Eels put bite on Bulldogs to keep top-four dream alive

Playmakers Dylan Brown and Mitch Moses showed their class as the Eels kept their top-four hopes alive with a 42-6 win over the Bulldogs at CommBank Stadium on Saturday.

The victory lifts Parramatta above Souths into fifth place on the ladder with games against the Broncos and Storm to come in the final two rounds.

The Bulldogs drew first blood through a Matt Burton penalty goal in the sixth minute but tries to Will Penisini and Waqa Blake in quick succession had the Eels up 12-2 after 15 minutes.

A mistake by the Eels in the 28th minute gifted the Bulldogs field position and Aaron Schoupp made the home team pay when he left Blake clutching at thin air to grab his eighth try of the season.

Having played a leading hand in the Eels' first try with a cross field kick, Brown came to the fore again in the 35th minute when he delivered a pinpoint cut-out pass for Maika Sivo to score.

Sivo then showed his defensive prowess early in the second half when he rag dolled Jacob Kiraz into touch with the try line beckoning.

Come the 46th minute and Ryan Matterson took a pass from Brown and exploded into a hole between two Bulldogs defenders to stretch the Eels' lead to 22-6.

Tom Opacic was next to score as he finished off some nice ball movement on the left edge and the Eels had a 20-point lead.

In his first game back from a broken finger Moses turned provider in the 62nd minute with a neat grubber kick which Brown kept on the toe to score Parramatta's sixth.

Four minutes later the Moses-Brown show took centre stage again as the No.6 completed a double courtesy of another kick from his halfback. Moses' fifth conversion of the day made it 38-6.

Blake put the icing on the Eels' 14th win of the season when he strolled over in the 79th minute to make it 42-6.

Match Snapshot

• In his first match since Round 12, Luke Thompson entered the fray in the 24th minute for the Dogs and finished with 86 run metres and 28 tackles in 37 minutes of game time.
• Eels winger Maika Sivo has scored 35 tries in 35 games at CommBank Stadium.
• Shaun Lane and Isaiah Papali'i had a field day scouting wide for the Eels, combining for 31 runs and 323 metres.

• The Bulldogs cruelled their chances of an upset by making 11 errors and missing 32 tackles.
• Dylan Brown's double was the fourth of his career. He also came up with two try assists and two line break assists.
• Jeremy Marshall-King racked up 40 tackles in another strong defensive display for the Bulldogs.
• The Eels have defeated the Bulldogs in seven of their past nine clashes.