We did well to hold on. The refs kept the Eels in it, they were lying on us for an eternity, to the point that they knew they weren't going to get pinged for it so just lay over us some more. Couple that with 3 of our bench players having 2 games between them before tonight, and it's no surprise we looked ragged for the last 30 minutes.
This massive workload on the young forwards would normally burn them out by the end of the season, but with Glenn, Gillett, McGuire & Sims to come back, they'll be able to freshen up a bit with reduced minutes and be able to unleash hell come finals time.
Apparently Roberts' injury is one he's been carrying for a while, so there's the answer to why we've carried a centre on the bench every single game this year. It's come in extremely handy with unexpected injuries (Kahu, Bird, Opacic, that cursed left centre position), and it's amazing that it's taken until round 11 for Roberts to actually need replacing.