The Parramatta Eels put an end to the Penrith Panthers' 21-game home win streak on Friday night with a hard-fought 22-20 victory.
A sold-out BlueBet Stadium witnessed one of the most riveting games of this NRL season, which saw the blue and gold put on an impressive team display against the reigning premiers.
The Eels have struggled recently with a depleted squad, and coach Brad Arthur explained that made the win even more special.
"I said to the players after the game ... I think it's the proudest I've been in my time at the club," Arthur said.
"We're on the back of four six-day turnarounds, [Penrith] have a very good football team, and we've been beaten [at their stadium] for a while.
"We've [also] only got 19 players out of our 28 [man] squad available - we've had five blokes who couldn't train during the week because they were crook.
"It was a great effort. Probably a little bit disappointing that we didn't play like that last week.
"So that's the thing for us now. We've shown that when we compete hard and we play the style of footy that works for us, we can push teams until the 80th minute."
Match Highlights - #NRLPanthersEels 🎥
— NRL (@NRL) May 6, 2022
Parramatta have ended the Panthers' winning streak at BlueBet Stadium with a stunning 22-20 win! pic.twitter.com/xekLUE5BBm
Arthur also praised the focus of his side, notably after a questionable refereeing decision didn't go their way two minutes out from halftime.
Panthers second-rower Viliame Kikau appeared to knock the ball on at the halfway line, but neither the on-field referee nor touch judge picked up on the error.
The Eels coach was pleased to see his team quickly move on from the incident during the break.
"We had a tough call going into halftime ... but there was no chat about that. It was just about what was working for us and what we needed to do better," he said.
"Maybe in the past, we would still be stewing on that bad decision, but we just got on with it."
Eels captain Clint Gutherson also refused to dwell on the call, explaining his side paid the price for a poor challenge earlier in the half.
"Nah, it was play on," Gutherson said.
"We obviously didn't respond too well to that missed opportunity, but look, that's the way footy goes.
"And we used our challenge up in the first two seconds on a bad call. So [there's] nothing to it."
