The Wests Tigers have defeated the Parramatta Eels 22-20 in a golden point classic on Easter Monday, with Benji Marshall\u2019s side securing their third win of the season in a hard-fought contest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jock Madden was instrumental in the victory, finishing with a perfect night off the tee, converting all three tries and slotting two penalty goals \u2013 including the match-winner in extra time.<\/p>\n
Kai Pearce-Paul was a standout at both ends of the field, registering two try assists while making 46 tackles.<\/p>\n
Api Koroisau led through his actions, and was instrumental in attack while racking up a team-leading 57 tackles.<\/p>\n
It was a strong defensive performance in all from the Tigers, with their resilience under pressure earning strong praise from Marshall post-game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Key stats:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Defence:\u00a0The Tigers made 366 tackles, with Api Koroisau (57), Alex Twal (51) and Kai Pearce-Paul (46) leading the way.\u00a0
\nRun\u00a0metres: The backs made a strong impact, with Luke\u00a0Laulilii\u00a0leading the side with 227\u00a0metres, alongside\u00a0Jahream\u00a0Bula (203),\u00a0Heamasi\u00a0Makasini\u00a0(197) and Sunia\u00a0Turuva\u00a0(157).\u00a0
\nTino Tavana scored his second career try in just his second NRL appearance.<\/p>\n
The moments: <\/p>\n
11th minute:\u00a0Parramatta shifts the ball from left to right, with Sean Russell finding Bailey Simonsson, who scores to give the Eels a 4-0 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
15th minute: The Eels go back-to-back, with Junior Paulo crashing over. Mitch Moses converts for a 10-0 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
29th minute: Kai Pearce-Paul offloads to Adam Doueihi, who scores the Tigers first. The conversion is successful, narrowing the margin to 10-6.<\/p>\n
35th minute: Kai Pearce-Paul gets his second assist of the afternoon, setting up Jahream Bula to bring the scores level, with the conversion giving the Tigers a 12-10 lead heading into halftime.\u00a0<\/p>\n
43rd minute: A bomb kick from Jock Madden is collected by Tino Tavana, who scores. Madden converts, extending the Tigers\u2019 lead to 18-10.<\/p>\n
60th minute: Luke Laulilii is sin-binned for a mid-air tackle, reducing the Tigers go down to 12 men.<\/p>\n
60th minute: On debut, Apa Twidle scores with his first touch to bring the Eels back into the contest 18-14.<\/p>\n
62nd minute: 21-year-old Twidle scores a double, putting the ball over the line on the right wing, bringing the scores level at 18-18.<\/p>\n
77th minute: Tigers give away a penalty for a dangerous tackle on Mitch Moses, who takes the penalty kick, putting the Eels ahead 20-18.<\/p>\n
78th minute: The Tigers receive a penalty shortly after, with Jock Madden levelling the scores from 40 metres out, leveling scores at 20-20.<\/p>\n
80th minute: Scores remain locked, sending the match into golden point.<\/p>\n
84th minute: Parramatta are penalised for being offside, giving the Tigers an opportunity 20 metres out. Jock Madden kicks the penalty goal, securing a 22-20 Tigers victory.<\/p>\n
What they said: <\/p>\n
NRL Head Coach Benji Marshall: <\/p>\n
When talking about his side\u2019s resolve\u00a0
\u201cI thought the way they’ve applied themselves to start the season, the way they trained in the preseason, I was pretty relaxed the whole time, to be honest, and confident that regardless of the way the result went, they would fight their way back into it to either be a chance to win it or win it.\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0
When talking about Kai Pearce-Paul\u00a0
\u201cI’m\u00a0not worried about the tries, to be honest, more worried about what he brings to us defensively. We know\u00a0what\u00a0he can do\u00a0in\u00a0attack.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0what\u00a0he’s\u00a0added to our right edge defensively\u00a0that\u00a0has\u00a0probably been\u00a0most\u00a0impressive thing to me,\u00a0and his team-first mindset, where\u00a0he’s\u00a0prepared to do\u00a0whatever\u00a0it takes for the team without any fuss. Never complains if he\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0get the ball, trains hard out. We love having him in our team.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Wests Tigers have defeated the Parramatta Eels 22-20 in a golden point classic on Easter Monday, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-589211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}