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GRAND FINAL: Parramatta v Penrith GAME DAY THREAD at Accor 2/10/22

Chipmunk

Coach
Messages
16,430
Hope everyone is feeling ok today and not to crap (mentally), must admit was ok last night / this morning, but struggling a bit this afo…gee it’s an emotional roller coaster, love the eels, and knowing how hard it is to make GF, makes it hard….knowing it may not happen for a while……

ah hope everyone is good…
I'm feeling a bit down myself today.
 

PARRA_FAN

Coach
Messages
17,142
Its taking me a little while to get my around the result. I felt a little like Andrew Johns after Origin this year, thinking Ive got to put up with the BS for the next 6 months. Now I'm probably like most Eels fans and other neutral fans and realise Penrith were just that good. I dont think any other team wouldve got close. Yes I'm disappointed but the fact they got that far was something I'm proud of. Not many of us wouldve believed we'd be in a Grand Final a month ago and even after they got beat by Brisbane and Souths.

There was so much going into the game about Parramatta having a good record against Penrith in recent times and beating them twice but that means bugger all. Its totally different going into the Grand Final.

There's plenty of questions people would ask of their performance last night and a lot of what ifs. Should they have prepared better, was selecting N Brown a good one, what wouldve happened had we scored first from the early kick.

Things werent going Parramatta's way. I wouldve been super confident if it had of been Penrith 6-0 at half time, considering how much possession they had and the field position.

There were times I thought they would put more points as we'd struggle to get into their half in that game.

It just wasnt their night.

Hopefully they'll learn from this and bounce back but I'm sure there are 14 other teams hoping to bounce and take on Penrith, especially their smugness.

Anyway, thanks for a great season and look forward to next year.
 

Joshuatheeel

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
19,653
Penrith were def awesome. Phenomenal. Their team on paper is good but we have good players too. We could have won if we had shown up with same damn passion as those guys. They wanted it more. You can’t buy that shit.
To fair, panthers also pumped a south’s side last week with Walker, Mitchell, Murray, Cook in it…….our boys tried bloody hard (score could have easily hit 40 plus…)……sometimes the opposition is just too good…
 

PARRA_FAN

Coach
Messages
17,142
I really feel for the longer term fans. I have only been following this club since 2011 and have seen plenty lows and not many highs. I was naive when I first followed Parra. I had high hopes for the team week after week, even during the spoon years. I can't imagine those following Parra since the 90s and never seen a premiership. The pain of last night must be tenfold. I will say though, I am not buying the doom and gloom story for 2023. Most of our squad remains the same. Sometimes fresh faces can do good. Maybe it's the hope. But this is not a one-off grand final like 09. I think we will get another red hot crack in the next couple years. Hopefully there were plenty of lessons learned last night.

Ive been following them since the early 90s and come from a long time Parramatta family who clearly remember the last one and also 81,82 and 83. Ive asked them what it was like when Parramatta won the trifecta, they said it was classic being on top and knowing they werent going to lose many games.

I was only a 1 year old in 1986 and there's a photo of me confused as anything wearing a Parra top lol.

I went through the pain of not watching them in the finals until 1997. Then came the nightmares of those Prelims, 1998 and 1999.

I think the biggest painful moment would have to be 2001. They were beating teams convincingly and we're about to create history. I dont know if it wouldve hurt had the scoreline been 8-6 or something like that but 24-0 at half time, the game was virtually gone.

2009 was also painful but we were underdogs like last night. The problem with that game we were a big chance of a comeback until a dodgy decision help Melbourne, then off the drama was revealed in 2010.

Last night its not as painful as the other two but it still hurts. Knowing the drought is still continuing is depressing.

I'm probably like a few or more on here, I wasnt fired up or pumped up before the game. I was quite nervous and played down the excitement because Ive been in this situation before. Other friends and family were so happy, they decorated their house in blue and gold, wore the jersies, had their face painted which is great good for them but for some reason I wasnt super excited.

Anyway there's always next year, heard that about a thousand times haha. Well who knows next year to be honest. I mean 2002 and 2010 they went backwards so I hope Arthur can get this squad together and prepare them well for next season.
 

Joshuatheeel

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
19,653
On last nights game, we started great, but the boys were gassed after 10 mins, you could see it. Mahoney was struggling to get back to dummy half, the forwards couldn’t get back to hit it up, and when they did they weren’t offering much….we used up to much in defence…and our wingers offer no where near as much as the panthers…

probably a few factors contributing to us being “gassed”…

key moments were:

- the early kick was fine, but the following defence was terrible, think they went 60-70 m, we should have jammed them in defence after that kick..
- Moses running it on the short side should have kicked after the run instead on a passing, followed by a big defensively set
- Drown poor defence for first try
- Gutho defending in the line for their 2nd or 3rd try
- the penalty against us, attacking in the last 5 or so ….how the hell is that a penalty but they allowed tge panthers try..

The panthers were too good, and we had to be perfect to win, normally these key moments wouldn’t affect the outcome of a round game, but in the GF they really hurt us….
 
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