Friday Focus: Round 6 vs Eels

A victory would kickstart Wests Tigers’ season and a convincing win could see the joint-venture jump their Inner West rivals on the ladder.

With plenty of potential strike power in both teams, there will be a heavy reliance on Luke Brooks and Mitchell Moses to steer their sides around the park.

For this week’s Friday Focus, we zoom in on the battle of the two former teammates who are set to go head-to-head in the number seven jersey on Monday afternoon.

Wests Tigers fans will be hoping that Luke Brooks can continue his strong Easter Monday record, with the halfback developing into a Public Holiday specialist in the early years of the clash.

Brooks scored two tries and kicked a match-winning field goal as his side triumphed in the first two Easter Monday matches in 2014 and 2015.

He then put on a starring performance at five-eighth in last year’s upset victory over the Eels, registering two try assists and two line-break assists.

Under the tutelage of Tim Sheens, Brooks has been openly encouraged to run the ball more this season and has already accumulated half of his total running metres from 2022.

For the visitors, Mitchell Moses will be intimately familiar with his opposite number having come through the Balmain pathways alongside Luke Brooks.

The pair worked together to help the Tigers break their 30-year premiership drought in the S.G. Ball Cup, before being selected for Australian Schoolboys and playing three-and-a-half seasons of first grade together.

Since defecting to the Eels during the 2017 season, Moses has played eleven games against his former club and impressed in those performances with four tries and 45 conversions.

Capable of impacting the result through his running, passing or kicking game, Moses currently leads the competition in kick metres and sits within the top five players in the league for points scored in 2023.