1Eyed View

 Amidst all of the disquiet following Parramatta's turbulent 2018, I have remained steadfast in my support of Brad Arthur.

As an Eels fan, I've suffered through the merry-go-round of coaches and administrators, and I've longed for the stability of clubs like the Storm and Roosters. For every change in coach, comes a raft of associated changes throughout the rest of the coaching staff, playing philosophies and ultimately the players themselves. Rugby League programs are built up over years not months, and we've never given any coach the chance to really settle in and embed their philosophy and ethos in the club. 

Personally, I have always liked Brad Arthur's style of man management. My perception of BA is that he leads by example, is honest and forthright, and demanding but ultimately fair. I've made the comment many times before that he embodies the kind of culture I'd like to see at the club. And up until last year, his time at the club had been an unequivocal success culminating in the Top Four performance of 2017.

And then there was last year. 

A significant factor in why I've pushed for constitutional reform at the club is that the afore-mentioned coaching merry-go-round, was very much connected with the politics of the clubs. Boards threw out coaches not because it was necessarily the right thing to do, but because they needed an election boost. No doubt, a membership-elected board would have thrown Arthur out on his ear leading up to an off-season election. They woud have brought in a shiny new head coach, ditching all that had gone before and promising a new era at the club. Repeat ad infinitum. 

Our current board was under no such pressure, and calmer heads prevailed. The board exercised more practiced corporate governance and procedures. They conducted a football review and waited to review the evidence. And Arthur was given the opportunity to execute a turnaround.

More often than not, the best person to reverse an organisation's fortunes is the current leader. They know better than anyone what went wrong. And if they're able to be honest with themselves, and can objectively review where they came up short, both personally and in their decision making then they're well positioned to do something about it. I think Arthur is the type of person, who will have questioned his own performance last year, as much as any of us supporters.

Secondly, and this was a point I made repeatedly last year. Brad Arthur is still a new coach. 2017 was his first experience with genuine success and 2018 was his first experience with genuine failure. In retrospect, it's not hard to see that the club significantly overperformed in 2017, no doubt partly due to the siege mentality that the club had developed through the proceeding year's salary cap controversy. That success papered over flaws in the club's roster, it's culture and it's personnel. And in 2018, those flaws came home to roost.

Organisations have to be able to suffer a level of failure. It happens to even the best. Let's not forget the Roosters 2016 performance, where a side that had been Premiers a few years earlier dropped to 15th, only narrownly avoiding the spoon. However, an old hand like Politis knew better than to panic. Two years later, the Roosters were Premiers again. Often failure, is the most significant sign post to future successes.

Which is not to say that every leader is capable of a turnaround but all leaders should be given that opportunity, if they can demonstrate they've learnt the lessons and followed that up with decisive action.

To my mind, Arthur did that. He recognised the issue with the size of the pack and recruited appropriately with Paulo and Lane. He made a call on the culture issues and allowed Corey Norman to leave the club while doubling down on Clint Gutherson as a club leader. And he identified a promising group of youngsters and decided to go all-in on a couple of young kids most had never heard of.

It's worth pointing out those youngsters came through a system that Arthur has been very hands-on in developing. Junior programs take a good five years to bear fruit and Arthur can rightly lay claim that the Brown and co. generation developed their football under his programs.

And further to the organisation's credit, the board and executive finally identified that Arthur had not had the necessary support. Without a football director, and a smaller coaching staff than the elite teams, Arthur was at a disadvantage and the club remedied that situation this year.

Arthur also appears to have responded to what many saw as his biggest weaknesses, a lack of ideas when it came to the team's playing style and structures. The team is already playing with far more freedom, with offloads encouraged and more bodies in motion particularly around the ruck. However, at the same time, he hasn't thrown out the baby with the bathwater. The sweep plays that served us so well in 2017 have been reborn with the likes of Lane and Niukore fixing the fundamental issue of edge mediocrity, while Blake Ferguson and Maika Siva have given the team back it's big, powerful finishing wingers who can score when they get one-on-one opportunities.

None of which is to get overly carried away, One game, one win. It's just a start. However, to my mind, the club's root problems have been addressed and quite frankly, the turnaround has been stunning. There was a time towards only the end of last year when I couldn't imagine things being bleaker. Yet, even before the club's debut win, I felt I had a lot of cause for optimism and that's only intensified on the back of Sunday's promising performance.

So Arthur is not out of the woods yet, nor should he be. He has the advantage that opposition teams would have given the Eels little attention during the off-season. The freshness in the club's play, will take time for rivals to cotton on to and there are certainly a few areas of the club's roster that are still looking flimsy and could easily prove to be gaping holes with a single stroke of misfortune. NRL.com reported yesterday that Arthur's tenure will be reviewed in June. To me, that timeframe feels elongated. I think we'll have a pretty firm idea six to eight weeks into the season as to whether Arthur has dug himself and the club out of the mire.

I hope it proves to be the case, not just for 2019 but for the club's next five or six years. If Arthur recovers, he'll be a much better coach for it, and I like what I see in terms of the club's on-field future and the emerging players that are part of it, and consistency will be key to building on that. If Arthur can get the club back into finals contentions, he'll deserve the opportunity to see how far he can take this next episode.

Turning over a coach can be a good thing. New ideas and a fresh perspective are sometimes needed when staleness and complacency sets in. But it's almost always the less preferable, and more riskier option to stability and continuity. I'll continue to back Arthur because if what has been started, keeps developing and building, I think we're going to be a much better club for it.