur, Ethan Sanders and Charlie Guymer all here supporting their mates.
Eels kick off and it’s out on the full so Riff start with a penalty.
Solid defence from Parra early in the set and a Smith tackle on the quarter forced an error.
A big defensive set from Penrith and Parra can only reach the 50 before kicking.
Penrith in return have to kick inside their 40 and the Eels are straight on the attack.
Overlap – oh no intercept. Brazel and Smith chase back. Six again now penalty to Riff. What!!! Last tackle kick goes directly into the Eels player’s leg and has been called six again. Everyone sees it but the ref. Last tackle again and Riff shift to a wide left and get Parra for numbers. Try in the corner.
Conversion unsuccessful.
Penrith 4 Eels nil after nine minutes
Kick off set completed and Riff get to their kick. Early offside penalty to Parra on next possession but they waste it with a forward pass.
Terrific catch by McCarthy on his line starts Parra’s next set. Teams trade sets now getting to their kicks on the last. Alameddine breaks the domination of defence by smashing into the middle and offloading to Vaivela for the line break. Scrappy play follows before Riff field the last tackle kick. Now a Riff error and Parra have the scrum in their 20. Oh this is impressively aggressive Panthers defence and Parra struggle break the line despite a six again. They get close when Vaivela is held up but complete the set by being penalised for offside.
Its back into the set trading grind now.
A Parra error in the play the ball breaks the cycle but then Penrith return the favour. They now give away the penalty.
Nearly another intercept but it’s six again off a Panthers hand. A full set inside the 20 but Parra doesn’t need it. Quick passes to the right and Nanva releases McCarthy in a sprint to the corner for a well executed try.
Kick from the sideline from Twidle is nailed!
Eels 6 lead Panthers 4 with 8 minutes to go.
what a kick off run from Tupou – courage personified. Now a brilliant 40/20 from Smith.
The call goes out to work the middle and the players oblige with Lokeni running a superb line to score near the left upright
kick successful
Eels 12 lead Panthers 4 with 6 minutes remaining first half
Parra get to their kick after the kick off but it’s out on the full. Now six again to Riff. Now a penalty. Seriously Ref!
No this is not good. The Eels defence falls apart in the middle and the Panthers player has pulled out of tackles to score next to the posts in the shadow of half time.
Conversion successful Eels 12 lead Panthers 10 with a minute to go
Penrith chance their hand with a big left side shift on their 40. The ref sees an obstruction that the NRL officials couldn’t see last night.
Twidle attempts a long range angled penalty but it’s wide of the mark.
Half time Eels 12 lead Penrith 10.
Penrith kick off. They get to the last for Hunters kick but the ref now penalises Parra early in the set!
Penrith knock on contesting the kick and then strip the ball off the Eels to claim the try. But the knock on was first. Great last tackle kick from Smith into the corner and a great chase from Nanva drills the fullback where he fielded it.
Panthers have to kick from inside their 30 and Alameddine has a strong carry. Looks like a shoulder charge penalty? Eels in the 20 and again working through their forwards. Tupou now launches himself onto the ball and won’t be denied as he reaches out to plant the ball just right of the posts.
Conversion successful
Eels 18 lead Panthers 10 with 27 minutes remaining
Solid set after scoring and Smith and De Stradis make the tackle following the Lynn kick.
Now Parra in possession and a great charge from Neemia. What! A blatant strip on him is ignored by the officials who had a clear view!!!
Now a penalty to Penrith and they drove play to Parra’s posts. Justice now as they lose possession in contact 5 metres out.
Parra kick is allowed to bounce by Penrith and they’re lucky to clean it up a metre out. Again they have to kick from inside the 30.
Some magic passes in this set and the last tackle kick forces a line drop out. The kick is out on the full. Parra’s ball. They centre play now shift right through Hunter, Twidle now McCarthy who is given a passage to the corner then improves the position by about 10 metres.
Great conversion from Twidle
Eels 24 lead Panthers 10 with 16 minutes remaining
Panthers intercept as Parra get adventurous around half way. Great defence follows and Parra get to their last. The Panthers fullback makes a great kick return. They advance to Parra’s quarter and attempt to strip the Eels for numbers by spreading left on the last bit the Eels scramble well and force an error.
