Grown men were crying in Parramatta’s dressing room after Friday’s 20-12 loss to the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs all-but ended their season – but coach Brad Arthur is still daring to dream.
The Eels, who finished fourth in 2017, have now lost eight of their first 10 games to sit dead last on the NRL ladder.
No team since the Eels in 2006 have made the finals after a 2-8 start, but Arthur believes his players’ emotion after their latest loss is a symbol of hope for the Blue and Golds.
“You can definitely see in the dressing shed there’s plenty of hurt, we’ve got grown men after a football game being brought to tears,” Arthur said.
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“That’s how important it is to them and while it’s important to you if you keep chipping away and working hard it will turn, but it needs to happen.
“And we need to make it happen, we can’t just keep saying it’ll turn and rely on other things, we’ve got to stick together, ride it out and make it happen.
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Told of the stat that only one side has played finals footy from the Eels’ current predicament in the past 12 years, Arthur declared: “We’re going to have to make it two teams aren’t we because we’re not giving up.
“We’re here for the long haul and we’re here for the fight and I reckon we can see it in them but we’ve got to stop with the talking and we’ve got to start putting it on the field,” he said.
“But we ain’t giving up, we’re not rolling over.”
Despite dominating much of the bottom-of-the-table clash against the Bulldogs the Eels found a way to lose.
A refereeing blunder that saw the Bulldogs awarded a repeat set despite replays showing George Jennings had a foot on his own tryline when he caught a kick on the full didn’t help.
And Clint Gutherson’s howler in the next set, when he failed to kick the ball dead allowing Adam Elliott to score the match-winner, summed up the Eels’ miserable season.
“I only saw our screen in the box so I can’t make a comment, I don’t know, it was close,” Arthur said of the Jennings decision.
Told by reporters he had a foot on the line, the coach replied: “Oh well, it’s what it is.”
He also played down Gutherson’s howler, insisting there were other moments in the game that cost the side.
“I haven’t spoken to him at all yet but every player in their career is going to go through an error that they’re not going to be proud of but it’s what it is,” he said.
“… We just needed to be patient, Bev (Bevan French) put on the kick in tackle two (in the 55th minute), and if it’s a try (to Michael Jennings who failed to ground the ball) great, but if it’s not it’s what it is.
“But we just needed to spend some time there and keep chipping away.
“… When you try that hard you deserve better but it doesn’t work out that way, you’ve got to be smarter.
“They’re NRL players and you’ve got to find a way to win that game – the Bulldogs found a way to win it.”
Replies
BA is deluded and devoid of answers, and too gutless to evert give the refs a gobful.
We are last and absolutely dreadful, we will be lucky to avoid the spoon let alone make a run for the finals.
He keeps saying we have to stop talking about it and get it done. He has no idea how to get it done
Imagine what big Jack Gibson would say if he was alive and seeing what a utterly crap coach the eels have ?
The sooner the eels are privatised the sooner we might have some people who have a high level of standards and won't tolerate failure .
I agree the only way we start to play smarter is when the coaching staff start to be smarter with game plans. Loved the way we passed the ball around but wow take the 2 when on offer! Also question the ref they ruined us at the end and a few line breaks. Dogs should of went to bin when they tackled our player and rolled him over after he made the break that killed momentum and a certain try.
Privatization wtf How's manly going with that? Or how Newcastle went? You have to be that bloke that wanted privatization? Wasn't your son's company directly to blame for some tpas. Black corp or some sh$%?
Exactly Michael just about the only surprise tactic which should have paid huge dividend and he didn’t like that he would have preferred we chip away with 1 out plays and put up the bomb. He is losing me more and more each week and I can see Kidwell taking over by the end of the month. We can’t keep doing the same thing and expect a different result and that’s aimed at the ceo coaches and players
Well I’m glad he mentioned that we have to be smarter I’m so sick of hearing we have to work harder, it’s the smarts department that we always seem to fail and it starts with the coaching team.
We tried to go around them to score points ......yet again. Why?
Yet more dumb stuff resulting in dropped balls at crucial times. I’m looking at you Kenny Edwards. Effort is one thing but you’ve got to be smart footballers too. When you haven’t had the ball for 6 sets you don’t push a risky pass to someone in traffic.
Those two issues are what stuffed us last night. We have to get the dumb stuff out of our game or more pointedly the dumb players who keep doing it every week. And we need different points of attack not just block plays trying to create an overlap out wide.
Grown men in tears but Brad Arthur still dares to dream.
Doesn't that just sum us up perfectly. How pathetic.
The fans are in tears most weekends you clowns... but the difference is you've knocked the dreams and aspirations out of us.
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