The Impossible Dream

Not too long ago everybody wrote off the Parramatta Eels for this season. Inconsistent form, frustrating combinations, handling errors and a genuine lack of creativity from key playmakers turned what was supposed to be a promising season into a landslide.

Fast forward a month or two, the eels officially had no mathematical chance of making the finals. Nathan Hindmarsh once said on the footy show “we need to win 9 out of our next 8 to make the top 8”. The next night Parra played Melbourne in Hindy’s 250th career game for the eels, we won.

We also won the next 6 games, finishing off with a great game against the West Tigers. The city of Parramatta was buzzing, the papers couldn’t get enough of Jarryd Hayne, these 7 straight wins were a direct result of his brilliance. All of a sudden people were calling the Eels premiership contenders, they were talking about Hayne the way people talk about Kobe … “we know he’s going to get the ball, we can’t stop him, all we can do is try to limit his chances and make it harder for him”

The following week, Eels played the Dragons, who at the time were in a heated battle for 1st place alongside the Bulldogs. I remember saying “we’re going to beat the dragons, we’ve won 7 straight, they’ve lost 3 straight”. The scoreline … 37 – 0, Dragons win.

1st week of finals football, Parra played the Dragons (yes, again) 1st vs 8th, and after the 37-0 drubbing the previous week there were a lot of doubts over this game. In a remarkable display of hard-nosed defence and a bit of luck, Parra won the match by 15pts at Dragons home ground.

Parramatta fans flooded to Sydney Football Stadium the following friday to play the Gold Coast Titans in the quarter finals. The motto was to take it one game at a time, and the Titans were the 3rd seed with a great halfback-fullback combination in Scott Prince and Preston Campbell. But a spirited performance from the supporting cast such as Todd Lowry, Ben Smith and Jonathan Wright helped bring the Parramatta faithful to their feet.

Notable performances include:

- Nathan Hindmarsh (as always) : 49 tackles, 10 Hitups … and a fair few crucial tackles at that
- Jarryd Hayne (why is nobody surprised?) : 165 Run meters, 357 Kick meters, 17 Break tackles (17!)
- Fuifui Moimoi : Just because he’s FUUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"The confidence comes from just playing in tough matches week after week,”

"Realising we are good enough to withstand pressure and counter-punch.

That is what the confidence comes from."

With that being said, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. But we are all witnesses, friday made the history books, Eels had never beaten Titans before (EVER). Time to make history again, win the premiership from the 8th position and get some redemption from that 2001 season.