Eels regain momentum

David Fairleigh said last week he got particular joy from working with the Parramatta backs.

The Eels assistant coach said this was because he was amazed by their skills. The backs gave those skills their greatest exposure when the stars came out to play in the 68-22 romp against the Brisbane Broncos at Parramatta Stadium on Sunday.

Jarryd Hayne, Krisnan Inu, Timana Tahu and the rest it finished as a game of touch football-basketball-volleyball-handball in the park against a hapless Broncos outfit running out of troops, running out of legs and run off their legs.

It won't be like that for the fifth-placed Parramatta against the third-placed Warriors at Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland, this Friday night.

There are two schools of thought about the value of Sunday's romp as preparation for the New Zealand finals match, with Parramatta virtually certain of a second chance should they lose. One school would have it that a game which featured 17 tries was hardly the hard hit-out needed before tough finals football.

Another school would have it that the win more than restored confidence and momentum after four losses in five games. With just a five-day turnaround, such a soft game (that's relative; there are no soft games) was just what was needed given the quick back-up, and Parramatta suffered no injuries.

And given that the Warriors have players with basketballers' handling skills from 1-17, Parramatta's abundant attacking skills needed a workout for what might be a tryathon. Friday's game is unlikely to finish 12-8 to the winner.

The quick turnaround might present as big a challenge as the Warriors. What should concern the Eels is the four first-half tries conceded in 20 minutes against the Broncos. Well three, but it should have been four. Broncos winger Nick Emmett's losing the ball over the line has him a star player in any Max Mannix video highlights package.

Brisbane were able to score almost at will when they reached the Parramatta quarter until then. The incident broke the ailing Broncos' spirit but the final score couldn't hide those structural defensive problems. Early on, Parramatta still looked like a team high on effort but low on cohesion.

Five days is a short time to get a season's deficiencies right.