Western Suburbs Magpies succumbed to a 38-20 defeat on Saturday night, with an AJ Kepaoa double not enough to lead the home side to what would’ve been their fourth win of the season.
The home side led early after a Jock Madden cross-field kick was spectacularly caught by AJ Kepaoa who touched down for his first try of the night.
The lead wasn’t long-lived though, as a looping Jake Arthur cut-out ball put Eels winger Samuel Loizou over in the left corner before Zac Cini intercepted a stray offload to race 90m to score.
Magpies centre Kepaoa scored his double to give Western Suburbs a sniff before an outstanding solo try from Hayze Perham extended the Parramatta lead.
Perham scored his second early in the second half when he cleaned up the scraps off a Magpies dropped bomb, and he completed his hat-trick shortly after, showing some electric right-foot stepping to cut through the Magpies defence.
Late in the game, a Jock Madden cut-out pass allowed Junior Pauga to finish in the right corner acrobatically, and a Tyrone Peachey line-break allowed James Roberts to streak away and score.
However, the away side sealed their win late, when Perham collected his fourth try of the night, and Zac Cini secured his double.
Magpies Coach Wayne Lambkin rued their early errors when discussing the match.
“I don’t think there was a lot of difference between us really, I just think our first half really beat us with our discipline; we made four errors inside their 20.”
We need to be better down that end of the field in completing our sets and building pressure.”
Wayne Lambkin
"I thought AJ Kepaoa went well; he’s had a few injury problems over the past 12 months and just getting him some consistent time on the field will allow us to see the best in AJ pretty soon.”
“There’ll also be a chance probably each week this season for a young player to come up and experience what it’s like at the next level, but yeah, we’re just being really careful with what kids we bring up from Flegg to give them the best opportunity to develop.”
