The Dyldam Parramatta Eels have gone down to the Brisbane Broncos, suffering a 4-17 loss at Pirtek Stadium in their season opener.
Eels hooker Kaysa Pritchard was shattered with the defeat to kick off the season.
“Definitely not the result we wanted but credit to the Broncos,” Pritchard said.
“They are a great outfit, they turned up and put all their plays together and came away with the win.”
“Broncos are a great outfit and we threw everything we had at them and with Normy not coming back on in the second half, it sort of threw a spanner in the works.”
However with Eels half Corey Norman not returning in the second half, Pritchard said the Blue and Gold would need to learn and lift to deal with the adversity.
“Those things we have to deal with and learn to deal with but we tried our best but we just weren’t on tonight. Hopefully we will be better next week,” Pritchard said.
“It definitely changed our game a lot, but that’s a bit of adversity for us to overcome and we have to learn to deal with it.”
“We will come up with things like this throughout the year but it’s up to us to deal with it.”
And whilst the hooker was devastated with the loss, he was able to shed a smile, coming away from the game uninjured.
“I feel good now and happy to be still standing here at the end of the game.,” Pritchard said.
“Usually I’m in the sheds getting looked at but it feels good to be back out on the field with the boys.”
“I’ll keep trying my best week in week out and try and stay in the side.”