Is this Parramatta’s date with destiny?

It's 1986; the great Bob Hawke is Prime Minister, John Farnham releases his chart-topper You're the Voice, Crocodile Dundee is the highest grossing film at the box office, and the Parramatta Eels win their fourth NSWRL premiership.

At the time, it surely felt like there would be another very soon because that team was incredibly dominant.

The Eels won each of their three previous titles in the same decade (1981, 1982 and 1983) and produced one of the greatest sides of all time.

Now, it's 36 years later, and our great PM has passed, John Farnham has taken ill, Crocodile Dundee has a terrible sequel, and the Eels haven't won another comp.

You could dissect the whys and hows for thousands upon thousands of words, and people have. Everyone expected them to win in 2001, but the Knights blew them out of the water in the first half of the decider. And in 2009, they lost to the biggest salary cap incident in the game's history.

But now they are in the final once again, and all the anguish Eels fans have faced in the last 36 years can be erased with just one more win.

This scenario summons a magnificent sensation only sport can conjure. I can't quite name it, but I can describe it.

The feeling that it's time - the feeling the Cronulla Sharks had in 2016 like nothing could stop them because it was finally time.

That feeling is starting to surround Parramatta.

Perhaps its source is that things become significantly harder next year for the Eels as Isaiah Papali'i and Reed Mahoney among others leave the club.

Maybe it's because Mitch Moses is playing the best football of his career.

Or possibly it's just because it's been so long for one of Australia's most passionate fanbases, and they deserve the drought to end.

It brings to mind the concept of destiny, which is not something everyone believes in, and I'm not sure I do either.

But should images of Clint Gutherson lifting the Provan-Summons Trophy become burned into NRL history, then it'll be hard not to think it was some kind of fate.

It feels this way because they face a side capable of replicating the 80s Eels dynasty. They boast Nathan Cleary and Jarome Luai, the competition's best halves paring, bolstered by Liam Martin, Isaah Yeo and Apisai Koroisau.

This is a side talented enough to win four premierships or more this decade, without a doubt. And it's a side who handily beat Parra in Week 1 of the finals.

So in this battle of the west, it will come down to which Eels players stand up and say no to these would-be giants of the game. Moses and Gutherson will be the two all Parramatta fans will have their eyes on, and it may well be down to them to end the drought.

But if they stumble on the grand stage, it could be Dylan Brown and the pair of mighty props, Junior Paulo and Reagan Campbell-Gillard, next to him, who make the difference.

Or possibly even the unassuming Jakob Arthur, who's having perhaps the craziest season of any player in the NRL. Should he come on and make the difference, it'll be one of the greatest grand final moments ever, and he'd do it with his dad as coach, who most thought would be sacked by now.

So that's the state of play for the Eels, it's all already known, and it's now at the stage where there's little left to do but play.

But I will say it again and say it clear, this is their time, because if not now, when?