Watching the carnage, one Parramatta observer said of University: ``They all look five centimetres taller, 10 kilograms heavier and 10 metres faster.''

The Students seemed all of those things as they gave the Two Blues a severe examination, 46-0, in the first half.

It would be unfair to say they taught the Two Blues a lesson, however.

Parramatta know what's required but it was a bit like the extremes of the private v public school debate.

University literally are a professional club. Some estimates have their season's budget as high as $2 million. That's getting near NRL club territory.

Parramatta are an amateur club of hard triers.

Meanwhile, a week's lay-off can invigorate a football team or it can affect rhythm and cohesion.

The latter applied to the PCYC Parramatta Eagles against the Northern Tigers in the NSW Winter Super League soccer on Saturday night.

A lethargic Eagles were lucky indeed to take the three points from their 2-1 win.

The winner arrived on the stroke of fulltime through Freddie Graham, after he latched on to a perfect cross from Chris Camilleri and headed it home.

Only a point now separates the top three teams and the Eagles are a point ahead of Rockdale.

Holroyd Goannas wanted to build momentum going into the second half of the season when they played Northwest in the Sydney Australian Football second-division competition on Saturday.

They got more than momentum: they got a rocket-boosted charge. The Goannas slaughtered their opponents by 160 points in the first meeting between the districts since the old Baulkham Hill days.

Northwest were left dazed by the onslaught which ended 26.11. (167) to 1.1. (7).

The aftermath of the previous week's muddy slog was that despite mainly fine weather through the week, Holroyd's round-11 matches had to be moved from Charles McLaughlin.

This left Holroyd in the unique position of playing home games against East Coast and Norwest at Bruce Purser, the Eagles' home ground.

In basketball, the Parramatta Wildcats men crushed the Northern Suburbs Bears 122-82 but not before getting a bit of a squeeze themselves.

The result was expected but not the early Bears' dominance that saw them leading 26-21 at quarter time.

Scoreboard: Rugby: Merrylands 19 d Warriors 13

League: Eels 21 d Broncos 14