3 minute read

Mitchell Moses will take control of Parramatta in the halves this season, and all the early signs are good with rookie NRL five-eighth Dylan Brown outside him.

Mitchell Moses is ready to make Parramatta his team in 2019 with rookie five-eighth Dylan Brown showing all the right signs after his first showing outside his senior half at the Eels.

For so long one of the NRL's youngest halves, Moses is now aged 24 and has more than 100 first-grade games under his belt headed into this season.

Crucially too, he is by far the senior statesman of his halves pairing for the first time in his career, ready to take more control with the 18-year-old Brown in the No.6 jersey.

Playing together for the first time in Friday night's 22-20 trial loss to Canberra, the pair immediately looked a good fit.

Brown took on the line at will, regularly threatening to poke through the defence while Moses had a hand in the Eels' first three tries to set up an early 20-0 lead.

"It definitely feels a lot different," Moses said.

"I'm used to being that young kid still coming through, I had Normy (Corey Norman) there last year so I was still the young half.

"It's a lot on me as well to take pressure off him, letting him do what he did tonight. I was kind of taking control of what we were doing.

"Dyl had the chance to take on the line like he did, he created a fair few opportunities for himself and almost got over the line two or three times. That's what we want him to do."

The pair are at the centre of a new-look Parramatta spine that got through the first 52 minutes together on Friday night before the Raiders mounted their comeback.

Reed Mahoney was solid and error-free at hooker, and is now an almost certain starter at No.9 against Penrith in round one with Kaysa Pritchard battling to return from shoulder and groin injuries.

Clinton Gutherson also showed signs of his best at fullback, setting up two tries after last year's pre-season was ruined by knee surgery that ended his breakthrough 2017 year early.

"I think Gutho is back - he looked a lot better than how he was last year, he looked a lot freer," Moses said.

"He was obviously coming off his knee reconstruction, everyone knows it's always tough coming off that for the first year. He's got that full pre-season out and he looked pretty good.

"To have him firing for us is going to be big this year."