Injuries and a drought of possession took its toll on Parramatta as they succumbed 32-12 to Canterbury at ANZ Stadium, but the Eels again demonstrated that there is life after Jarryd Hayne with a gusty performance against last year's grand finalists.
After last week thrashing a Manly team that lost star five-eighth Keiran Foran with a torn hamstring and rookie Clinton Gutherson with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, Parramatta were unable to overcome the loss of halfback Chris Sandow and winger Semi Radradra before halftime.
Sandow, who suffered a recurrence of the ankle injury he suffered in the NRL Nines when buckled backwards in a 26th minute tackle, returned in the 52nd minute, but secondrower Tepai Moeroa (shoulder) and centre Beau Champion (knee) joined Radradra in the dressing rooms before fulltime after last year's leading tryscorer was ruled out with medial ligament damage in the 37th minute.
Late tries to fullback Brett Morris and winger Curtis Rona blew out the scoreline, but Parramatta - led by five-eighth Corey Norman - won plenty of admirers among the 28,876 crowd with a brave display in a match they never really had a right to contest.
Even before the injuries, Parramatta were up against it after having to defend seven consecutive sets of tackles near their line before Bulldogs five-eighth Moses Mbye put winger Curtis Rona over in the 12th minute with a long pass to create an overlap.
After conceding four penalties, a goal-line drop out and two scrum feeds in the opening 10 minutes, it seemed likely that Eels would run out of legs later in the game - particularly without their full bench.
Canterbury halfback Trent Hodkinson twice declined the opportunity to take a gift two points from a penalty goal in front of the posts as the Bulldogs sought to take advantage of their glut of possession, but the Parramatta defence was up to the task.
Besides a 21st minute try to Brett Morris, the home team did not look like scoring again before halftime and statistics showing the Eels made three line breaks to two and ran the ball for 632 metres compared to 647 by Canterbury belied the fact that they had been forced to make 40 more tackles.
The toll of those extra tackles would be felt late in the match but when Norman put Radradra over with a quick catch and pass from a penalty in the 34th minute, Parramatta trailed just 8-4 and they had a chance to go to the break with the scores level or even leading but a Brett Morris ankl- tap and the cover defence of Josh Jackson prevented the Fiji winger from scoring his second try three minutes later.
Despite the loss of Radradra with a knee injury suffered as he was bundled over the touchline by Jackson and the absence of Sandow until the 52nd minute, the Eels hit the lead almost immediately after halftime after regaining possession from the kick-off when Sam Kasiano lost the ball in a heavy tackle from Moeroa and former jailbird Danny Wicks, who was making his first NRL appearance since 2009.
Secondrower Manu Ma'u, another member of the Parramatta side to have experienced life behind bars after serving three years in an Auckland prison for his part in a gang brawl, scored two tries in three minutes to put the Eels ahead 12-8 in the 45th minute.
However, the Bulldogs quickly regained the lead through another double by fellow Kiwi Sam Perrett, who backed up a break by centre Tim Lafai to cross in the 52nd minute and then won the race for the ball after a Mbye bomb was batted back by Josh Morris and Greg Eastwood grubbered before the winger toed ahead and scored his second try four minutes later.
