The Wests Tigers won 31-12 at Allianz Stadium in Round 24 last year, their sixth consecutive win in a nine-victory streak towards the back end of 2011.
The home side had the contest in control when they led 16-nil at halftime following tries to Blake Ayshford, Matthew Utai and Benji Marshall inside the 27-minute mark. But the Eels rallied after the break, bridging the scoreline to 16-12 through tries to Chris Hicks and Ben Smith and with still almost half an hour of play left.
However, a poor one-on-one defensive effort from Jarryd Hayne on opposition centre Ayshford saw the Tiger brush aside his opponent and race 50 metres to score his second try of the game and give the home side a comfortable 22-12 buffer. A penalty and field-goal built on their lead before Benji Marshall looped a wonderful cut-out pass for Beau Ryan to ice their cake.
Missed tackles killed the Eels – they missed a whopping 50 on the afternoon and conceded seven line busts to the red-hot Tigers who were best served by fullback Tim Moltzen (173 metres, a try assist and eight tackle-breaks) and five-eighth Marshall who ran 114 metres and broke six tackles.
Jarryd Hayne contributed two try assists for the Eels but missed six important tackles – while centre Justin Horo was a turnstile in defence, missing 10 tackles.
