It’s not quite Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead but the Parramatta Eels’ performance on Friday night has removed a sizeable gorilla off the back of coach Brad Arthur.
The Eels went into the elimination semi-final against the Raiders under all sorts of pressure yet emerged with their reputation in tact as Parramatta qualified for the club’s first preliminary final since 2009.
Parramatta’s performance was super impressive as the Eels front loaded the collision and were super physical against the Raiders before tearing them apart off the back of 19 offloads, the running game of Dylan Brown and the kicking game of Mitchell Moses.
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The Eels forwards also showed they’ve got the fire power to match it with the best sides in the finals with the front row pair of Reagan Campbell-Gillard and Junior Paulo getting a clear points decision over the form props of the NRL in Joseph Tapine and Josh Papali’i.
Arthur’s decision to start the game with Marata Niukore at lock and shift Ryan Matterson to the bench showed the Eels intent from the outset was to take the Raiders on through the middle and take risks with offloads.
Parramatta went into the game under enormous pressure off the back of an elite pathways report into how the club’s Harold Matthews, SG Ball and Jersey Flegg sides flow through into the NRL making the explosive claim there was an element of “nepotism” around the selections of players and staff at the club.
But the siege mentality worked perfectly for the Eels as they ambushed the in-form Green Machine and booked a trip to Townsville to take on the Cowboys on Friday night.
Make no mistake, the Eels needed this win like oxygen. If they’d made another week two finals exit, it would have been a brutal post-mortem on the blue and gold season.
The Raiders had the look of a side who’d played their grand final a week earlier against the Melbourne Storm with the Green Machine unable to recover from a couple of costly errors early on.
It was an outstanding late season run from Canberra but you can’t afford to make errors in big games and the Eels certainly didn’t need to be asked twice when it came to capitalising on the big moments.
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How good is the grand final rematch on Saturday night after South Sydney easily accounted for a disappointing Cronulla side in the other elimination semi-final.
There’s certainly no shortage of narratives when the Panthers will host Souths at Accor Stadium.
The best thing about the way the Rabbitohs are playing right now is it looks like they’ve still got plenty of scope to go up a couple of extra gears.
Both Souths and Cronulla made 13 errors each and completion rates weren’t a strong suit but the Bunnies still had way too much strike power for a Sharks side that exits the finals in straight sets after finishing second at the end of the regular season.
For the Sharks, it looked as though the criticism around the club’s soft draw throughout the regular season was spot on as they were outclassed across the park against South Sydney.
It will be a long off season for Craig Fitzgibbon and the Sharks as they pore over how they went from within 15 seconds of making it through to a preliminary final to being out the back door in straight sets.
What were your likes or dislikes from week two of the finals as we gear up to see who makes it through to the first weekend in October?
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