PAULO POWER!
Eels say giant Junior's just about ready to explode
BY STEVEN MASCORD
IT MIGHT JUST BE THE MOST damaging half-hour display we'll see all year. But Junior Paulo's devastating cameo against the Dragons in round 10 is just a taste of things to come, according to his team-mates.
With his legs the size of wheelie bins pumping, the 100kg giant destroyed the Red V, charging for 101 metres, making four tackle breaks and setting up a try for Jarryd Hayne with a blockbusting burst up the middle. And all that in just 35 minutes!
Paulo debuted for the Eels in round 10 last year [Forty20: Incidentally, against the Dragons], but after starting this year in the NSW Cup with Wentworthville, the Auckland-born product has come back with a vengeance, averaging 100 metres in his three NRL appearance for 2014.
Fellow Eels enforcer Darcy Lussick says Paulo's explosive form comes as no surprise to anyone at Parra.
"Everyone in the club knows that he's capable of." Lussick says. "At the start of the year Brad Arthur gave him a couple of things he could go work on in reserve grade. He did everything that was asked of him and you could tell by the way he's playing, he's going well for us. I think this year he's going to really establish himself as one of the real up-and-coming front-rowers of the comp."
Despite the hype, Arthur says there's plenty of improvement left in the Cabramatta junior.
"He has a lot of potential but he is definitely a work in progress," Arthur says. "We have been working on his discipline and managing his weight and he is certainly getting there."
