ON AN afternoon when Parramatta were, for the majority, anything but deserving match-winners, there could be no dispute over the appropriateness of Shane Shackleton sealing yesterday's Houdini act for them. After his year of toil on the comeback trail from a hamstring injury, his moment of glory at Parramatta Stadium was long overdue.
Of course Stephen Kearney, the Eels coach, would have settled for anyone in blue and gold diving on the loose ball from a Daniel Mortimer kick inside the last minute.
That it was the 28-year-old carrot top who emerged victorious from the maelstrom beneath the Titans' uprights was the ideal result.
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Shackleton's self-deprecating evaluation of the try was this: ''If you're in the right place at the right time, like I was lucky enough to be, you get the rewards.'' His teammates, having witnessed him combat his interminable recovery with determination and strength, were not having a bar of it.
''It's not often someone can earn everyone's respect by the way they train,'' Eels prop Tim Mannah said. ''He spent [last] year in rehab and before we even played with him everyone had that much respect for him. He's so mentally tough.''
Shackleton played only 22 minutes of the 2010 season, tearing a hamstring from the bone in the Eels' round-one defeat to eventual premiers St George Illawarra after arriving at the club last year as a high-profile signing.
Club medical staff described the injury as horrific, one of the worst they had seen of its kind.
The journey back, via tireless rehabilitation, was just as noteworthy for its length and the challenge it mounted to Shackleton's resolve. ''He worked as hard as I've seen someone work coming back from an injury like that,'' captain Nathan Hindmarsh said. ''By himself, day in, day out, just doing what he needed to do to get on the field. I haven't seen someone that dedicated for a long, long time to get back on the field.''
Hindmarsh offered jokingly that the Eels would be ''hearing all about'' the match-clinching try from its scorer. And well they may. Shackleton was hard pressed to remember the last try he had scored: ''I think I scored in '09 against North Queensland. I'm probably averaging about 1.5 a year,'' he said. ''Actually, probably less.''
His quota now all but filled for this season, the former Sydney Roosters forward was able to reflect more seriously on his long mission to return to the NRL, which had its fair share of setbacks but ultimately none that proved insurmountable.
''I improved a lot in the early weeks and then you have your dark weeks when you're sort of plateauing a bit,'' Shackleton said. ''I knew that if I didn't do the work I wouldn't be coming back. You don't know what's around the corner so I basically tried to keep my head down and [it] kept me focused on a goal.
''Towards the end of the year I was thinking I was going to come back last year. But I'm back now, so that's the main thing. Just being on the field is a reward in itself.''
