Eels Blogs

SMH -  Chris Barrett 

JULY 22 2017 - 7:00 PM

The last time Parramatta finished a season in the NRL's top eight, Tim Mannah had played only a couple of dozen first-grade games. Barring injury, in the next month, he will reach 200 matches.

In between, coaches have walked out and been sacked, boards have been rolled and banned, and competition points have been deducted. Mannah, in the meantime, has lost a little pace and a little hair and added zilch to his semi-finals tally.

                                      Still going strong: Tim Mannah. Photo: Getty Images

That interminable wait should be coming to an end shortly after the Eels captain and front-rower, the only remaining member of their 2009 grand final team, marks his milestone.

Their schedule for the final seven rounds is such that a finals berth is theirs for the taking. Their for-and-against record is not ideal, but they're drawn against the NRL's bottom four teams, including Sunday's opponent Wests Tigers at their de facto home ground ANZ Stadium, and only one top-eight side, Brisbane, who they play twice.

                         Long time coming: Tim Mannah is the only Eels player left from the last team that made the finals in 2009. Photo: Getty Images

Even so, you won't hear Mannah or anyone else at the Eels' Old Saleyards Reserve base talking as if a top-eight spot is in the bag. Dysfunction and disappointment have been the prevailing themes here for so long that they don't want to jinx it.

"It's better to be in that half of the table than the other half, but we're not getting too carried away," said Mannah, 29. "It's really important that we don't get too far ahead of ourselves.

"[2009] was my first year. I thought, 'How good is this, [you] make grand finals every year'. It's obviously been a pretty disappointing few years for the club since."

The healing is ongoing. Parramatta are running seventh and have set a club membership record this year, but they remain without a major sponsor. What should be one of the most highly sought-after pieces of polyester in the competition hasn't been snapped up, although there is said to be interest for the 2018 and 2019 seasons.

After years of factionalism and later fraudulence that only the intervention of the NRL and the state government could ultimately remedy, the continuing absence of a front-of-jersey backer seems a relatively minor affliction. Just ask Mannah, who even before a salary cap scandal engulfed the club last year, had seen enough drama to be an Academy Awards judge.

When Ricky Stuart quit the Eels in 2013 he was ready to take off himself. Only the return of Brad Arthur, a caretaker head coach the year before, had convinced Mannah to stay.

"To be honest, I was very close to leaving when Ricky left," Mannah said. "At the time the club was all over the shop. The coach walked out on the club, half the squad was sacked, there wasn't much of a bright light shining at all.

"I remember me and Jarryd [Hayne] were pretty set on [Arthur] coming back and when he came back to the club it didn't take us long to see that he was steering the ship in the right direction.

"I'm very glad I did stay because he's kind of created the culture and vibe around the club that makes you want to be here."

While there is optimism about their run in to the finals, it is rightly restrained. The Eels have planted themselves in the top eight without what would constitute a big kill this season. They've beaten three teams above them on the ladder, but met a slow-starting Manly in round one, knocked off a North Queensland side without Johnathan Thurston and hit the jackpot by drawing the Storm in Melbourne while Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk and Cameron Munster were preparing to blow away NSW.

Parramatta's army of supporters, however, won't care if they can chalk up the three wins from their remaining games that should ensure they figure beyond the first weekend of September.

"I think I know exactly what it'd mean to the fans because I know what it means to me," Mannah said. "They're just as passionate. It's obviously something that they want, and it's obviously something that we want.

"I don't want to be too boring, but we really don't want to start thinking too far ahead of ourselves and stumbling on things that we should be doing at the moment."

After what they've been through, and if it means a return to the finals, right now boring is something the blue and gold faithful will take.