Do you know how long I've been wanting to write that headline? It's my favourite headline and appeared on an advertisement on the Eels team poster from 1986.
That wasn't pretty and the Eels could pay dearly for that win with possible suspensions hanging over Dylan Brown and Marata Niukore while Reed Mahoney failed a HIA in the first half.
However, with the Parramatta Eels defeating the Sydney Roosters 31-18, the Blue and Gold are now outright second, holding a two point advantage over third and fourth, while now sitting four points clear of fifth. It's an important gap they're starting to open as the season quickly approaches the Origin period.
While Parramatta still don't look like a well-oiled machine they can tick off:
- Beating a full strength Melbourne in the rain
- Beating Canberra in Canberra
- Beating the Roosters
The Eels have now beaten three of the past four grand finalists while they are yet to play the Panthers and are the last team to defeat Penrith in the regular season.
Parramatta were damned if they do, and damned if they don't coming into this match.
Win, and everyone would be pointing out the Roosters' casualty ward. Lose, and everyone would be saying they should have won.
Two points, though, are two points and I'd much rather have them in the bank at this stage of the season.
The Eels pursued this match with all of the tenacity displayed by Clint Gutherson chasing a loose ball. Like their captain, they just kept grinding, they kept pushing the Roosters and bending them until they snapped.
Parramatta did look clunky in attack. That could be down to the fact Nathan Brown was ruled out on game day, forcing a reshuffle and also robbing the Eels of their middle link player, while Mahoney's mid-game injury threw a cat amongst the pigeons. The Roosters also staying about three steps off their line when defending the goal line also didn't help.
However, the Eels went directly at the weaknesses of the Roosters. They attacked the tricolours' left edge mercilessly, forcing Nat Butcher into 70 tackles (NRL.com stats, possibly re-assessed later) and managing two turnovers off bombs to Matt Ikuvalu. The focus on the left, opened up the right with the Eels bagging three tries down that edge.
I also predicted this would be Parramatta's style of attack.
Credit must go to the way the Roosters fought and grafted their way into the game, to still be a genuine threat until the final five minutes.
Credit also has to go the way the Eels adapted to Mahoney's injury. With no recognised hooker on the bench, nor regular fill-in Will Smith available, Keegan Hipgrave was called upon from the bench. He managed two dummy-half passes before a mix of Bryce Cartwright, Dylan Brown and Clint Gutherson took over.
Cartwright was outstanding when it seemed he'd shift into the halves during attack. He was calling plays, directing traffic and ran the ball hard.
Parramatta's middle forwards of Junior Paulo, Reagan Campbell-Gillard, Shaun Lane and Oregon Kaufusi were once again outstanding. Junior Paulo in particular, who took on a large amount of ball playing responsibility while still getting through 168 running metres.
Isaiah Papali'i also barged his way for 168 metres.
But, running the show was Mitchell Moses. The Eels halfback continues flying under the radar due to the form of Nathan Cleary, but he has honestly taken his game to another level. His kicking game not only pinned the Roosters deep in their own half, it also saw Maika Sivo terrorise Matt Ikuvalu in the air. His calmly slotted field goal was also a nice addition.
Not only that, but he pin-pointed his cross field bomb to the right edge with Ryan Matterson setting up Blake Ferguson and Bryce Cartwright with bat backs to his teammates.
It was the type of ruthless kicking game you hope to see from an experienced halfback.
I also want to mention Dylan Brown here. When asked to go to dummy-half, he did the job. Then, when he shifted back to the halves, he iced the game by showing the footwork, strength and speed he often used to shred lower grade defences.
The try he scored put the nail in the coffin of the Roosters and what made it more surprising was the turn of speed he showed to get away from Tedesco.
The Eels would be lucky to be playing at 75% of their potential. They actually crossed on an additional three occasions but were denied by The Bunker. If someone can explain to me how Papali'i obstructed Liu, I'd like to know.
But this is an important point. Right now Penrith and Melbourne are pretty close to red-lining. They probably couldn't play much better than they are now. The Roosters are almost definitely red-lining due to their injury ward.
The Eels though, are almost cruising. Doing what they need to do to win each week, banking points and then gearing up to do it again the next week.
Speaking of next week, they travel up to Brisbane for Magic Round, and while they unfortunately don't get to treat the Suncorp faithful to another clinic, they will be taking on the up and down Warriors.
Parramatta will once again need to stand up and be prepared to grind this one out if they want to continue pressing their claims as premiership contenders.
Replies
Moses attack was questionable. Went sideline to sideline a bit too much. He was starting to play direct a lot in the last couple weeks, but tonight he didn't. Could be because Mahoney was injured. However, Moses kicking game was great tonight. Sivo was at fault for the first try as he did not mark his wing. However, the second try was not his fault. Eels were outnumbered and all the players inside of Sivo jammed in, so Sivo had no choice. But generally speaking, Sivo doesn't mark his wing all the times.
What do u expect they were basically masturbating over the roosters.Most baised commentary I've ever witnessed
Cronk was full of praise for our team and especially Moses.
He has been this year
Everyone talks about the roosters salary cap, listening to all the violins playing for the wounded roosters players last night before the game I could not help but think about how much money was sitting on the sidelines,
Yet they still managed to field a side with 7 internationals and an origin player..go figure
I guess we're all holding our breath now for us to go up that extra gear the way the Panthers & Storm have. That extra gear never quite arrived last year.
I thought they did go up another step Brett. We haven't had the drop off in form that we did last year where we were barely beating teams. We still have a potent attack and our defence has maintained. In years gone past we would have lost games like that.
We also still have good depth to cover our injuries and suspensions. Rankin, Smith and even Cartwright can cover Brown. Waqa Blake will slot back in to centre and Lussick will cover Mahoney if he is out.
Great headline Parra played bloody tough! That's the toughest game for a long time, D Brown and Marata unfortunately will have a few weeks holidays, Fergo and Matto really loved the challenge against their old team, I hope they play like that all year, Papalii should 100% stay on the edges, RCG and Paulo were outstanding and gave it their all, Moses kicked us to a win, Id let Opicec go after this year, far out what a good game!!! A big farkQ to the rorters, I must say I thought the journos tried to bait trent Robinson into having a ricky stuart moment but he is all class and put the loss back on his players,
Opacic has not set a foot wrong and is on peanuts. Moneyball signing 100%. Much better defender than Waqa too.
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