There's a suggestion doing the rounds that the Eels ran dead on Friday night.
It's claimed that coach Daniel Anderson figured they were a cert to make the finals and, therefore rested Nathan Hindmarsh.
Not only that, he also told them not to throw any offloads and also must have counselled them on the wisdom of letting the Dragons score six tries and rack up a morale-sapping 37-0 scoreline.
Read more Try Hard blogs
Nominate the Dragons' player of the seasonIn a nutshell, what these Parramatta fans claim (and it seems to be Parra fans mounting this defence) is that Eels threw the game to lull the Dragons into a false sense of security so as to ambush us in the first round of the finals.
Oh puleeze.
Charitably speaking, anyone who believes this is an idiot. As if a team would deliberately set out to lose a match one week out from the finals. As if a team wouldn't want to try and put as much distance between them and the dreaded eighth place. As if Daniel Anderson was in the sheds at full-time rubbing his hands with glee cackling, "haha they flogged us 37-0, they fell right into our trap".
As if a team would risk the massive dent to their confidence by letting the other team pull their pants down and smack them until their backside was red.
It was just as stupid a suggestion when Dragons fans claimed the late-season slump was all part of Wayne Bennett's master rope-a-dope plan. Nope, we just fell into a slump.
And, in the case of the Eels, they just got thumped. They played as well as the Dragons allowed them to play. And, for the first time in two months, they found themselves behind on the scoreboard and started to panic a bit.
As Dean Young rightly put it, that loss is bound to leave a team with some psychological scars - should the Dragons rack up a quick lead the Eels could start thinking "oh no, here we go again". (Which, I'll admit often seemed to be the mindset of the Dragons in seasons past when a rival put some pressure on them).
But as Daniel Anderson also rightly put it in the post-match press conference, "we haven't become a bad team in 80 minutes".
If anyone suggests Sunday's rematch will see Parramatta receive another flogging, they're just as stupid as those who believe the theory that the Eels deliberately threw a game.
A team that can string together seven wins on the trot, starting with the scalps of Melbourne and the Bulldogs, should never be underestimated.
Anderson would have learned from last Friday's game. He would have seen the Dragons tactics, what worked against his team - such as kicking to the wing to limit fullback Jarryd Hayne's chances at some broken field running - and then figured ways to counteract that.
For that matter, Bennett too probably has a few more tricks up his sleeve to counteract Anderson's counteracting. Because that's what coaching is all about.
It's not about sending your team out there to lose.
Email a friend