“Or a nightmare.”

You can forgive the Tigers faithful if they hadn’t kept the faith to that point. There’s only so many listless side-to-side shifts most of them can stand.

Faith be damned. Maligned men Luke Brooks, Charlie Staines and Api Koroisau all stepped up to spearhead the revival, Junior Tupou scoring twice as a 22-6 deficit was reeled in.

As is the Tigers way though, Doueihi’s injury left Koroisau lining up a critical late conversion, his first shot at goal in six years. It was a shocker.

Staines, who had been the Tigers’ greatest attacking threat, spilled a drop-out cold and Parramatta held on, just.

For much of the contest, the Eels didn’t look overly fussed, coach Brad Arthur seeing as much in his players’ reaction afterward.

“It’s a hard one to get a read on,” he said. “The boys were pretty flat in the sheds after the game but we’ve just got to dust ourselves off and be prepared to play better footy than that.

“I thought we’ve played better this year and been beaten. But at the end of the year that doesn’t matter, the two [competition] points do.”

For their sake, at least Moses kept up his own Easter Monday tradition of tormenting the Tigers, to the point of harassment.

Three pinpoint try assists from the halfback’s slipper made for an 18-6 half-time lead, despite the Eels enjoying just five tackles in the Tigers’ red-zone.

Gutherson, Will Penisini and Bryce Cartwright all lined up and emerged with tries thanks to Moses.

“Kicked them to death,” Arthur surmised neatly.

Sheens was understandably rueful, particularly given the Tigers had rallied well, but too late, as was the case last month against Canterbury and Melbourne.

“The three tries from kicks and his goal-kicking, hitting the posts and it going in, when it’s your day it’s your day isn’t it? Three tries from kicks after last week, the kicking effort by Brisbane, [that] disappoints us because we’ve put a lot of time into it.”

Even when a Moses kick went awry, it went alright. A charged-down bomb early in the second half ended with the star half throwing a 20-metre pass for Sivo to barrel his way over.

From then, the Tigers comeback gathered steam. After Naden busted his shoulder while scoring, Doueihi lined up a tense, tough conversion from out wide. His strike never looked like missing, and the Eels’ lead was trimmed to just six.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, and they’re all too aware after doing the contract dance all summer, the Eels still had Moses.

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