NRL grand final 2022: Mitchell Moses keen to stay with Eels as he hits open market
Still reeling from grand final heartbreak, star Parramatta halfback Mitchell Moses is set to go on the open market in a matter of weeks.
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Parramatta star Mitchell Moses has spoken of his love for the Eels and his debt to coach Brad Arthur as he prepares to sit down for crunch contract talks with the club over his future.
Moses will enter the final year of his deal on November 1, meaning he is free to sign with rival clubs in a matter of weeks.
The sense is that he will head to market as he looks to cash in on the most impressive year of his career, having led Parramatta to a grand final only to fall short at the final hurdle against Penrith on Sunday night.
Moses’ future could be one of the talking points of the off-season, although the Eels are doing their level best to ensure their halfback, along with five-eighth Dylan Brown, commit to the club for the foreseeable future.
“I would love something to get sorted but I have left it up to my management,” Moses said.
“I love this place. They have been so good to me and to experience something like [the grand final], makes you want to come back.
“I felt like in the past I would have let that stuff affect my footy. I feel like it is a positive that it didn’t affect my footy.
“I am not really worried at all. In the past I have handled it probably the wrong way. I have learnt from those mistakes, I am pretty cruisy.
“I have full trust that something will get sorted. It’s only a matter of time.”
Parramatta’s greatest selling point may be Arthur. The coach put to bed any suggestion he may be axed as he led the Eels to the grand final, silencing the critics in the process.
“You don’t just turn up for those last two games [before the grand final] like that if you didn’t want your coach to be here,” Moses said.
“We all love Brad. He has been the best thing for my footy and I think I speak for some of the other guys as well. He got us here.
“We all love him, we all love playing under him.”
Parramatta players left Accor stadium on Sunday night and arrived at the leagues club at 1am, where they held sombre celebrations with family and friends.
Eels players were still coming to terms with their grand final loss on Monday, salt rubbed into the wounds when Ryan Matterson was charged with a crusher tackle by the NRL match review committee.
Matterson’s third offence left him facing a three match suspension with an early guilty plea, meaning he will miss the start to next season.
“It is tough to take,” Moses said.
“I thought they [Penrith] were unbelievable. You dream of this since [you are] young to be in this moment. I thought we started well – the first 10 minutes was physical and we were going set for set.
“Some moments we didn’t nail in defence and it cost us. They’re a quality side. There are no real words to (use).
“Upset with how it went. They were the better team but we didn’t have any chances in their half to put any points on. It just wasn’t our night.”
Moses dismissed suggestions the club would struggle next season in the absence of Reed Mahoney, Marata Niukore and Isaiah Papali’i, who have all signed to play at rivals.
Their biggest recruit has been hooker Josh Hodgson, who has spent this year on the sidelines recovering from a knee injury.
“Some of the additions we have got coming next year will definitely add some experience,” Moses said.
“I definitely think we will be better for it. I think we will be more hungry - you can see how much it hurts everyone in the sheds.
“Hopefully we come back next year and we have a real fight.”
TITLE WINDOW COULD SLAM SHUT ON EELS
By Paul Crawley
How does Parramatta come back in 2023 a better team after that?
The Eels got bashed up all over the park. Brad Arthur was belted in the battle of the coaches. The Parra pack was hammered out in the middle. The back five were smashed from pillar to post.
The Panthers’ line speed was just phenomenal. They won almost every ruck with and without the ball. It was like the Panthers were playing with an extra man.
Parramatta looked to have everything going for them right up until the moment Clint Gutherson kicked off to start the match.
From that moment they didn’t have a hope.
The Panthers were just too good.
This is as good a football team as we have seen in the modern era.
But where that leaves the Eels going forward is the question Parra fans will want answered in the coming days given they are a team that look right now to have had their day before it really arrived.
In front of the most one-sided grand final crowd we’ve seen in years, the parochial Parramatta fans had virtually nothing to cheer until the finals minutes when they ran in a couple of consolation tries to at least put some respectability into the scoreboard.
But they simply had no answer to what the Panthers threw at them.
The Panthers forwards ran harder. Their backs ran harder. They all hit harder. They put more effort into their kick chase. The dominated every facet of the game.
The thing about big games is that it is usually the winning halfback who takes the spoils — and the losing No.7 is left to carry the can.
But in this instance poor Mitchell Moses was on a hiding to nothing because his team were getting whacked from every direction.
Up front the Eels middles Reagan Campbell-Gillard and Junior Paulo had no answer to Panthers props Moses Leota and James Fisher-Harris who were on a mission. Viliame Kikau and Liam Martin got the points over their opposites Shaun Lane and Isaiah Papali’i.
Jarome Luai was on another level to Dylan Brown. Brian To’o’s 142 first-half metres from 15 carries was almost as much as the entire Eels’ back five combined.
Dylan Edwards at that point had run for 122m, Clint Gutherson 39m.
Admittedly, the Eels had been starved of first-half possession. But they only had themselves to blame for the 18-0 deficit.
