It was midway through the season when the Eels were at their lowest ebb that coach Daniel Anderson decided his players needed to toughen up and sprung a surprise on them when they arrived at training.
Instead of ball work or weights in the gym, the Parramatta players were introduced to a brutal cage-fighting session at the Elite Fight Gym run by Australian champion James Te Huna, who works with Eels conditioner Craig Catterick, and his brother Tama.
As the players - some of who had never boxed before - waited nervously, eight opponents walked in and they were ushered into a giant black cage.
''Basically he said, 'man, our boys are playing like crap. We need something that is going to kick-start their momentum and I need you to bring in a heap of boys to spar the Eels. We want to work on a bit of mental toughness,''' Tama Te Huna said.
Despite the risk of injury, the fighters were told not to take it easy on the NRL stars - a fact winger Luke Burt can attest to after having his nose smashed over his face.
''He was sparring my brother actually and he just ran into his straight right,'' Te Huna said. ''He had to stop a bit to wipe his nose but he was keen to go again. He was all right, he's a hard bloke. He took it, he just had to go and wash himself up a bit.
''You can be fit and strong and have a couple of combos up your sleeve but when you get punched in the nose that goes out window and that is what we were trying to work on - copping a few shots and having to work from there.''
As Burt's teammates looked on, a number of them admitted to becoming concerned for their own safety.
''I was getting ready to go up, I saw his face busted up and I was a bit worried about what we were going to do. But we just had to deal with it pretty much,'' centre Krisnan Inu told Channel Seven.
But there was no backing out and the Eels credit the cage-fighting sessions with helping their stunning turnaround to make the grand final after being in danger of the wooden spoon midway through the year.
''It was good,'' Inu said. '''The main thing that we went in there was to work on mental toughness. It was a bit unexpected to come to training and chuck the gloves on. A few of us hadn't boxed before and to fight against a few of the big, mean boys was a bit of a surprise but yeah it definitely made us a bit tougher and a bit stronger and more aggressive.''
Centre Joel Reddy said: ''I think we've learnt to play a bit more with pain this year and … just being generally a bit tougher.''
