ANALYSIS: Parra move into top eight after Manly mauling - and King Gutho might be the most underrated player in the NRL

Parramatta’s midseason revival has continued with a resounding 34-4 win over a Manly, taking the Eels into the top eight for the first time in 2023.

This was their fourth win on the spin and richly deserved against a Sea Eagles side that never got going. Both sides were missing key players to Origin – Mitchell Moses and Junior Paulo for Parra, Daly Cherry-Evans and Tom Trbojevic for Manly – and it was the hosts who coped best with their outs.

Clint Gutherson was key to that, dominating the first half and ending the game as a contest well before the break.

“When your core group of senior players own their roles every week it allows, other guys to develop when they come into the team and do their jobs easier,” said Eels coach Brad Arthur after the win.

The early lead was assisted by an early sin bin to Manly fullback Kaeo Weekes, who was sat down for a kick escort that could easily have been penalty sufficient. It wasn’t, and while down to 12, Manly conceded twice.

Parra had all the ball and all the field position, gradually strangling the Sea Eagles out of the game. The Eels nearly doubled Manly’s metre count and had a full ten sets more with the ball.

Anthony Seibold’s men were coming in off the back of a monster win over the Dolphins last Friday night, and he would have known the size of the challenge in front of him given the absence of his two Origin stars.

But even considering that, he would not have been remotely pleased with the lack of care his side showed for the football, or their inability to impact the line in the middle.

Clint Gutherson is criminally underrated 

There are a seemingly infinite number of fullback options available in rep football these days, and it’s a crying shame for Clint Gutherson. Not that you’d notice, mind: the King has been Parra’s best player, or close to it, in practically every game this year while getting next to no recognition in the process.

In an age when Dylan Edwards is so underrated he’s overrated, where Will Kennedy is now the underrated fullback de nos jours and Scott Drinkwater is averaging the most line break assists in the comp – and that’s before you get to the blokes who actually get picked – it’s fair to say that the competition is fierce.

But Gutho doesn’t care. The bloke loves playing for Parra and Parra love having him there. Mysteriously, the chat of them not having an ‘x factor’, whatever that means, has disappeared of late.

“Clint Gutherson tonight was fabulous, he led from the front… he was everywhere, the everywhere man. He just keeps turning up when the team needs him,” said NRL Fox commentator Mal Meninga.

“With the halves out… Gutherson has been the star power, he’s been everywhere. He is just the glue that’s holding Parramatta together,” added Cooper Cronk.

It’s baffling why Gutherson doesn’t get more love. He used to be a bit of a lair, sure, but that hardly makes one stand out among rugby league players and he doesn’t really do that sort of thing much these days.

The Gutherino hasn’t been seen in years and, remember, it wasn’t the man himself who decided he was ‘King Gutho’, it was Channel 9.

King doesn’t seen the right sobriquet these days anyway. Gutherson is rarely the main attraction – though this week, with Mitchell Moses, Dylan Brown and Junior Paulo missing, it might be an exception – and his style of play is more about being Mr Consistent than His Majesty.

Today was a prime example. You got tries and assists, but the grunt work was just as good. On every kick he fielded, it seemed like he beat the first man and disrupted the chasers. It was pretty simple, selfless, error-free stuff from a guy who is as team-first as they come.

In fact, here’s a new nickname for him, partly inspired by his play and partly by his hair: the mop. Clint “The Mop” Gutherson: cleaning up attacks, polishing off moves. You heard it here first.

Manly don’t help themselves

Shock, horror. Guess what? Take Tom Trbojevic and Daly Cherry-Evans out of Manly and they aren’t very good.

OK, that doesn’t really help in any analysis of today’s performance, because a) everyone knows it and b) Manly are perfectly capable of being rubbish on their own terms.

Without those two, Manly can’t spread the ball effectively to their backline, and because that is probably the best bit of their game, things tend to spiral downwards when they can’t shift.

It leaves them playing up the guts footy, which is going to go badly wrong against Parramatta, who have arguably the best middle unit in the comp, even without Junior Paulo.

The Sea Eagles were second best by a distance in forwards, and that was about that as far as the game went. Getting Weekes binned early didn’t help, but it wouldn’t have made much difference.

“At the moment we sort of take one step forward, a couple of steps back,” said Sea Eagles coach Anthony Seibold.

“We couldn’t handle the chaos of that early sin-binning… it was a tough old night for us from there. We have shown a ton of effort and toughness this year, even in the games when we haven’t been great and haven’t executed that well, we have been really tough and hung in.

“We weren’t as good with the effort part of the game tonight.” 

It doesn’t help that the back three forgot how to catch. Jason Saab, who has been generally good this year, struggled badly under the high ball and Christian Tuipulotu wasn’t much better. 

As befitting a team with two inexperienced halves, their response to adversity was to try riskier play, which inevitably invited further pressure on.

Plenty would have had to go right for Manly to stand a chance here. Nothing did.