PLUCKY EELS COME BOUNCING BACK IN A BIG WAY
PARRAMATTA produced the NRL’s biggest head-tohead turnaround in 16 years as they snapped their winless start to the season and heaped all their misery onto Manly in a 44-10 flogging.
Beaten 54-0 by the Sea Eagles just five weeks ago, the Eels’ 88-point reversal was the fourth biggest of the NRL era and the largest since Cronulla turned the tables on Newcastle in 2002.
It also represented the significant changes in fortunes for the two battling clubs, as Manly’s week from hell hit another low just as their arch-rivals breathed a small glimmer of hope into their season.
Embattled amid the Jackson Hastings and Daly Cherry-Evans off-field fiasco, Manly have now lost three in a row and completed just 15 sets and had only 42 per cent of the ball in the loss at ANZ Stadium.
In comparison, Parramatta were the best they have been all season, completing at 92 per cent to almost double their points scored this season, from 46 to 90. Criticised during the week, Parramatta’s halves pairing of Corey Norman and Mitchell Moses showed signs of the form that got the Eels to last year’s finals as they had a hand in six tries.
The only sour note for Parramatta came when Jarryd Hayne limped from the field midway through the first half with the same hip injury that ruled him out of the past three weeks.
It simply begged the question: Where was this form in the first six rounds?
“Good question,” Eels coach Brad Arthur mused.
“The question now is we just need to keep it how we perform and what we did with our performance, our identity. We played tough, controlled and patient.”
Moses had his first major involvement when he and Hayne combined to send Manu Ma’u over on the left edge, before he later lofted a ball for right-side winger George Jennings to cross.