Eels completion follows
Riff try a chip on the last but Smith gets back to field it. Another Eels completion.
Penrith break down the right. Quick hands left but again the Eels scramble is superb and they hold them up over the line on the last.
Parra now break down their left. It looks like a high shot as the ball is lost with a player injured. It looks like Vaivela with a leg injury. Just under 8 minutes to go.
Scrum centre field 40 out from Panthers line.
Lost ball missed by the official on the fourth but Parra shut down the last tackle play via Hunter.
Last tackle kick from Parra now down to the Penrith quarter. Error! Parra scrum 25 out.
They explore right before going back left. The play is centred now and look out! Big Sam Tuivaiti!!! The big prop cannot be stopped as he crashes through defenders to score beside the posts.
Conversion successful
Eels 30 lead Panthers 10 with two minutes to go.
Short kick off to Penrith who get a penalty for a blocker. They waste no time shifting right and slice through to score in the corner.
Conversion unsuccessful
Eels 30 lead Panthers 14 with 52 seconds remaining.
Another Penrith penalty in the kick off set but there’s only time for one play which the Eels shit down.
Full time Eels 30 defeat Panthers 14
My blog doesn’t do justice to the physicality of the Eels in this game and the work of the forwards. Incredible.
Sixties
What a fantastic game from the young men, physical and smart. Saxon Pryke, Max Tupou and Ryley Smith really led from the front in the middle. Those kick off charges from Tupou really hurt the penrith defence, particularly his quick play the ball after them.
That’s now 2nd, 4th, and 5th they’ve taken wins off in this 11/14 run and only a 2 point loss to 1st. Hopefully they can pull a miracle off like last year and make the finals, they are a very exciting team to watch when everything clicks. Let’s just hope we can retain these ones and give more of them an NRL pre-season
Ham, so happy you added in your takes. The work from the forwards was great. Those charges from Tupou and Smith – he’s a kick in for player of the year in this grade.
Great result! On what has been a tough year we should have had a clean sweep of Penrith in all 3 grades! Instead we have to settle for a win, draw and an extremely unlucky loss.
This Panthers team was no pushover. Running third and defended aggressively. Eels were simply too good.
Superb result Parra. I’m glad these kids are going well. Is there any chance we can get some information on these kids? And their futures with Parra? If they are staying
Is Devonte a kid from Mt Druitt??
Unfortunately unless they have an NRL contract coming up there’s no public information. Devonte Vaivela is from Souths Logan in QLD
Its the most frustrating thing about this grade. You will see a kid playing well, and then he goes missing off team lists. No idea if they are hurt, dropped or have left the club. Some times you will see them pop up on another team list somewhere else, other time you never see them again.
Cheers Ham
Sam is into the Top 30 next year. I included him in my recent post about the squad next year. AMS, who is out injured is a Dev deal next year.
When is Sam off contract? And why haven’t we resigned him? Is he an Isaac Moses client?
Yes he is one of Isaac’s and you can bet your bottom dollar he’ll have us over a barrel again. He is yet to sign on long term despite the club making his retention a priority. The Bulldogs and Dragons have both identified him as a takeover target apparently.
Also, I don’t know if anyone was listening to the ABC yesterday, but the Moses camp told Michael Carayanis the reason Blaize is jumping ship is because the Parra deal would have placed too much expectation and pressure on him. His camp knows his game is far from complete and they thought and the big money on offer would place immense scrutiny to perform like a seasoned star.
Apparently he also felt very uncomfortable being offered the fullback role while Gutho is still at the club. The Panthers offered a bit less money but a better vision for how they’d develop Blaize. Apparently he hasn’t been promised a starting position and it’s been made clear to him he might spend time in NSW Cup while they work on his defensive reads and technique. I guess this must have really resonated with the kid – and as much as it kills me to say it, it is very hard to be bitter about that.
I continue to shake my head at how quickly some parra juniors have their heads turned by other clubs. If Sam left it was be truly diabolical. If he did leave (on the back of the other high profile juniors leaving) the question needs to be asked again: How does a club who invests so much in their blue chip junior then get brushed over so readily by their blue chip prospects when it comes time to enter nrl programs? It’s not like his pathway is blocked. If anything he has a highway to first grade as rcg and junior are well and truly at back end of career and would be good to learn from?
