Eels needed to restore pride: Cayless

It wasn't a crisis meeting or a Churchillian speech or a secret pledge by senior players.

The reason for Parramatta's stunning return to form, according to captain Nathan Cayless, was the need to restore dented pride.

Along with Melbourne, the Eels are currently the hottest team in the NRL and could move into the top eight for the first time this season with a home win against arch-rival Manly on Saturday night.

While Jason Taylor has been credited with bringing the fun factor back into the blue and gold camp since he took over as head coach when Brian Smith departed after round 10, Cayless said it was the hurt of being near the bottom of the ladder that sparked his team into action.

"Everyone just realised we just have to knuckle down and work hard, doing extra training, all that sort of stuff," Cayless said.

"Your pride gets dented when you're losing games and you're down the bottom of the ladder.

"It's good the way things have been going, but we haven't achieved anything.

"A lot of things happened at the start of the year, you can't pinpoint it to any one thing.

"There's a lot of things that weren't happening for us on the field and there was a lot of stuff happening off the field.

"We were getting hammered by the media, everywhere we were getting hammered.

"Now we have come together as a team.

"In that period, we couldn't get any lower so the only way for us was to go up.

"That's what we're doing and we just have to keep working hard and see how we go."

The Eels have won five consecutive matches to climb to within two points of the top eight, but face the sternest test of their title credentials against Manly on Saturday.

They come up against a Sea Eagles side that welcomes back centre Steve Bell (cheekbone) and fullback Brett Stewart (shoulder) from injury, with rumours circling that Test back rower Steve Menzies could make a shock return from a broken hand.

Cayless played down talk of turning the resurgence into a semi-final appearance, but admitted a win against the Eagles was critical.

"Every game for the last six weeks is pretty big for us and this is another game we have to win to stay in touch," Cayless said.

"Every week we'll just go out and play as well as we do and if we win, we do, but as long as we know we've give it our best shot and that's the way we'll look at the rest of the season.

"It's a good frame of mind to be in.

"You can look at it at two ways, these tough games coming up.

"You can look at it and be really nervous and start worrying about things or you can get out there and enjoy the challenge.

"That's the sort of path that we're going to take.

"We'll rip in and see how we go."

© 2006 AAP