Jason Ryles marked his first game as Parramatta coach with an impressive 44-18 victory over Newcastle on Friday night. The Eels scored eight tries and were especially dominant in the last quarter of each half, racking up fourteen points in the Pre-Season Challenge and narrowly missing out on a bonus point by coming one short of the required ten offloads. Amongst the old guard, Dylan Brown was particularly impressive, opening the match with a rousing try, adding an assist later on, and steering the younger players around the park with panache.

That must have been a reassuring sight for Parramatta fans anxious about Brown’s direction – and his possible link with the Knights – in the face of his get-out clause, which has dominated the news cycle over the last couple of weeks. That said, the young guns were pretty impressive too, with Ronald Volkman, currently on a train-and-trial deal, stepping up in the absence of Mitch Moses with a try assist and good organisation generally. Watching him sync up with Brown, you could have mistaken them for a more weathered pairing at moments.

In the Parra backline Isaiah Iongi had his first hit-out as fullback while left winger Arthur Miller-Stephen scored two of the last tries, one of them a fifty-metre team effort. Joash Papalii proved his mettle right away, translating the powerful work ethic he’d showcased at the Bulldogs into 111 metres, two try assists and a try. Jordan Samrani and Samuel Loizou also made impressive contributions to this next generation of Eels, who will be keen to crown themselves kings of the west, at least in pre-season, when they meet the Tigers on Friday.

On the other side of the Steeden this was a pretty spotty evening for Newcastle, who had periods when they consolidated and hit back but were just too uneven defensively. Their halves really failed to organise for long periods, with Fletcher Sharpe having a pretty mixed bag in the five-eighth jersey and Tyson Gamble inconsistent with the boot. Granted, he set up a Newcastle try with a 40/20 kick and subsequent short ball but one of his later kicks gifted seven tackles to the opposition and he just didn’t control the game as much as he should.

Three minutes in, Brown cemented his iconic status at Parra off the scrum. The Eels shifted left and he dummied left only to go it alone, barging his way through both Will Pryce and Jackson Hastings in the best individual charge of the game. It was the kind of run that often unleashes a torrent of points so Newcastle did well to keep the Eels out for the next twenty minutes and to put down the next try themselves, off a left edge play of their own, starting with Jack Cogger driving it deep into the line and flicking it on for one of Pryce’s best passes.

The British fullback shaped for Sharpe but bypassed him at the last moment, opting for a parabola cut-out that Kyle McCarthy caught-and-passed to put Greg Marzhew over in the corner. Like so many of the remaining tries tonight, it wasn’t overly tricky, and certainly didn’t depend upon the barging individualism of Brown’s effort – just a silky, sinuous and structured series of passes. Newcastle would only get one conversion tonight and this wasn’t it, Pryce’s boot missing the mark to keep them at a two point deficit as the second quarter unrolled.

Seeing the Knights score seemed to propel Parra back to their opening flow. Three minutes later a double pump from Volkman and a triple pump from Iongi opened up space for Jake Tago to crash over untouched on the right wing. Three minutes after that Volkman set up his second try, popping a no-longer across for Kelma Tuilagi to takes his cues from Brown and simply pour through the defence, this time from considerably further up field. Newcastle faltered now, conceding a dropout and then penalties from McCarthy and Jayden Brailey.

That laid a platform for one more Parramatta try before the break – a try that had shades of both Volkman’s sweeping and ball-playing and Brown and Tuilagi’s big charges into the defence. Two minutes out, the Eels headed left, compressing their passes until Joash Papalii had enough room to dance around Riley Jones. Volkman added his third and last conversion – Joshua Lynn would take over after the break – and the Eels headed to the sheds 22-4, a pretty sobering score even without some of Newcastle’s biggest guns on the Hunter turf. 

No surprise then that the Knights came back renewed by the roar of the home crowd, making their first statement six minutes in, when they received six again on the right edge off a Lynn ruck error. Like their first try this came off a scintillating yet subtle sequence of passes – Sharpe to Connor Votano, Elijah Salesa-Leaumoana on the decoy run, then a subliminal pause from Jones that drew in Miller-Stephen so that Logan Aoke was cleared up to cross in the corner. The next challenge for Newcastle was to follow Parra in going rapidly back to back.

Four minutes later they nailed it, this time off a left sweep. In their closest approximation yet of the Brown charge that had seemed to stamp such a decisive Parra win on the game, McCarthy found himself with support on the wing but backed himself to smash through Tago and score. Eight minutes after that Gamble had his best moment with the boot, nabbing a 40/20 that set up Mat Croker to drag Charlie Guymer and Brock Parker right to the chalk, laying the ground for his men to sent it out to left, where Gamble shaped for a wide pass.

However, at the very last minute he went short for Jermaine McEwen to fly over the try line, capping off his best period off the bench this game and bringing the Knights to their final scoreline of 18 once Votano booted through their one and only conversion of the evening. From here it was all Parra, who put a full stop on the fourth quarter as emphatically as they had the second. At the 22^nd minute, Papalii got past Richard Penisini, absorbed a Gamble shot and lobbed a precarious no-looker out for Samrani to tuck it under his arm and cruise over.

Things accelerated dramatically from here. Three minutes later, Araz Nanva offloaded out for Sam Tuivaiti to send Miller-Stephen over in the corner. Eight minutes after that, a parabola assist from Te Huriniu Twidle that looked a bit forward was cleared to ratify Samuel Loizou’s putdown on the right edge. Finally, two minutes from the siren, Parra had a superb play off the scrum, Twidle driving it deep into the line and popping it back to Papalii, whose short ball put Miller-Stephen over for a double, bringing Parra to 44-18 with Lynn’s third conversion.

All in all then, it was a pretty impressive hit-out for Ryles in his first game as coach, especially with some of the bigger players off the park. He’s announced that he’ll be fielding the best team possible next Friday against the Tigers, who’ll be raring for a win against a western adversary after going down to a late Bulldogs surge on Sunday afternoon. Meanwhile, the Knights have some defensive work ahead of them this season and will hopefully start putting some of those pieces together when they rock up against a refurbished Roosters outfit.