[Source: NRL News]

A first-half double from Kieran Foran has helped the Gold Coast Titans to back-to-back wins for the first time this season with a 26-24 victory to upset the Eels at Magic Round.

Entering the week under an injury cloud, Foran’s two tries in the space of as many minutes – his first career double in eight years – help set the platform for a quality first half from the Titans that they would see through to the end despite Parramatta’s best efforts at a comeback courtesy of a late Andrew Davey try.

The result capped off a spectacular Magic Round weekend with more than 147,000 fans in attendance to witness all four Queensland teams walking away victorious.

Titans forward David Fifita was once again in impressive form and will have no doubt caught the eye of Maroons coach Billy Slater as he pushes his case for a potential Origin recall, while Eels winger Maika Sivo continued his impressive try-scoring form with a hat-trick taking him to nine tries in his past six games.

Despite their first half dominance, Justin Holbrook’s side fell behind on the scoreboard inside the opening two minutes of the game as Clint Gutherson put Sivo over for his 11th try of the year.

It wouldn’t take long for the tide to turn, however, with Gutherson sin binned for a tackle off the ball on Alofiana Khan-Pereira, shifting Mitchell Moses to fullback and creating space on the Eels’ right edge for the Titans to attack.

Just four minutes into Gutherson’s sin bin and Foran had done just that – crossing for two tries in a game for the first time since 2015 to put his side up 10-4.

The 32-year-old was denied a first half hat-trick when Khan-Pereira burst through down the left shortly after, instead opting for the spectacular with a chip over the top of Gutherson to touch down and extend the Titans lead to two converted tries.

Parramatta would begin the second in spookily similar fashion to the way they began the first – opening with an early try to Sivo after some clever work in the build-up from Dylan Brown, before a Gutherson error opened the door for more Titans points, this time a length-of-the-field intercept to Khan-Pereira.

Despite the errors, Parramatta continued to chance their arm and once again brought the match back into an arm wrestle with tries in the 54th and 56th minute to Sivo and Gutherson respectively cutting the Gold Coast’s lead to just four.

Shifted into fullback for the game with AJ Brimson out for a month with a hamstring injury, it was Jayden Campbell who put the icing on the cake for the Titans nine minutes from full-time with his cut-out pass sending Philip Sami away down the right touchline, allowing Kelly to reach out and score the following play.

Parramatta were dealt another blow late on with star halfback Mitchell Moses taken from the field for a head injury assessment in the 73rd minute. The category one assessment means Moses will miss his side’s Round 11 game against Canberra.

“He’s fine now, but it wasn’t good [at the time],” coach Brad Arthur said post-game. “We need to get all the advice from our doctors but the rules are 11 days so we’ll go through the process and make the decision on what’s best for Mitchell.”

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