{"id":793872,"date":"2026-07-11T16:38:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T16:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/793872\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T16:38:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T16:38:39","slug":"three-try-tupou-celebrates-300th-game-in-style-as-roosters-thump-eels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/793872\/","title":{"rendered":"Three-try Tupou celebrates 300th game in style as Roosters thump Eels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday night was the Daniel Tupou show.<\/p>\n

The legendary Roosters winger was playing his 300th game \u2013 just the fifth Rooster to reach the milestone as a one-club player \u2013 and stepped onto the Allianz turf to a roaring and adoring crowd that had watched him soar above opponents for the best part of 15 years.<\/p>\n

\"DanielDaniel Tupou walks out for his 300th NRL match.Getty Images<\/p>\n

After a quiet first half, with stand-in skipper Daly Cherry-Evans favouring his chances on the right edge with Mark Nawaqanitawase, Tupou found the spotlight with a second-half hat-trick to lead the Tricolours to a 28-12 victory against the Eels.<\/p>\n

It was the seventh hat-trick of Tupou\u2019s career and just one of a number of remarkable stats that were thrown around on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

It brought Tupou\u2019s career tally to 194 tries \u2013 60 of which have been scored off kicks. He also holds the record for scoring in the highest number of individual games, having crossed the line in 146 matches.<\/p>\n

He also nudges just that little bit higher on the NRL\u2019s all-time leading try-scorers list, third behind Alex Johnston on 229 and Ken Irvine on 212.<\/p>\n

Coach Trent Robinson said Tupou played his 300th game in the same hard-working manner he\u2019d played all 299 before.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll he did was get to work, do the back field work, do his defensive work. He didn\u2019t see much of the ball, but just kept doing his job, and then when the opportunities came he finished them off,\u201d Robinson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were saying in the sheds, there\u2019s nothing by chance. There\u2019s no luck in our game. You get what you deserve, and Tupe\u2019s [Tupou] got what he deserved tonight. You know, 300 games, he played a really good game, he played a really solid game, and then he ends up with three tries.<\/p>\n

\"DanielDaniel Tupou celebrates a try against Parramatta.NRL Photos<\/p>\n

Tupou\u2019s 300th match had been a long time coming after he was sidelined for seven weeks with a calf injury he picked up in his side\u2019s Magic Round loss to the Cowboys<\/a>, but it was well worth the wait.<\/p>\n

But for the first 50 minutes of the match, Tupou barely got a look-in.<\/p>\n

In fact, it was the other winger \u2013 Nawaqanitawase \u2013 who provided the highlight reel, backing up three days after playing in a NSW State of Origin series victory<\/a>, and supplying his side with the creativity and aerial ability that they\u2019ll sorely miss when \u201cMarky Mark\u201d returns to rugby in 2027.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t hard to see why Cherry-Evans kept going his way, as the 25-year-old pulled out an around-the-back flick pass to keep the ball in play just as he was going into touch \u2013 taking defenders Josh Addo-Carr, Isaiah Iongi and Ronald Volkman with him \u2013 creating the opening try for Robert Toia.<\/p>\n

Minutes later, the Roosters were back down the Eels\u2019 end, and Nawaqanitawase tried \u2013 and almost pulled off \u2013 the same trick play again, but the execution was just off as Toia fumbled the ball.<\/p>\n

But the night\u2019s main man Tupou did finally get his moment, and once the spotlight was on him it didn\u2019t go away until he was given an early mark for his hat-trick in the 73rd minute of the match.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Stephen<\/a><\/p>\n

Milestone and victory aside, Saturday\u2019s win was an ugly one for the Tricolours.<\/p>\n

When Joash Papalii scored to start the second half, there was a worry they could shock the Roosters as they did Manly a week earlier, with the Tricolours fielding an understrength team with James Tedesco, Sam Walker, Reece Robson all out after Origin, and Lindsay Collins, Angus Crichton and Nat Butcher also unavailable.<\/p>\n

But the Eels couldn\u2019t contain the second-half comeback, as Cody Ramsey sliced his way through the middle of the field and Hugo Savala had his impact on the game, with his cross-field kick that got Tupou his double before he quickly added a third.<\/p>\n

\"ParramattaParramatta players against the Roosters on Saturday night. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Parramatta coach Jason Ryles was hesitant to talk about speculation outgoing Tigers playmaker Jarome Luai would be joining the club in 2027, but said he couldn\u2019t deny the combination of Mitchell Moses and Luai could do great things for the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen elite players become available, we are always interested, and we are in a position to execute stuff,\u201d Ryles said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it\u2019s this one or the next one or whoever it is, we\u2019ll work that out as we go, but we have a really clear strategy there that we\u2019re working towards…it\u2019s a long-term view, and anyone who is an elite player that becomes available, that we think is going to help us going forward into the future, we are very interested.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday night was the Daniel Tupou show. The legendary Roosters winger was playing his 300th game \u2013 just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-793872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793872","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=793872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}