Best of friends prepare to become foes as Mitchell Moses takes on Luke Brooks and the Tigers
LUKE Brooks and Mitch Moses are the best of mates and have lived together for years, but that will all be put aside for 80 minutes on Sunday.
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FOR 80 minutes on Sunday afternoon Mitchell Moses and Luke Brooks will become the best of enemies.
The former Wests Tigers teammates have been friends for more than 10 years and even share a house together in Hunters Hill.
But Brooks’ sudden burst into career-best form for the Tigers now stands between Moses and Parramatta’s second win for the season.
According to the Eels halfback, if his side are any chance of going back-to-back after dismantling the Sea Eagles 44-10 last Sunday, the threat posed by his opposite number must be neutralised.
“Brooksy has been their best player all year,” Moses said.
“He’s been taking the line on been doing a lot of their attacking so if we can nullify him and their back five I think we’ll go a long way to winning the game.
“Brooksy will be a big man to watch.”
Brooks has long lived with the weight of rugby league expectation. Before he’d even played a single first grade game he was compared to the likes of league legend Andrew Johns.
He had a breakout season in 2014 where he was named the game’s rookie of the year but his rise to the top seemed to come to a grinding halt.
Niggling injuries and an inability to find consistency sapped him of confidence.
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And it showed in his football.
For a while there Brooks flirted with the possibility of being the young gun that never reached his immense potential.
Moses, who came through the Balmain junior ranks alongside Brooks, witnessed the lows of his roommates’ career first hand.
But Brooks has been reborn under the tutelage of new coach Ivan Cleary and the guidance of experienced halves partner Benji Marshall.
“Brooksy has come under a lot of criticism is whole career,” Moses said.
“He had that good start in his first year got Rookie of the year and had all these expectations on him.
“But I always knew he was a class player.
“I have been playing with him since I was 12 years old and I always knew he had it, it was just about showing it really.”
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Moses says Brooks has finally rediscovered the confidence which at times abandoned him and that’s the driving force behind his matchwinning form.
And that confidence could see the Eels come unstuck as they try to get their 2018 campaign back on track at ANZ Stadium on Sunday.
“Confidence is a big thing and he’s got that at the moment,” he said.
“For us to stop him now it will be a tough job.
“But that’s our job and we have to do that this week if we want the win.”
A six-game losing streak to start the season has meant that the Parramatta halfback has had to deal with his fair share of criticism in 2018.
Most of it aimed at not running enough with the ball in hand.
But Moses’ performance against Manly, where he helped set up for tires, is the first step in silencing the detractors.
“You want to be running on your terms and running in the spaces where you feel comfortable running the footy,” he said.
“I felt like on the weekend I had the chance to take the line on when I wanted to.
“But that’s what happens when were the dominant team, completing at a high percentage, turning over the ball where you wanted … then you can play that kind of footy.
“I’m just going to look to keep doing what I did against the Sea Eagles and take it into this week (against the Tigers).”