Eels march continues against Warriors

Parramatta has continued their march towards the finals with a comprehesive 40 to four victory over the New Zealand Warriors. The match featured some incredible touches by Jarryd Hayne and Luke Burt, while Todd Lowrie and Jeff Robson have made it impossible for their coach to drop them by producing A grade games. The Eels started on fire clocking up three tries in 15 minutes, the first coming at the 5 minute mark when the Eels showed unbelievable passing skills with first Jarryd Hayne, then Matt Keating slipping smart balls before Joel Reddy finished with the pill and a try in front of the posts. Fuifui Moimoi again had a strong start and he even showed some playmaking skills when he offloaded before the line and put Luke Burt through a hole. Daniel Mortimer backed up on the inside and it was 12 to nil following another easy Burt conversion. Full of confidence by this stage, the Eels were starting to throw the ball around with gay abandon which was characterised when Jarryd Hayne avoided getting caught in-goal by slipping a pass in a tackle behind his goal line to Luke Burt. That resulted in the Eels going on the attack rather than dropping the ball out and after a Todd Lowrie offload started an attacking play that saw Jarryd Hayne turn Wade McKinnon inside out three times before Matt Keating went over for the try. At the 20 minute mark we had a close call when Manu Vautuvai dropped the ball over the line after outjumping Eric Grothe. It was something he did twice last week, and clearly it is the Warrior's go-to play at the moment. They tried it again and came up with no result but it was a case of third-time lucky when Vatuvai again plucked the ball out of the sky but this time he planted it. The Warriors missed the kick leaving us up 18 to four. Lowrie had a wow of a first half and he came up with another try assist when he fired a cutout pass to Luke Burt who faced with a defender, kicked the ball inside for himself, avoided the fullback and touched down inches before the dead-ball line. It was shades of Krisnan Inu kicking for himself in 07. Burty is playing like a man possessed at the moment. With a 20 point lead in the first half, the Eels would have been looking to go on with it to cut into their negative differential and their first try of the second half came at the 50 minute mark when Jarryd Hayne floated across field and then put Joel Reddy into half a gap and the Eels centre was good enough to get the ball down with a couple of defenders clinging onto him. If that was class from Hayne it had nothing on his next play, when he came to the line, chipped over the top, regathered and then threw a long pass to put Eric Grothe across for another four pointer. Magic. Burt just failed to convert from touch but it was now 34 to four and the score was looking like it could be anything. The next period didn't produce any points but it did feature Jeff Robson really taking control of the play. He has played very much a supporting role to Daniel Mortimer in recent weeks but he took control in the second half with some strong kicking and organisational play. It was Mortimer though they delivered the final try assist putting a kick through for Luke Burt, who capped a brilliant game with the late try and then a conversion from in front of the post. If Daniel Anderson couldn't justify any changes before tonight's game, it's hard to imagine he will tinker with this team - bar for the return of Nathan Cayless - for next week's key class against the Tigers. But then nobody thought he'd stick with his named 17 tonight either?

"Paulo is a shadow of what he once was and is getting worse each year. He looks like he hates the collision these days. Sadly that is what he would display if kept around as a leader for our pack for others to follow. Sam T already seems to follow in…"

"Did you watch him play in this years final for Souths? He was owned by old man Gagai. Laurel went missing all game although he did pass the ball from dummy half a lot to the other outside backs to work it out of their end. Massive NO."

Replies

RealEel August 15, 2009 at 9:23pm

We lost momentum tonight with our Front Row interchange, but it was good to see us knuckle down during this period and play tough in defense. The big difference between the sides was our ability to finish off our plays, we took advantage of most of our opportunites. Conversely the warriors struggled to finish their plays off, for which parra's defence needs to take some credit.
- 1Eyed Eel > RealEel August 16, 2009 at 6:18am
  
  We definitely missed not having Cayless there and having Mannah off the bench.
  - shwgrl > 1Eyed Eel August 21, 2009 at 9:57pm
    
    Better without Cayless.
David August 15, 2009 at 9:46pm

We've got to keep Robson in the team. His defence is absolutely necessary.
- ParraMagic > David August 15, 2009 at 9:56pm
  
  KKs de isnt even bad mate, its not like his defence will lose a game for us, like look at sandow and lockyer!
shwgrl August 15, 2009 at 10:08pm

Awesome game but where is Mateo?
RealEel August 16, 2009 at 8:04am

Not trying to be negative noknob, as I said it was good that we knuckled down, but we definitely missed Cayless. Plenty of positives to come out of this game though as you suggest.
Berny August 16, 2009 at 1:48pm

Great win the start of the game was awesome and Jarryd Hayne he is a freak of a player. Go You Mighty Eels !!!!!!
Tinkerbell August 16, 2009 at 7:02pm

There were so many things that pleased me about this performance, but what I think I enjoyed most was simply that the Warriors could not break us. Our defence was so rock solid, that the only attacking option they had was the bomb to Vatuvei. Further, Ivan Cleary was pleased with his teams performance - he said they were just totally outplayed!

What an absolute compliment to our team and the effort we put in last night!

P.S. I am also loving all this Todd Lowrie love. You should all join the Todd Squad!
- Bourbon Man > Tinkerbell August 17, 2009 at 9:40am
  
  It's really great to have you on here Mary! An additional voice of reason and logic on this forum would be most welcome :-)