This week the NRL's night of nights will be held, with or without the players, according to Todd Greenberg.
For most pundits and indeed fans, the coach of the year is between the Melbourne Storm's Craig Bellamy and the Sydney Roosters' Trent Robinson.
Yet after his side were knocked out by the North Queensland Cowboys a little over a week ago, it seems everyone has forgotten about Parramatta Eels mentor Brad Arthur.
The Blue and Gold head coach should be seen as coach of the year following a season where the Eels surprised experts and fans alike.
His two main competitors for the coaching gong have squads that are much more impressive and should have finished where they did.
Bellamy's Melbourne are rightfully at the top of the tree and favourites to win the grand final. But does leading a side with three modern-day greats then mean you get coach of the year?
Well done to the Storm on a great season but did we expect anything less of them? They were backed from top four from the start of the season and didn't really surprise in their consistent performance over the course of the year.
Trent Robinson is perhaps the closest to Brad Arthur here. Robinson took his side from 15th last year to the preliminary final.
However, as Triple M's Ryan Girdler and Dan Ginnane pointed out over the weekend, the Roosters finished 15th last year due to a horror season of off-field and on-field issues.
Mitchell Pearce was suspended, Boyd Cordner injured along with Jared Waerea-Hargreaves.
Add those three players back into any side and they'll no doubt be challenging at the business end of the year.
They probably surprised a few people by finishing second but, with their roster, is it really any surprise they made the finals? Last year was but a mere blip on the radar for a Roosters team had won three minor premierships in a row.
Now, at the start of the year most experts tipped the Eels to be fighting for a final spot in the eight come round 26.
I doubt anyone tipped them as top four contenders.
In the past 18 months Brad Arthur's side has been stripped of competition points and lost their halfback, best forward and now representative hooker.
During this season the Eels were hit hard by injury, having to call upon their third string fullback Will Smith who had also been forced into the hooker role earlier in the season.
They had also been left with no option but to promote Cameron King from Wentworthville after their two first choice hookers went down.
Arthur also had to contend with coaching a halves partnership that was formed mid-season
If you were to go to pretty much any other team in the competition and remove their top two fullbacks and hookers I doubt you'd see them in the finals let alone the top four. The one caveat here is probably the Cowboys who have had a similarly tough season on the injury front.
Arthur also had very few experienced players to turn to in order to lead the side on the field. Co-captain Beau Scott spent a large chunk of the season injured with the only other heavily experienced player being Michael Jennings.
The Eels coach continuously adapted throughout the season as his injury ward grew with the blue and gold at one point having Beau Scott, Tepai Moeroa, Isaac De Gois, Peni Terepo, Frank Pritchard and Bevan French all injured.
Parramatta have no current representative players bar a sole Prime Minister's XIII jersey for Corey Norman off the bench.
That's it, no Big Three, no representative forward pack, no Origin halves or captains. He had two former Origin players and one former Kiwi representative.
Yet the Eels finished above 12 other teams in the competition when most expected them to fall short.
Brad Arthur is the glue that holds this side together. Against Top 4 opponents his win/loss record this season was three wins and two losses, beating Wayne Bennett's Broncos twice, Bellamy's Storm once and losing their only match to the Roosters.
What else does Arthur have to do to be named coach of the year?
Replies
If finals matter at all Paul Green should be coach of the year. Parramatta were unfortunately poor in the finals, we got unlucky against the Storm and probably should have won that game, but let ourselves down with late penalties (the forward pass try to Addo-Carr was unfortunate but these things happen sometimes). Parrramatta also under performed massively against the Cowboys, while they have been rock solid in all 3 of their final games.
I think if Gutherson and French stayed fit we would be in the grand final right now but it wasn't to be.
Paul Green for sure
Voting closed at the end of Round 26, so the Cowboys had only squeezed into the finals after the Dragons bottled it.
Paul Green should be the Coach of the Year mate.
70% of his team out injured for best part of 70% of the season and the Cows are playing the GF.
FFS - what criteria are they looking at?
Brad Arthur is not even top 4 imo.
What else does Arthur have to do to be named coach of the year?
1) Instill DISCIPLINE and respect for the ball into his team.
2) Teach the team to read a clock and PLAY the full 80 minutes.
Anything that happens after Round 26 is irrelevant as that is when voting ended.
In regard to playing the full 80 minutes, the Roosters perhaps went the entire season without playing a full 80 minutes, same could be said of the Broncos.
Paul Green because they've made the grand final?
Paul green has done a great job but let's be honest they were lucky to even get there.But his team are playing good footy.
The thing that shits me Is these experts keep saying they are depleted severely,bollocks even without Thurston and Scott they have 12 premiership winning players as well as 4 origin players so they are milking it there.
Yes. From Eighth - pretty impressive achievement in anyone's book.
Well, as I've already mentioned, voting closed at the end of the regular season. So do they still get your vote when you remove finals given the Cowboys only just scraped in?
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