Eels' Easter rookies primed for Monday blockbuster

Eels starts Dylan Brown and Reagan Campbell-Gillard are both hyped to take part in their first ever Easter Monday clash when the Eels face the Wests Tigers at Stadium Australia this weekend.

The Easter blockbusters were just one of the scheduling casualties of last year's COVID shutdown, denying Brown and RCG their first taste of the traditional clash.

Former Tiger Ryan Matterson, Blake Ferguson, Tom Opacic and Isaiah Papali'i are the other Eels in line for their first taste of Easter Monday football.

"Last year [it wasn't on] then the year before I was out, that's when I started my back injury," Brown recalled.

"I remember that game quite vividly, Mitch [Moses] went over in the corner so that was pretty cool.

"It would have been better if I was on the field playing but it was unreal to watch. That was the first Bankwest game, that was such a cool day.

"Mitch was telling me it was the best game to play because it's not only Tigers fans and Parra fans, it's everyone that loves footy. It's Easter, it's Monday, hopefully the crowd turns up."

Moses had a day out in that 2019 match that christened the new Bankwest Stadium with a memorable runaway try, seven goals and a field goal in the 51-6 win.

"I watched that one and I'm pretty excited to be a part of it," Campbell Gillard said.

"It will be my first Easter Monday clash. Both teams are coming off wins, it should be a really good game on Monday."

Brown expected Moses to recover from last Saturday's head knock given the nine-day turnaround but praised the efforts of Will Smith off the bench in the win over the Sharks.

"I think he's good to go, he wanted to come back on and play. He's good, he's training as if he's going to play," Brown said.

"If Mitch isn't there Will's shown what he can do.

"He's got loads of experience and he's used to coming on and filling a role. It just ended up being a few more minutes this week but it made the game so much easier for the rest of the team.

"Joey Johns has been coming in and working with not just me but the whole spine so we're all ready to go and it helps a lot with that depth."

One player Brown will be on high alert for is his former junior Eels teammate Stefano Utoikamanu, fresh off a win and his first NRL try against the Knights last round.

"They've got a real young team, real exciting team. It's good to see my mate Stefano get over the line last week, that was unreal, everyone was cheering for him," Brown said.

"It will be good to play against him, seeing him play week in week out at the Tigers is pretty cool but we're going to be enemies this weekend.

"He was one of the players I started off with and played each grade with Haze (Dunster) and Oregon (Kaufusi). My first year here Stefano was in my team then we went up together. I don't really want to be tackling him!

"He's always been quite fast. He's huge but at the same time he's very agile. Seeing him go through, it was good."

Campbell-Gillard also praised his former teammates emergence since shifting to Concord.

"He's obviously gone over there for an opportunity and got the opportunity to play and he's playing good football, playing some big minutes as well," Campbell-Gillard said.

"I like seeing any front rower scoring tries! I'm sure he'll be having a red hot crack as well. He's still young, still learning the game and his development's only going to get better and better. He's cemented a spot over there in their top 17, got his first meat pie and I'm excited for him."