Eels blow Broncos away with brilliant display at home
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Parramatta redeemed themselves after a 20-point humiliation by the Sharks a week ago to hand the hapless Broncos a 28-point drubbing at Bankwest Stadium seven days later.
The 38-10 win was the fourth time the Eels have scored more than 30 points this season, but not their biggest win. That was the round six 51-6 defeat of the Wests Tigers.
Forwards Junior Paulo and David Gower scored their first tries for 2019 as part of the seven-try Saturday night show put on by the Eels.
It was a mixed night for Josh Hoffman, however. He scored two tries but in the 56th minute was taken off the field via the medicab after copping an accidental knee to the head from team-mate Mitchell Moses.
Hoffman was taken to hospital for precautionary tests but officials said he was moving his arms and legs in the dressing rooms beforehand.
Match: Eels v Broncos
Round 14 -
home Team
Eels
8th Position
away Team
Broncos
13th Position
Venue: CommBank Stadium, Sydney
Back to the football and the free-flowing points meant the players obviously took heed of coach Brad Arthur’s cry that his side were “part-time players” and “soft” after the 42-22 walloping by Cronulla.
In a measure of how bad the Broncos were going, Jamayne Isaako missed an easy penalty, from just to the left of the uprights, in the 40th minutes which would have given the visitors some points in the first half.
Jennings try conitnues Parramatta's dominant start
Instead, they walked heads bowed to the sheds at halftime looking at a 26-0 scoreboard.
But with the tribal chant ‘Parra! Parra!’ ringing in their ears on several occasions, the Eels got themselves back into the top eight and eliminated their negative for-and-against points differential.
The match-day theme was ‘Stay Kind’ honouring the youth charity of the same name, but it’s uncertain if Seibold will have many nice words to say about his side’s performance.
Parramatta showed they meant business early. Paulo carried three defenders as he busted over the line in the sixth minute.
Boyd creates try for Oates down the blindside
Then five minutes later Maika Sivo buried his right shoulder into the torso of Isaako to push him out of the way to the left corner. Moses missed the conversion but it was 10-0 after 11 minutes.
That soon climbed to 16-0 when Michael Jennings used his body like Sivo, but this time nudging aside centre Gehamat Shibasaki to score in virtually the same spot.
That meant all three forays inside the Broncos 10-metre zone had produced points.
A fourth try came after Moses sent a grubber to the right corner for Hoffman. The match was only 30 minutes old but at 20-0 the Eels already had established a winning margin.
Another error by Corey Oates – earlier he’d fumbled a pass and missed a high ball – when he tried to kick the ball clear of the in-goal, actually sent it sideways with Gower beating Darius Boyd to the grounding.
That was five first-half tries to zip, and the small pocket of Broncos fans at Bankwest Stadium must have been contemplating where the exits were.
The Broncos scored twice in the second half - through Matt Gillett (43rd) with a bandaged broken nose, and Oates (66th) but that was cancelled out by Hoffman's second and a late try to Reed Mahoney.
