It was a game that resulted in 14 tries and 77 points, something that is not seen in the NRL very often – but for the Wests Tigers, it is a victory they will take despite some defensive issues, as they beat the Parramatta Eels 51-26 at Campbelltown Stadium last night.
It was the work of the usual suspects in Benji Marshall and Robbie Farah that got the Tigers the victory, but it was the 4-try haul for young Fijian Marika Koroibete, that had everyone talking.
It was the Eels who got off to a better start though, as they put the pedal to the metal, and scored 4 unanswered tries, to have the Tigers on the ropes.
Chris Sandow was again a stand-out performer for the Eels, with young backs Ken Sio and Jake Mullaney also impressing – with five-eighth Ben Roberts having a solid run in attack, to back up last week’s strong game.
In the second half however, except for the opening try, it was all one way traffic for the Tigers, as they put the Eels to the sword, and recorded a comfortable victory.
Despite that however, and whilst he was pleased with the win, Tigers coach Tim Sheens still has some concerns over his side’s defence.
“It was pretty disappointing defensively, we fell away in the first half and we have some work to do there if we are to beat the four teams we have to play,” Sheens said.
Tigers captain Robbie Farah echoed those concerns, and said it is an area that they have to work on.
“I guess we didn’t want to tackle tonight and it was a good job they didn’t either,” Farah said of the Eels.
For Eels caretaker coach Brad Arthur, he was critical of his side’s rather poor defensive effort in the second half.
“We put ourselves in a position to win the game but we didn’t because we didn’t want to tough it out in defence,” Arthur said.
“We were happy to play footy but right from the start you could see our contact wasn’t good enough.”