Can the Eels break their premiership drought earlier than the North Sydney Bears?
Has their curse turn out to be so entrenched they could possibly be usurped by a crew that doesn’t exist?
Watch each sport of each spherical of the 2023 NRL Telstra Premiership Season LIVE on Kayo Sports activities. New to Kayo? Begin your free trial now >
These are the questions being requested after Parramatta commenced 2023 with back-to-back losses, a predicament that all-but ensures their infamous period of frigidity will stretch in to a thirty seventh 12 months.
Positive, diehards will declare there’s loads of time to regular the ship for one more grand closing tilt, however with a looming row of crunch video games and the Mitch Moses contract stalemate, navigating there will probably be like extracting a wedgie by the attention of a needle.
And for those who suppose in any other case, let me remind you what we’re coping with right here.
In a world of Russian aggression and geopolitical unrest, Parramatta’s drought is the one fixed we are able to look to for stability.
Spanning numerous governments and iPhone releases, it has vitalised The Matty Johns Present with bottomless Nathan Hindmarsh jokes and entertained us with the hunt for The Subsequent Peter Sterling, a battle inside a battle that has discarded so many halfbacks you possibly can declare 10c a pop on assortment.
Regardless of agonising dalliances as grand finalists in 2001, 2009 and 2022, Parramatta’s sorrow is as a part of the furnishings in our society as dying, taxes and actuality TV narcissists ‘talking their fact’- and that’s why they could possibly be overwhelmed to the silverware by the Bears, or much more unlikely, the Gold Coast Titans.
For these uninitiated, the Bears title drought extends all the way in which again to 1922. Of higher word; they haven’t featured within the NRL since 2002.
Since being cancelled by Manly after the collapse of their dysfunctional Northern Eagles three way partnership, the Bears have existed as a boutique reserve grade facet embodying a reinstatement bid that’s excessive on pluck however low on realism.
After years of campaigning with out success, many imagine essentially the most applicable avenue to Convey Again the Bears now lies with both a Perth-based amalgamation, or rugby.
Experiences emerged throughout the weekend of the model doubtlessly fronting a Pasifika membership in a brand new 20 crew competitors, nevertheless it stays unclear if this was truthful dinkum, or simply the NRL fulfilling its obligation of punking Greg Florimo twice yearly.
However, I’ll be backing them to salute in September earlier than the Eels- and for those who suppose it’s deluded to record Parramatta under a thought bubble in premiership betting, take into account the western Sydney membership doesn’t function inside the regular parameters of actuality.
Whether or not dishonest the cap and ending final, bricking the unlosable 2001 grand closing or the wilful determination to launch Reed Mahoney, Parramatta is an organisation the place the inexplicable and the supernatural is taken into account enterprise as regular.
Simply look again on the document books; their opponents had been disqualified within the 2009 Grand Remaining they usually nonetheless misplaced. They’ve proven as soon as they are often pipped on the put up by a ghost, why not once more?
