TRAILING 10-0 after 20 minutes, Parramatta fought hard to get back into the contest against the Raiders in freezing conditions and torrential rain in Canberra on Saturday night.
They earned themselves two repeat sets and were building pressure when they pulled a trick shot from nowhere that did nothing other than hand possession directly back to their opposition.
There must have been something on the video midweek that suggested Canberra winger Nick Cotric was susceptible to a kick behind the defensive line so on the second tackle after a dropout Mitch Moses kicked for Bevan French in the right-hand corner.
The only issue was that it was so telegraphed that Cotric merely dropped back, caught the ball under no pressure whatsoever and carried the ball back into the Parramatta defence.
At which point the Eels conceded a penalty, one of 15 they gave away for the night.
The resulting 18-2 defeat was their sixth in succession to start the season and left Fox League experts scratching their heads.
“That’s just not having his head in the game,” Broncos great Justin Hodges said of Moses’s decision to kick for French.