Eels Blogs

And with one horrendous call of his whistle while the circus music and streamers went off in The Bunker, Ashley Klein killed off Parramatta's season. Throw in a bunch of terrible non-calls because, once again, the officials are incompetent and they didn't just kill off the Eels' season, they well and truly butchered it.

I rarely #refsfault after games. I've been a referee. It's a hard job and whenever you make a decision, half the people on the field and half the people watching are going to disagree regardless.

But the refereeing performance on Saturday night was woefully abysmal. While Will Smith was penalised for tackling Mitch Kenny too hard, and Marata Niukore also pinged for a "dangerous tackle" (for which neither were charged by the MRC), Klein's whistle was in his pocket when Moses Leota hit Papali'i high late in the game, in front of Penrith's uprights.

His whistle was also nowhere to be seen when Mitchell Moses was tackled off the ball, when Nathan Cleary deliberately held down Clint Gutherson, when Brent Naden knocked on a Blake Ferguson kick and when Paul Momirovski stripped the ball from Clint Gutherson.

I'll stop there on that stuff. Forty20 at TCT has done a better job than I could in bringing the receipts. 

What I want to focus on though is just the flat out effort the side has put in across the past five weeks. Cast your minds back to that scrappy Cowboys game which Parramatta won, but gave none of us any confidence. Indeed, many of us were calling for Brad's head.

A week later, they bashed the Storm to a stand still and did what no other side has done, beat them twice in the regular season, killing their record breaking run.

The following week our NSW Cup side mixed it with Penrith's full strength team for 55 minutes. It was an admirable showing from a group of players that mostly hadn't played for seven weeks.

The Knights game was brutal and while it wasn't clinical, Parramatta's commitment to playing to the death was rewarded.

And against Penrith, the Eels deserved to win. They repelled multiple attacking raids by the Panthers and much of this credit needs to go to Arthur. As much as many of us, myself included, lamented our horrible edge defences this season, on Saturday night, it stood up.

Players communicated, there were no mad decision with players isolating their teammates. They came up, slid and marshalled Penrith towards the touchline. Blake Ferguson showed his experience on one play where he came up and in on an overlap to force Apisai Koroisau to throw the ball around him, giving the cover defence time to slide and put Matt Burton into touch.

Parramatta, with a full strength side, played Penrith and Melbourne four times this season, conceding 43 points, or an average of 10.75 points per game. They've scored 56, an average of 14 points per game.

They lost to Penrith by a combined total of three points. And beat Melbourne by a combined total of 16. The most dominant team in the game's history since 1975 couldn't get over this side.

I know I called for Brad's head following the Manly game. But the Eels' matches against Melbourne and Penrith perhaps show the side has turned a corner in playing the big boys since then.

Parramatta's two point loss is it's narrowest finals loss under Arthur. Sure, you can accuse me of putting lipstick on a pig. But that's an important point to make given the side's usual capitulation in week two of the finals sees the result beyond doubt by the time the final quarter of the game rolls around.

What the Eels have shown is that they can perform under pressure. Now the challenge is playing at a high level across a season. No six week fades, no rolling over due to a bad start.

I hold out hope that the level of game the side played against Melbourne and Penrith this season is going to be the new standard. Maybe not every week, because that would be physically and mentally impossible, but close to it.

No one can accuse Arthur of not adapting this year. He rested players, dropped players, rotated players and limited minutes. Against Newcastle he gambled by leaving Ryan Matterson out.

And what has to be remembered is that Parramatta performed the way they did against the Panthers without a recognised dummy half. Parramatta's late season game plan relied on a back up hooker, then a backrower playing hooker.

Perhaps this match will serve as a motivating factor heading into next year. Our previous finals exits have been ignominious, results that utterly destroyed the confidence of the side because of how they were bundled out.

And maybe Parramatta's wins over Melbourne could serve as something similar to the 1980 Tooth Cup win. While beating the Storm didn't give us a trophy, it did make this team believe that it belonged in the finals, as much as the experts and pundits disagreed.

And funnily enough, the only teams to beat Melbourne this year are Penrith and Parramatta. They blew Manly and Souths off the park this season. And Parramatta very nearly had Penrith's scalp too.

While I hate to be looking forward to 2022 at this time of year, there's plenty to be optimistic about in Parramatta.