NRL: Furious Anderson slams Eels' attitude

Paul Gallen responded to his Origin subbing by inspiring the Sharks to their third win of the season. Photo / Getty Images

Eels 18 Sharks 22

SYDNEY - Parramatta coach Daniel Anderson slammed his side's attitude after their upset 22-18 NRL defeat by Cronulla at Parramatta Stadium on Saturday.

The Sharks scored four tries to three and survived some late scares to record their third victory of the season, while Parramatta suffered their first loss in five games.

It maintained their extraordinary record at Parramatta Stadium where they haven't lost since 2003.

The Cronulla side contained five former Eels, including halfback Tim Smith, who triggered their second-half comeback with a 58th minute last-tackle try.

Parramatta's woes were compounded by a sternum injury to skipper Nathan Hindmarsh and a hamstring twinge for centre Joel Reddy while Anderson thought it unlikely his NSW Origin backs Jarryd Hayne and Timana Tahu would back up two days later against St George Illawarra.

Cronulla coach Ricky Stuart was relieved the footy gods finally smiled on his side and heaped praise on Paul Gallen.

Test forward Gallen overlooked for NSW Origin duty responded by chalking 205 run metres and 38 tackles.

"We don't win without Gal, he's an enormous player, I don't believe he's not in the Origin team," Stuart said.

The Sharks enjoyed early territorial domination and led 10-6 despite conceding the first try of the game to fullback Tom Humble after a Dean Collis pass was intercepted.

Two tries in six minutes just before halftime to hooker Jeff Robson and halfback Daniel Mortimer, who regathered his own chip kick, gave the Eels an 18-10 lead.

However, the Sharks shut out Parramatta 12-0 in the second half.

After Smith dummied his way over, the match tilted in the Sharks' favour through two decisions in as many minutes by video referee Phil Cooley.

He disallowed a 65th-minute score to Mortimer, ruling Ben Smith was in front of the kicker.

A little more than a minute later Cooley gave his blessing to a try to Sharks forward Paul Aiton, who grounded the ball after a pack of players jumped for a bomb from Sharks skipper and five-eighth Trent Barrett.

Parramatta went agonisingly close to scoring on at least three occasions in the last 10 minutes, but the bounce of the ball which favoured them in the first half turned against them in the closing minutes.

"You do need the football gods to look down on you at times. I've seen a lot of teams win this year when they football gods got over the line and we need them," Stuart told reporters.

While his team didn't capitalise on their early dominance, they shook the lethargic Eels with two first-half tries in eight minutes to Anthony Tupou and Collis.

Anderson said the short five-day turnaround following the win over Manly last Monday was no excuse.

"We were beaten by a team that had a better attitude, as simple as that," Anderson told reporters.

"We just played like we thought we should've got the two points without competing.

"We were beaten at almost every contest throughout the whole game.

"We've got a considerable amount of luck in the first half with bounces and ricochets and we took opportunities, but we didn't earn the 18 points.

"In the second half we didn't play very well at all. I thought our opposition beat us to the punch on a lot of battles in the game."

Cronulla 22 (P Aiton D Collis T Smith A Tupou tries N Gardner 3 goals) bt Parramatta 18 (T Humble D Mortimer J Robson tries L Burt 3 goals) at Parramatta Stadium.

- AAP