Case of best team lost the game
BY JOHN MACDONALD
31/03/2009 4:00:00 AM
ANY disinterested Parramatta fan would agree with Canberra Raiders coach Don Furner: the best team lost Saturday night's NRL match at Parramatta Stadium.That best team was the Raiders, 18-16 losers in a game that turned on a 90m intercept try to Parramatta five-eighth Jarrod Hayne after an hour.
The Raiders were leading 16-4 then; they'd just had a try disallowed to winger Jarrod Carney that would have given them a 20-4 or 22-4 lead.
That score would have reflected their superiority.
Moments later Raiders five-eighth Terry Campese only had to find any of the several Raiders outside him for the clinching try.
Instead he found Hayne, and afterwards Parramatta found all the luck, penalties and possession and won thanks to late tries from Krisnan Inu and a rejuvenated and switched-on Eric Grothe jun.
Canberra still could have snatched it at the death except for a dropped ball.
Parramatta had entered the game as the hottest favourites of round four.
They had a full complement against a Raiders who had lost inspirational captain Alan Tongue before the game, and several others to injury before that.
Canberra were a reserve-grade team on paper but played with speed and enthusiasm.
Parramatta played like hot favourites against reserve-graders who only had to go round to get the points.
They deserved to be punished but instead got a scare and used up a major quote of luck.
New Eels coach Daniel Anderson was relaxed: ``I'm the biggest change at this club, so we're getting used to the combination of me more than the players.
``I have some demands and expectations on the players' performances and character during games and in general we're on the positive side.
``We will go into next week's game confident we can win,'' he said of Friday night's away clash with the Sydney Roosters.
Anderson reserved praise for lock Feleti Mateo, who made 42 tackles, 10 hit-ups for 118m and just two offloads - a contrast to his usual flamboyant creativity.
``Feleti played a very, very tight and powerful role in the middle of the field, where he hasn't had the luxury of getting many off-loads, but he is sticking to a team task,'' said Anderson.
Nathan Hindmarsh and Mateo are certainly delivering - between them they almost topped the century in tackles.
It's a moot point whether they should be delivering so much, and whether the statistics say their team-mates should be delivering more.
