Eels coach Brad Arthur has been left in disbelief after the 2022 grand finalists let yet another game slip through their fingers in a 26-24 loss to the Gold Coast Titans on Magic Round.
The Eels fell to 4-6 for the season, two wins out of the top eight.
It’s far from what the rugby league world would expect from a grand finalist team as the side languishes in 12th after 10 rounds.
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Although the Eels still have three byes under their belts, it’s been a brutal start to the year.
After losing four of their first five — only defeating the reigning premiers Penrith — the side was able to get off the canvas with three wins from the next four games.
But you could argue the 26-24 loss to the Titans could shape to be the most important loss of the season.
The Eels had 53 per cent of the possession, completed 29 of 35 sets, ran a combined 406m more than the Titans, ran over 150 more post-contact metres, had seven line breaks to five, made 14m more per set and had 18 offloads to nine.
Although there were some negatives, including 41 missed tackles to the Titans’ 22 and losing the penalty count seven to three, Eels coach Brad Arthur had one question for his players at full-time.
“I said to the team just then — how did we lose that?” Arthur said in his press conference.
“It felt like we did more than enough to win it. The effort was really good, we did a lot of good things, more good things than bad. But couple of big moments and a couple of system errors in defence hurt us.”
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Captain Clint Gutherson said he was perplexed about the loss as well.
“We were right in it, we played some good footy, missed a lot of opportunities, gave up some cheap tries,” he said.
“You can’t give teams those easy tries. As Brad said, our effort was there until the end but sometimes we make it too hard on ourselves.”
The other downside for the Eels is that Mitchell Moses will miss next week’s match with an 11-day stand down after he reeled out of a tackle late in the match and was issued a category one HIA.
It means he’ll miss next week’s match against the Raiders.
“He’s alright now, but it wasn’t good,” Arthur said.
As for who will take the reins next week: “Probably Jake (Arthur) but we’ll worry about that tomorrow.”
On the bright side, Dylan Brown has best performance of the year so far, one that Fox League commentator Andrew Voss believed made him “one of the best players of Magic Round”.
Parramatta Eels Press Conference | 02:30
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Brown had a remarkable 232m in 19 runs as well as two line breaks, a line break assist and two try assists in a complete match.
“He chased the game hard, stepped up, ran,” Arthur said. “That’s two weeks in a row now he’s been like that.
“He was probably the best player on the field.”
But there’s a reason Moses was given an over $1m a season contract extension earlier in the year and he will leave an enormous hole for the Eels against the Raiders who have won four straight.
And Moses will return for the clash against the red hot Rabbitohs in round 12.
With every loss for the Eels after a slow start to the season, the chance to make the finals dwindles slightly further.
While you could argue that although they are 12th, the Eels for-and-against is still +32 and the closeness of the competition means they’re two wins out of equal third, they are also only one loss out of equal last on the ladder.
And while every team needs to go one game at a time, the Eels can’t leave it too late to get into finals contention with the clubs’ final five games including matches against the Storm in Melbourne, Broncos at the Gabba, Roosters at home and Panthers at Penrith.
