If indeed it was the last time this season Parramatta played with the incentive of finally returning to finals football, the mystery of what 2016 would have been has only intensified.
This was gritty to the very definition.
With the club rocked by the personal issues surrounding superstar recruit Kieran Foran on the eve of the match against the giant Bulldogs outfit, they were given no hope of coming away from ANZ Stadium with anything but a good account of themselves.
Somehow, with troops dropping around them, Parramatta found the resilience to steamroll their arch enemy to register a 20-12 victory to take their record to 6-3 to open the season.
If the loss of Foran and the plethora of changes that coincided with his omission were not enough to unsettle them, the exit of prop Tim Mannah and fullback Michael Gordon in the first half presented the Eels with a mountain to climb. Even with the NRL set to rain on their parade next week with the sanctions from the investigation into the club's salary cap irregularities, Brad Arthur's men keep finding a way to silence the outside noise. At the start of the week it was shaping up as a mouth-watering contest between two potential top four teams, however the shock omission of Foran saw the odds swing sharply in Canterbury's favour.
With the Eels captain battling personal issues and stood down indefinitely by the club to sort out his problems, Arthur had to make several adjustments to the make-up of his side, which included moving centre Brad Takairangi into the halves.
And the night didn't get much better for the Eels, losing Mannah to a shoulder injury just 20 minutes into his return from the same injury. Gordon's night also came to a premature end, battling through most of the first half with a corked quad before finally succumbing to the injury at half-time.
Despite fortune favouring the Bulldogs, Des Hasler's men only went into half-time with a 12-10 lead, and that would be as good as it got for the blue and whites as the Eels displayed championship qualities to leave with two competition points.
The Bulldogs opened the account through the vision of Moses Mbye, whose cut-out pass found an unmarked Curtis Rona in the corner. The Eels hit back soon after with Takairangi repaying the faith shown by Arthur to move him into the halves, latching on to a Beau Scott offload to level the scores.
David Klemmer was the unlikely provider for the next try, running across field before linking with Josh Morris for Canterbury's second.
The Eels reduced the deficit to two points on the stroke of half-time when the referees somehow missed two forward passes in the lead-up to Clint Gutherson's try to round out the half.
Parramatta burst out of the blocks in the second stanza, with Corey Norman's solo effort and Vai Toutai's try from a Takairangi cross-field kick giving the Eels an eight-point buffer with 25 minutes remaining.
