Parramatta Eels blow Canberra Raiders out of the NRL finals

Parramatta out ran them, out offloaded and handed the Canberra Raiders their biggest ever finals loss.

The Eels blew them off Parramatta Stadium with a 40-4 victory to end the Raiders' five-game winning streak.

They'll face the North Queensland Cowboys in Townsville next Friday with a spot in the grand final on the line.

It ended Raiders coach Ricky Stuart's perfect finals record of making the preliminary final on all seven of his previous finals campaigns as coach.

The Raiders suffered some early bad luck, losing Corey Harawira-Naera with a head knock for most of the game.

Raiders star Jack Wighton was put on report for a high shot on Mitchell Moses - that led to some all-in push-and-shove - but there was nothing in it.

Parramatta have an injury concern with Tom Opacic limping off with a hamstring injury.

The Eels were known for their fast starts and this was frenetic.

Right from the get-go they were all over the Raiders with their second-phase football.

Their forward pack completely dominated, with all five of their starters running for more than 100 metres in the opening stanza.

Both Canberra and Parramatta were the two leading offloading teams in the NRL, but it was all Eels in this department as well.

They were seemingly doing it at will and led the count 10-1 at half-time.

They also led the only important statistic, the score, 22-4 at the break.

And it probably should've been more with the Eels bombing a certain Clint Gutherson try through a forward pass and then Maika Sivo losing the ball in the put-down.

Parramatta punished an early Jordan Rapana error, with Eels centre Will Penisini splitting the Raiders' left edge.

A controversial call proved a double whammy for Canberra - Gutherson clearly knocked the ball out of Rapana's hands as he was looking to score and it should've been an Eels goal-line dropout.

But it was ruled a loose carry.

Then, as the home side went straight up the other end to score, Raiders young gun Xavier Savage was clean-bowled through his legs by a Dylan Brown grubber for Opacic to score.

It was a case of deja vu for Brown - he dominated against the Raiders the last time the teams played and he did it again, running for 257 metres, producing a line break, a line-break assist and a try assist.

He and Moses combined to create a Waqa Blake overlap, before ex-Raider Junior Paulo went straight through the Canberra middle for tries.

The sole highlight for the visitors was some Savage brilliance.

He got the ball on his own 15m, sliced straight through the Eels' line and showed he's got a handy fend on Gutherson for an 85m effort.

Wighton had a couple of chances to get on the end of kicks, but he was offside for one and dropped the other.

They did at least stem the bleeding of the first half - although a Paulo offload sent Moses away to score and then Marata Niukore crossed twice to spark the Eels fans into their own rendition of the Viking clap.

AT A GLANCE

PARRAMATTA EELS 40 (Marata Niukore 2, Will Penisini, Tom Opacic, Waqa Blake, Junior Paulo, Mitchell Moses tries; Moses 6 goals) bt CANBERRA RAIDERS 4 (Xavier Savage try) at Parramatta Stadium. Referee: Ashley Klein. Crowd: 29,134.