In-form Parramatta halfback Mitchell Moses’ hard work of recent months is paying big dividends, after admitting he needed to pull his head in following a poor 2018 NRL campaign.
Moses leads the NRL’s try assists and kick metres categories, and has the most line breaks of any halfback and the second highest of any player behind the Warriors’ Peta Hiku.
He has developed into one of the top playmakers in the NRL and a key member of what is a surging Eels side within touching distance of a coveted top four spot.
Parramatta have won their last four, and seven of their last eight, games and are level on points with Manly, who are fourth.
While agreeing it’s been the most consistent year of his seven-season NRL career, 24-year-old Moses deflects a lot of credit for that to other members of the Eels spine – their forward pack and coach Brad Arthur.
But he did his bit by putting his nose to the grindstone in the pre-season.
“It was probably one of my most intense, I came back to train a bit earlier than what I was meant to,” Moses said.
“Coming off the year I had last year, I probably had to pull my head in a bit, I guess.
“I really trained hard and made sure that I was doing everything possible to put myself in a good position to play good footy this year and help out the team.”
The departure of five-eighth Corey Norman pushed Moses into piling on his kicking practice.
“In the off-season I had a big focus on my kicking game,” he said.
“Losing Normy at the start of the year, he’s such a good kicker of the ball and he did a fair chunk of the kicking the year before.
“So I knew there was going to be a lot of pressure on me for that, so just a lot of repetitions.”
Next up for Parramatta are old rivals, the Bulldogs, who have developed a recent reputation for being giant-killers of late, adding Souths to their list last week.
“They’ve got a really good defence, so we’re going to have to kick to the corners and hold the ball, don’t try to force anything,” Moses said.
THE RISE OF PARRAMATTA HALFBACK MITCHELL MOSES
*Runs: 2018 – 2.9 per game, 2019 – 3.5
*Try assists: 2018 – 10, 2019 – 29
*Line break assists: 2018 – 9, 2019 – 16
*Tackle busts: 2018 – 32, 2019 – 47