A bit like the biblical rain, thunder and lightning that thrashed Allianz Stadium on Friday night, the Roosters needed all of 10 minutes to bury Parramatta and confirm their status as the NRL’s most dangerous attacking side.
A bit like the puddles that refused to drain from the $830 million venue, you still wonder exactly where Trent Robinson’s falls in the scheme of things, though they can only beat and beat up on the opposition in front of them.
Another NRL outing, another downpour of points, and another of this year’s also-rans duly disposed of, the Eels beaten 38-14 in front of a healthy, if soggy Allianz crowd of 20,724.
This wasn’t quite the cracking pace and impressive play produced by competition frontrunners Melbourne and Penrith 24 hours earlier – a grand final dress rehearsal in the eyes of many. But given the Tricolours had conceded 88 points in their past three games, leaving the door open for high-scoring 40-34 and 34-30 against the Dolphins and Manly, the strong defence – at least until the last few minutes – pleased Robinson and skipper James Tedesco most.“When we’re at our best we’re pretty hard to stop,” Tedesco said.
“But we have our lapses like at the end of the game there where we let in a couple of tries. We can work on that and have our improvement towards an 80-minute performance – I don’t think we’ve had that all year but when we’re getting towards finals time, we need to have that.”
In truth, the Eels are 16th, and they’re not the Dolphins or Manly. Without million-dollar half Mitchell Moses, captain Junior Paulo and several others, Parramatta were already gone on paper and, in Trent Barrett’s words, they are their “own worst enemies”.
They were blown off the paddock as soon as Wiremu Greig hit Connor Watson high and found himself in the bin after 14 minutes. By the time the Eels had a full complement of 13 again, both Roosters wingers had scored and Watson had been ruled out of the game.Tedesco was dummying and strolling past Gutherson a minute after Greig found his way back onto the sodden turf and into a 24-0 contest.
Kelma Tuilagi put Parramatta on the board before Brendan Hands was sin-binned for a professional foul and the Eels went down to 12 again.
By the time he returned, Dominic Young had the second of his three tries, Sitili Tupouniua a try for his 100th NRL game and the Roosters had helped themselves to four tries against a shortened defensive line.
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