Wests Tigers 18 Eels 26

UM … what do you say about that? Magic, madness and more magic. Take your pick of the flicks, served with chips, in the highlights package – which will be long.

Take that ... Gareth Ellis is on the receiving end of Joel Reddy's elbow. Photo: Steve Christo

How often do you find the most hyped occasions end in anti-climax? But this was no Star Wars III. Scrap the think tank for the next NRL ad. Just play this on high-rotation. Or just show Jarryd Hayne, whose chip and chase clinched the result. To the neutral at least, and no doubt the Parramatta faithful, it was the perfect end to a perfect night.

There was magic elsewhere. None of the offloads in Jeff Robson’s 65th-minute try were as good as Benji Marshall’s first-half effort, but in quantity they beat quality. Five wonderful balls in the one magestic movement. The night also gave us another audacious, bodacious piece of Benji brilliance, which may even be the longest lasting of the highlights; a flick which brought back memories of his effort in the 2005 decider. Only it was better. The only difference was that it couldn’t give his opposition the flick on this occasion.

The Eels powered on, thanks in part to their own wizard in Hayne, who chipped and chased after 73 minutes and just had too much pace and panache for the Tigers, but also due to their ability to repel and repel and finally rev themselves up.

It is something of a shame that Marshall’s magic did not have more impact on the result, but it won’t dilute it much. A double-dummy and flick to Blake Ayshford for the Tigers’ first try: a high degree of difficulty, that one, but somehow he pulled it off.

Bryce Gibbs’s first-half penalty try would have more impact on the result, letting the Eels back into the contest in one play and giving Hayne and his men a sniff.

Of course, this game was built for brilliance, custom-made for a cracker. Parramatta are truly a strange being. It is one of life’s great mysteries – like how there is less of Magda Szubankski but we are seeing more of her – that the Eels are where they are now after the way they played earlier in the season. Or maybe the mystery is how a side with so much talent, and the football they have played during their run has proved there is a fair bit of that, has played like that earlier in the season.

And then there is the Tigers, a team which can look beautiful and bad within the same play. And, certainly, the same season.

Both these sides have shaken off their inconsistencies in recent weeks but something had to give. Unfortunately, the first thing that did was Taniela Tuiaki’s ankle.