CommBank Stadium: Jake Arthur was never going to make an impression against his old club and father, Eels coach Brad Arthur, when Manly had such a meagre share of the ball.
Parramatta thumped the Sea Eagles 34-4 as they enjoyed nearly 70 per cent of possession and a whopping 11 sets inside their opposition’s red zone.
Arthur taking on his father generated plenty of storylines in the lead-up to the clash.
Arthur senior was happy for his Eels to be “boring”, to complete their sets and make all their tackles, especially with Junior Paulo and Mitchell Moses away on Origin duty.
Arthur junior was handed the Manly No.7 jersey while Daly Cherry-Evans was away in Maroons camp.
Apart from being booed by the 21,296 fans with his first touch, Arthur had few chances to make his mark.
The Sea Eagles were missing Cherry-Evans and NSW representative Tom Trbojevic, but were entitled to show much more fight.
Eels coach Brad Arthur consoles son Jake at full-time on Saturday.Credit: NRL Photos
Hopes were high on the northern beaches after Manly ran up a cricket score against the Dolphins last weekend.
The truth is they never recovered from giving up two tries while Kaeo Weekes was sin-binned early for a professional foul.
“It was a really frustrating night, at the moment we take one step forward and then a couple of steps back,” Sea Eagles coach Anthony Seibold said.
“We couldn’t handle the chaos of that early sin-binning. It was a tough old night for us from there.”
Even when they had the ball, Manly struggled to get to the end of their sets.
Parramatta should have scored more than 50 points with the weight of possession and field position. It was more a case of the Eels failing to convert a few more chances rather than rock-solid Sea Eagles defence.
There was a truly forgettable one minute of play when Josh Schuster put through an awful kick early in the tackle count for Jason Saab, only for the ball to fall short and into the arms of Maika Sivo. Then Tof Sipley ironed out Daejarn Asi after he had kicked the ball and conceded a penalty.
“It’s not good enough,” Seibold said, when asked about that passage of play.
“That was trying to play catch-up with a kick, then we were ill-disciplined with that penalty. We just can’t do that.
“One thing about this group, they keep hanging in, they hang tough, the scoreboard could have got away from us tonight. We turned up but I didn’t think our effort was good enough with regards to the little things in the game.”
Manly will not get it easier next weekend when they head south to face Melbourne.
Parramatta were lucky to have the leadership of Clint Gutherson who was his usual bubbly and energetic self, and in the thick of everything. It is such a shame “King Gutho” has only ever played three Origin games.
Despite Arthur’s claims of wanting his side to be boring, winger Maika Sivo put through a chip kick for front-rower Makahesi Makatoa to score late in the game. It was unreal stuff. Sivo was denied a couple of tries himself.
As for taking on his son, Arthur said he was glad Jake had settled into Manly and was “standing on his own two feet and being his own man”.
Gutherson quipped he was too tired to put a shot on Arthur and said: “I’m sore after making one tackle.”
