Junior Paulo

Coming off a gritty performance against the Brisbane Broncos last week and losing, another
gritty performance against the North Queensland Cowboys could have gone either way.

But it was the Parramatta Eels who held on after showing steely resolve when it mattered, to defeat the North Queensland Cowboys 20-16 at Pirtek Stadium.

With Kieran Foran making his belated club debut, although by his own admission he was not at 100%, his leadership and direction alone was a telling factor for the Eels.

Their win was dampened by the news of a dislocated elbow for Nathan Peats, after his arm was in the wrong spot off a charging Jason Taumalolo run.

Whilst there were promising signs in attack for the Cowboys, it was poor ball-handling, low completion and a lack of discipline that ultimately proved the difference.

That dropped ball proved costly throughout, as Peats – before he went off injured – burrowed over from dummy half.

In 2015, the Eels may well have found a way to a lose a gritty game like this. But with a new-found defensive resolve and belief as a team, they held on.

The win is the Eels first of the season and despite a frantic final 30 seconds with the Cowboys throwing the ball around, they held on.

With nothing much in either tackle, both Manu Ma’u and Matt Scott were put on report for their respective sides.

Admitting that his hamstring is still not 100%, Foran said he is fine to be playing and is keeping track of his workload.

“It’s not too bad. I’m just monitoring my loads at the moment and just trying to get through week to week. But we’re pretty confident that I’ll be close to 100 per cent for next week’s game,” Foran said.

“It wasn’t too bad to be honest. I trained well yesterday for captain’s run and I was pretty confident coming into this game.”

As Foran guided the Eels, Cowboys coach Paul Green lamented the ball control by his side.

“Our ball control was the biggest problem; we just weren’t able to build any sort of pressure,” Green said.

“That first half our last plays weren’t anywhere near good enough either.

“We didn’t build enough pressure through those two parts of our game. I thought we defended well, I thought we handled their shifts pretty well tackled well.”

The errors, caused by the Eels sturdy defence and rushing up, was a key asset in their win and coach Brad Arthur praised his side for the defence.

“I think we were pretty positive in defence and got off our line pretty hard and maybe we contributed a little bit to forcing a few errors,” Arthur said.

“It was nice to win a game on the back of defence and playing tough. And we played tough.”

Player of the Game:

3. Junior Paulo
2. Kenny Edwards
1. Scott Bolton

Parramatta Eels 20 (Peats, Edwards, Takairangi tries; Gordon 4 goals) def North Queensland Cowboys 16 (Lowe, O’Neill, Taumalolo tries; Thurston 2 goals). Half time: Parramatta 14-6. Crowd: 12,194. On report: Manu Ma’u, Matt Scott.

By ricky

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