Eels Blogs

Eels players slam rumours of rift with Arthur

By Adrian Proszenko

19 April 2018 — 5:49pm

Furious Parramatta players held an honesty session to address rumours Brad Arthur had lost the dressing room, vowing to earn the wins required to take the pressure off their coach.

As soon as reports emerged this week that Arthur had fallen out with his charges, Brad Takairangi posted a link to the offending article on the players’ group chat. What followed was a frank exchange between the squad in which the players backed Arthur and took responsibility for the Eels’ poor performances.

The players subsequently gathered at their training headquarters at Old Saleyards Reserve, away from the coaching staff, to address the issue.

“It’s stupid,” Clint Gutherson said of the Arthur speculation.

“One of the boys saw it on Instagram and put it on the group chat

Everyone was furious about it because it’s a lie. He has got so much respect from all of the team and staff and the club. Someone’s just writing that just to get some hits or something.

“It’s absolutely stupid.

“We spoke about it the other day. We feel for Brad and the staff, they put so much effort into us, helping us get the win and the upper hand. They have sleepless nights trying to find ways for us to win and we keep going out there and losing.

“I feel bad for him and the staff more than ourselves. We’re letting them down and they’re going into bat for us, why we’re not winning. We’re just not playing well.”

The Eels opened their season with six straight losses, sparking a flurry of rumours ranging from the coach losing the team to the players turning on each other. Arthur has made a raft of changes in a bid to exact revenge on a Manly side that flogged them 54-0 just a month ago.

“We can’t have people talking about our coach like that when it’s not right,” utility Will Smith said.

“That got under a lot of the boys’ skin, that we read that sort of stuff.

“That’s far from the truth. Everyone loves Brad and the rest of the coaching staff here.

“I haven’t been at a club where the coach works as hard as he does for the team.”

Kane Evans, who joined the Eels from the Roosters in the off-season, said the side is desperate to start winning to put the rumours to bed.

“[Arthur] puts his heart and soul into everything and we haven’t been performing as players and it looks bad for him,” Evans said.

“But he’s the man.

“He’s invested so much time into us and we have to pay it back to him and the club and the fans.”

Paramatta forward Peni Terepo said there was “a lot of tension in the room” when they gathered privately to support their coach.

“That’s pretty touchy, the stuff about the coaches there, especially for Brad,” Terepo said.

“If anything else, we want to play for him and the rest of the coaching staff too, they play really hard.

“We’ve had a great couple of seasons and to see what’s come out, a lot of negative stuff like that, it does piss you off a little bit.”

Arthur dropped co-captain Beau Scott and winger Bevan French from the side that lost to the Sharks in a reshuffle that includes the return of Jarryd Hayne on the wing. Gutherson, who made a successful return from his second ACL setback last weekend, remains at fullback.

“He’s let me build my career here,” Gutherson said of Arthur.

“I didn’t really come from anything, I’d only played a handful of games, and he’s had trust in me that I would get better and what he saw would come out. It has eventually and I owe pretty much my whole career to him at this stage and am forever grateful.”