There was so much talk in the build-up about Nathan Brown’s shock selection. In fairness to Brown the Eels were shot by the time he hit the park at about the 30-minute mark.
But back to the question going forward, how does Parramatta come back in 2023 and improve on what they did this season when they are losing Reed Mahoney, Papali’i and Marata Niukore, with former Canberra rake Josh Hodgson their only significant signing.
While they have some decent young talent coming through, is it going to be enough to close the obvious gap?
Some might say the Eels will be better for the experience. After what we saw at Accor Stadium that is surely up for debate.
With Moses and Brown in particular coming off contract at the end of next season their negotiations will no doubt dominate plenty of discussions in the coming weeks.
It wasn’t the fault of the halves that they couldn’t get the job done on Sunday night.
But what the Eels certainly can’t ignore is that Arthur has spent the past nine years building this squad to get them to the point where they could challenge for a title.
But almost as soon as the premiership window opened, it now appears to have slammed shut.
GUTHO ADMITS EELS’ GREAT GRAND FINAL FAILURE
By Martin Gabor
It’s officially the year of the tiger, but 2022 will forever be remembered as the season the Panthers produced the greatest 12 months by any club in Australia after they sealed back-to-back NRL titles with a crushing 28-12 win over the hapless Eels.
Talk of a dynasty seemed premature at the start of the season but these Panthers are a special breed having made three grand finals in a row and showing no signs of slowing down with one of the most dominant years on record.
Losing guys like Viliame Kikau and Api Koroisau could derail a club but they got through 2022 without Matt Burton and Kurt Capewell from last year’s squad and found a way to not only survive but thrive in their premiership defence.
“We just take it one day at a time. I don’t give a shit about next year. I just want to enjoy tonight,” Ivan Cleary joked. “Our club is very aligned.
“It’s hard to explain how good that feels. The footy gods have been our side, and it’s awesome. I can’t wait to spend the next few days with these guys so we can saviour it.
“Considering everything on the line, it was a dream come true that first half.”
Penrith’s nursery is the envy of every club in the league, and what they achieved from the grassroots all the way to the top is something we’ve never seen before and may never witness again.
The Panthers won the SG Ball, Jersey Flegg, NSW Cup and State Championship finals, with Sunday’s first grade title completing the perfect season with all eyes on whether they can complete a three-peat with fresh faces.
“This team won’t stay together. It’s such an opportunity because it’s been an amazing season,” the coach said. “It’s very said that not only players but coaching staff will never be together again.”
TOP CAT JOINS SCOTT SATTLER
Dylan Edwards spent rep round on the lounge watching his teammates carve up on the big stage.
All things being equal, he’s about to be on a plane to take on some of his fellow premiership winners with the tireless fullback firming to be part of Mal Meninga’s World Cup squad.
The no-frills fullback was the best player on the field on Sunday, setting up Stephen Crichton for the first try, laying on another for Charlie Staines, and running for 228 metres.
But it was his tackle on Bailey Simonsson midway through the second half that sums up Penrith’s most underrated player and will see him enter grand final folklore for a moment that rivals Scott Sattler’s famous play from 2003.
With his side up 28-0, Edwards reeled in the Eels centre and drove him into touch with a textbook tackle that few in the game would’ve been able to pull off.
MOTION SICKNESS
Their season has been described as one giant rollercoaster, and in the end the grand final was one ride the Eels were simply not tall enough to get on.
Parramatta turned into a Wonderland all week with fans dreaming of a performance that would end 36 years of heartbreak and force the staff at the Leagues Club to finally unlock the trophy cabinet.
But the dust will thicken for another 12 months after the blue and golds were left at the gates by a Panthers side that has been prepared perfectly for their premiership push.
The Eels had just 39 per cent of the ball in the first half and extended their unwanted streak to four deciders in a row without a try in the opening 40 minutes.
“I thought the first half was the best 40 minutes we’ve put together over that three year period,” Nathan Cleary said.
They were totally outplayed, but at least Jake Arthur was able to put a tough year behind him with a consolation try moments after Clint Gutherson had scored their first.
“They’re a very good team,” Brad Arthur said. “They played too fast for us. We’re disappointed. I’m extremely proud of the club.”
BOMBS AWAY
They talked a big game all week and they came out with some gusto as Reed Mahoney got to Nathan Cleary and pressured him for his first kick.
That energy lasted about as long as the sobriety of one diehard fan who was kicked out of Accor Stadium in the early exchanges, with Cleary given all the space in the world to pepper Parramatta’s back three.
That’s not ideal when Waqa Blake has been target number one for kickers ever since he lost all confidence under Cleary’s bombs in the first week of the finals.
We’ll never know if he learnt his lesson because the Eels winger simply wasn’t in a position to catch Cleary’s kicks.
Whether it was a tactic by the coaching staff to protect their winger or a case of Blake simply not wanting to test himself, it left the Eels with two players having to cover the entire width of the field.
“They were kicking wherever they wanted,” Gutherson said.
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