Eels feel finals heat
PARRAMATTA will be forced to swim against the tide of history unless it can open its account against the equally desperate Cronulla this weekend.
Both sides go into Saturday’s crunch NRL clash at ANZ Stadium winless and the loser will slump to 0-3 and find itself in a massive hole. According to Fox Sports Stats, over the past 20 years just nine sides have been in such a position and gone on to make the finals. And only one of those sides — North Queensland in 2015 — recovered to win the premiership.
Skipper Tim Mannah said his side had to atone for last weekend’s 54-0 thrashing at the hands of Manly.
“Regardless of who we’re playing and how many we’ve won and lost, we just want to win,” Mannah said.
“And also put in a performance our fans can be proud of. We felt like we let them down on the weekend. “We were all embarrassed.” With minimal changes to its roster and fullback Clint Gutherson (knee) its only major injury concern, many had Brad Arthur’s side circled as a finals contender in 2018.
Centre Michael Jennings said while the players had strips torn off them during their video review session, their swagger and drive to make it deep into the finals hadn’t been diminished. “It’s two games,” Jennings said. “It does hurt when you lose like that because that’s not our standard and that’s not the way we wanted to start.
“There’s no negatives. We can’t put our heads down now, it’s too early.”