As for blaize, I can’t knock him for wanting to play 5/8 but i think the club need to learn not to overestimate its juniors and give them all the leverage. He is a good player but he is no fullback and was never going to be a good fullback in next 2 years. He needs time to develop and once that development is done he will be fantastic.
Anyway, hopefully the club is actually focused on retaining and promoting juniors cause we have plenty of them but for some reason or another they don’t debut in nrl for us or otherwise aren’t given opportunities.
Not sure I believe anything the Moses camp puts out. More spin than a politician during an election campaign.
But, but; but the Eels don’t give our kids a chance !!!!
Sometimes you just can’t win.
Yea the reasons proffered are pathetic but I’m sick of our club not learning from their mistakes with juniors. It’s been clear for a while that brad was not particularly effective at bringing through juniors in the outside backs and his forward packs were always pretty locked in so as to make it very difficult for a junior forward to crack it. There were exceptions of course but we need to change our processes to ensure we our juniors (and other juniors we might want to poach) see parra as offering a valuable path to first grade. It seems that right now we get used by junior players and their managers who know they can build a profile at eels and then they leave to highest bidder or whoever sells them the next pip dream (see guymers managers pathetic attempt a few weeks ago). There is little culture and little identity it seems (from the outside).
Ordinarily I wouldn’t believe every word that comes out of the Moses camp but in this instance I don’t see what value there is in spinning this.
He’d have made more money as an agent on the Parra contract.
He’s clearly no friend of the club though – as evidenced by the fact he wouldn’t put the Mitchell Moses rumour to bed when Buzz offered him several opportunities to do so. I can’t help but feel he is playing at a bigger game here than is currently apparent.
Oh, and apparently there’s no guarantee Ryda follows Blaize to Penrith but it’s the most likely outcome.
What could the game be? He can’t squeeze parra to pick a client of his as coach as ryles is locked in for 4 years. He has Moses, penisini and a few others in nrl team. He has a bunch of juniors. But really, with the game he is playing, most roads end up with he pisses parra off more and in doing so potentially hurts the prospects of his local clients.
Parra need to act like a proper nrl team and present clear pathways to his clients. The local players will back parra if there is clarity and confidence in parra’s position. We can’t do what we did with blaize and play him in multiple positions + bend over backwards hoping a local junior resigns. Juniors need to be reminded it’s priceless not a right of theirs to play for first team and represent the fans. Lots of work needed to build that culture.
*privilege not a right.
After all, that’s why players like siua wing at roosters, faalongo at Melbourne, Harry grant at Mel round and the mcclean brothers at Penrith all have waited patiently despite fact they would have had higher offers elsewhere and been in nrl sooner
This part is pure speculation on my part but perhaps he wants MON out and is willing to really rile up the media and fans to make it happen.
Why else would he be playing silly buggers over Mitchel seeing out his contract? Just adds more fuel and further fires up fans.
That might well be a good guess but the only problem to my mind is why wouldn’t Isaac want to keep MON? After all, MON has rolled over in almost every negotiation with a Moses client by giving options on options and putting club in weak position. Wouldn’t Moses want that to continue?
I don’t get to flegg as often as I’d like. The scheduling is just difficult when you work weekends. So this was only my 4th time watching them this season. Those bookends in Brown and Tuivati are ridiculous, the bench middles both killed it today as well. Riley Smith is a quality hooker, reminds of Reed just always in the game and a little terrier. Mo and his centre were both class, shame the centre got hurt, Mo absolutely kills it with every carry. Twiddle is too good for this grade. Great performance by flegg, hopefully it continues and they can find their way to the finals
Apa has been very versatile this season alternating between fullback & 5/8. As I stated, my blog didn’t do justice to the work of the forwards as I try to give an overall feel for what’s happening in sets rather than specifics on each play – I can’t type that fast! But they deserve a mention for winning that battle. I’m sure the call went out a few times to keep punching through the middle.
Sixties how many teams contest the final series in the Flegg comp.
Maybe the young blokes of today don’t have the same concept of loyalty as previous era’s. They want Instant success , name up in lights , beguiled by a smooth talking manager, who knows. Anybody with sense would have doubts about committing themselves to the present state of our organisation.