RD15 - Eels outclass Bunnies 30-10

Parramatta added some space from the foot of the table and kept alive its faint NRL finals hopes with a 30-10 victory over South Sydney.

In the battle between the league's bottom two sides, the Eels scored 22 unanswered points in 25 minutes before and after halftime to out-muscle the Rabbitohs on a bitterly cold night at Parramatta Stadium.

Backrower Nathan Hindmarsh, backing up from Wednesday's State of Origin, and prop Fuifui Moimoi, playing after beating a biting charge at the NRL judiciary on Tuesday, were key figures in five-tries-to-two triumph with both bagging deserved tries.

The Eels' fourth win of the season put them six points clear of cellar dwellers Souths and - for the next month at least - gives Parramatta hope of mounting a finals challenge with the club likely needing to win at least seven of their final 10 games to stand a chance of making the top eight.

After breaking a 12-game losing streak last week, Souths, who lost in-form lock Shane Rigon to a virus before kickoff, had no answer to a rampant Eels forward pack.

Halfback Tim Smith took full advantage of his side's forward dominance with a strong kicking game, while teenage winger Jarryd Hayne, playing his fifth NRL game, provided the 10,097 crowd with much of the night's highlights - showing off both his aerial skills and some crunching cover defence.

Souths took an early lead when five-eighth John Sutton muscled his way through two tacklers to send winger Paul Mellor sprinting away for the first try of the match in the sixth minute.
Parramatta nearly levelled when winger Jarryd Hayne spectacularly batted back a Tim Smith cross-field kick for centre Brett Delaney in the 18th minute, but the try was disallowed with Hayne's foot knocking the corner flag as he leapt for the ball.

The Eels eventually took the lead two minutes later when Moimoi barged over, and then went ahead 10-6 when Hayne claimed a Smith bomb and slipped a pass for Delaney to score.
Hindmarsh ensured the Eels went to the break 16-4 in front when he drew in four defenders on the Bunnies' tryline before offloading to PJ Marsh, who dived over.

Five-eighth John Morris virtually sealed the match when he scored six minutes after the break, with Rabbitohs prop Manase Manuokafoa scoring a late consolation from a Ben Walker bomb which struck the post, before Hindmarsh crashed over in the dying minutes to complete the 20-point win.

Source: AAP