Their standards also rose and fell according to the standard of their opponents in the Shute Shield first-grade rugby union competition, he said.

They were good against the best, not so good against the lesser teams.

Hollins was half right.

Parramatta didn't rise to the standard of Eastern Suburbs at Granville Park on Saturday but they certainly went down.

They more than went down; they were positively subterranean.

The result was a 64-0 embarrassment.

The game was over when Easts scored five tries inside the first 15 minutes and it was 47-0 at halftime.

``We didn't want to play in the first half, we were terrible,'' Hollins said.

``At halftime we asked them to at least show some ticker and they did. Easts didn't score for the first 25 minutes of the second half.''

Hollins said there was no-one banging down the door asking to be promoted from reserve grade; they'd been beaten by 80.