{"id":240177,"date":"2022-09-21T00:04:50","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T00:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=240177"},"modified":"2022-09-22T00:00:12","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T00:00:12","slug":"jt-puts-question-mark-over-eels-travel-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=240177","title":{"rendered":"JT puts question mark over Eels' travel plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Parramatta Eels<\/a> have confirmed that they won't travel up to Townsville for their preliminary final against North Queensland<\/a> until Thursday, prompting raised eyebrows from the Cowboys' favourite son.<\/p>\n

"They're well and truly here for a hit and run mission," Johnathan Thurston<\/a> said on Nine's 100% Footy<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffJust get the game done, and get the win and get out of here – I would have been bringing the team up [earlier] to try and acclimatise."<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Bulldogs' $3 million bid to retain gun revealed\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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It's one of those situations where no matter what the Eels do, they'll be second guessed – when in reality, it's tough to imagine a scenario where they could prepare for the conditions regardless.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Not only have the Cowboys never lost a finals game at home, \ufeffthey've only lost three games in their history in Townsville in the month of September, when the days get longer and the nights get muggier.<\/p>\n

"The days are hot, and it's a humid night as well," Thurston said.<\/p>\n

"They will struggle, and we've seen that in Darwin when the boys played at the start of the year against each other, but \ufeffthe Parramatta side are a totally different side to that game."<\/p>\n

Both Souths and Roosters fans were cheering for the Cowboys to win their elimination final against the Sharks, while Eels supporters were pulling for Cronulla – not because of the respective quality of the teams, but because of the gruelling travel.<\/p>\n

\"NRL<\/p>\n

While Penrith and Souths will get to remain in Sydney for the entirety of the finals, whoever wins this game will be flying back from Townsville – and in the Cowboys' case, for the second time in three weeks.<\/p>\n

Stream the NRL premiership 2022 live and free on<\/strong><\/em> <\/em>9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\ufeff"Playing in Townsville, you're used to the travel – that's what you've got to do when you live up here," Thurston said.<\/p>\n

Temperatures are expected to get close to 30 degrees during the day on Friday, and still hovering in the mid-20s at kick-off.<\/p>\n

But it's the humidity – forecasted to be at over 80 per cent during the match – that is the real issue.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"It's going to play a massive role in the outcome of the game – if I was the Cowboys I'd certainly be keeping the ball in play as much as possible," Thurston said.<\/p>\n

"The humidity factor is what makes it a lot \ufeffharder, it makes the ball a lot slipperier as well. That's where all the errors can come from, with good contact under the ball."<\/p>\n

These two teams have met in a preliminary final once before, when the minor premiers were totally shell-shocked by an upstart Cowboys team back in 2005, who beat them 29-0 at Homebush before going on to lose the grand final to the Wests Tigers a week later. \ufeff<\/p>\n

\ufeff\ufeffFor a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Parramatta Eels have confirmed that they won't travel up to Townsville for their preliminary final against North Queensland until Thursday, prompting raised eyebrows from […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240177"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=240177"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240179,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240177\/revisions\/240179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=240177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=240177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=240177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}