What a game, no let me rephrase that, what a first half!!
So we came into the round only one week away from having a complete team back, only to end the round with two players injured and to what extent we are unsure yet. We were lucky enough to have David 'Wolfman' Williams back on the team following a hamstring injury and besides a few niggles from our Origin boys we were ready and fired up to make sure those slippery eels wouldn't have a taste of victory at our expense.
It was an exciting game, a match that had almost everyone at Brookvale smiling. The third minute saw a try to the returning Wolfman and everyone was on their feet cheering, smiling and clapping! Little did we know that Wolfman was on the prowl. I think the fans thought we had this one in the bag but we didn't realise how easy a game it really was going to be. Jamie Lyon converted the try and the score was 6-0. It wasn't long until a small biff broke out involving none other than the fiery Steve Matai and Eels captain Nathan Hindmarsh. This gave a penalty to Parramatta which Steve Matai was desperately unhappy about. Fortunately for us they came up with an error only a few plays into the set.
The crowd was a bit riled up as well. I'm pretty sure Section WF almost got into a biff themselves. You see, we had about 5 Parramatta supporters behind us, not to mention some of the U20's families there as well, and as in any football game there was a bit of heckling which the Eels supporters took personally as if we were attacking them. Fortunately it all worked out in the end and I'm pretty sure we left on good terms.
It seemed to be all over for the Parramatta Eels from that point. 10 minutes later and Wolfman adds another four points to Manly from a beautiful right side play that seems to be a trademark of ours. This took the score to 10-0 and the try remained unconverted.
Less than 10 minutes later Jorge Taufua broke through the Eels defence -like it was hard- and a timely pass saw Brett Stewart cross the line. I think Manly fans were stunned at this point. We know we have it in us, but it's been a long time since we've seen the boys play like this at Brookvale. Only a few minutes later Brett Stewart broke through the defence and the Wolfman put his hand up to collect another try bagging himself a hat-trick before half time.
A brilliant break by Steve Matai and then a pass to Taufua, who just tore the defence right open, decided it was time to help another brother over the line, this time the lucky team mate was Daly Cherry-Evans. The Eels had a hard time catching up to him, but when he had attracted a few he offloaded to DCE and sent him over the line with a massive cheshire-style grin on his face.
Gobsmacked. I'm not sure who was more in shock, the Manly supporters or the Eels players. The cheering and whistling and hi-fiveing could be seen across the park with almost all of the 17000 that showed up cheering and jumping around like excited five-year olds at their birthday party. At this point Jamie Lyon had only missed one conversion and Parramatta were yet to be seen anywhere near their own try line, so the score was 28-0 with less than 10 minutes on the clock in the first half.
Just when we were getting ready to cheer our boys off at half time the Wolfman becomes greedy and bags himself another try. Yes, that is four tries for the Wolfman in forty minutes, making David Williams the first in sixty years to score four tries in the first half. The score at half time was a whopping 34-0 and the boys walked into the sheds with massive smiles on their faces like we had already won the game. We thought that we were headed for another awesome second half full of tries.
The second half was a bit less fantastic. We lost players to injury and with them went our spark and enthusiasm. Brett Stewart suffered a hamstring injury and Jorge Taufua had a problem with his hip and they both walked off into the dressing rooms shortly after the second half was underway. Not sure about the severity of the injuries yet.
Jorge Taufua left the field first and Jamie Buhrer took his place on the wing, for a player who spends the majority of his time in the centre of the field being on the left wing would have been an interesting challenge. Then Brett Stewart left the field not long after half time, fortunately for us he was kind enough to put in one last run through the massive gap that had opened in the Eels defence and grabbed a try before walking off.
This is where it all seemed to go downhill. Buhrer is on the wing, Steve Matai, who usually plays centre, shifts to fullback and Tony Williams moved into the centre. Our left side was very vulnerable to attack. While they did the job reasonably well, I think they forgot where they were positioned on the field and we often saw Williams and Buhrer back in the centre of the field and Kieran Foran was left to cover for the two M.I.A players.
It was a short while before Parramatta realised how vulnerable we were on the left side and their winger kept calling for the ball. They crossed twice in that corner. Perhaps it was just a lucky corner today? Ten minutes after Brett Stewart left the field, they crossed through their debuting fullback, Jake Mullany. Disorganised defence from Manly left a gap which he tore through placing the ball over the try line.
Ten minutes later and they attack again, this time in the right hand corner. Jamie Buhrer was about 10 meters in from the sideline and the winger, Ken Sio called for the ball and landed a soft try. Ten minutes later and the exact same thing happened again, Ken Sio scored in the right corner. Steve Matai was close to stopping that play but unfortunately was just too late. With less than a minute to go, the Parramatta Eels secured yet another try, this time over in the left hand corner and through Luke Burt.
With all Burt's conversions successful the full time score was 40-24. While it was a victory and we won by 16 points, I left Brookvale oval feeling defeated, and as though we had lost. We had plenty to celebrate but the majority of reasons were from the first half. Somehow without our 'Prince of Brookvale' and Taufua we lost our way, lost our spark and lost our ability to play good football.
I could spend the next paragraph justifying this feeling by saying that we did have quite a few players out of position, but I just think we were complacent, we felt we had won and we decided to settle for a good win, rather than a phenomenal win.
Perhaps next week against the Newcastle Knights we will play phenomenal football for a full 80 minutes, rather than for only 40 minutes. Cheers to the boys on the victory and
Happy Footballing!
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