I'd put us and Manly 1995 as similar losses.
Both dominant throughout the season, premiership favourites got to the Grand Final, celebrated the fact it was the first GF for a while as it was an achievement pre-season but werent mentally switched on game day.
With Manly, Mark Carroll said in an interview once how most the players spoke about getting the GF and doing really well, but mentally they were nervous on game day and they were up against a Canterbury side that looked pumped up having lost the GF the year before and had that momentum going into the game.
With Parramatta, there were plenty of nerves. It was a fairly young forward pack that for a few years in a row just missed the GF. Once they got there it was a sigh of relieve but still shouldve been mentally prepared. There were some signs of nerves in the Brisbane game, I remember they had an ordinary start and just beat them in the Preliminary final. It shouldve been a wake up call but instead people were saying in the GF breakfast, the players looked nervous. And when they sung national anthems, you compare the two teams' body language.
Newcastle looked pumped and fired up, having lost the prelim the year before, all embraced each other before the game.
Parramatta very quiet, no-one singing the anthem. I thought ah oh, hopefully they'll be switched on. Unfortunately they weren't.
Newcastle came out of the blocks early with Johns running the show. Even though he got Clive Churchill Medal, I feel Kennedy and Buderus were unlucky not to win it, they were simply unstoppable on the night.
And whilst Manly came back a year later to win the title, Parramatta didnt recover from that loss.
Whether it was Smith's coaching that helped them turn into zombies, who's knows.
