The NRL Tackle: Parramatta Eels coach Brad Arthur under fire after South Sydney defeat
After yet another mystifyingly poor performance from his Eels, it’s coming to a point where Brad Arthur needs to justify he’s the man to end Parramatta’s epic premiership drought.
Lost in the celebration of Latrell Mitchell’s stunning return for South Sydney was the fact this was another serious setback for Parramatta’s premiership campaign.
And Brad Arthur just can’t continue to escape scrutiny for these ridiculously inconsistent performances that are tearing apart the Eels’ best chance to win a title in more than a decade.
We’ve seen over the weekend how Justin Holbrook is the latest NRL coach fighting to save his job with Gold Coast on the bottom of the ladder and going backwards fast.
But for different reasons Arthur’s position is also coming to that point where he needs to justify that he can be the man who can lead this club to that long awaited premiership.
And it’s no good having a team capable of beating heavyweights Penrith and Melbourne when they can’t back it up against the Bulldogs and Wests Tigers, or a Souths team that was admittedly pumped by Latrell’s return but nevertheless humiliated in their most recent game against St George Illawarra.
You also can’t ignore this is Arthur’s ninth season and Parra are yet to make it past week two of the finals on his watch.
Arthur said after the game that effort wasn’t the issue against Souths.
But how does he say that when in the next breath he pretty much blamed the performance on a lack of effort from certain individuals, saying “on different weeks we’ve got different blokes owning their jobs”.
-Paul Crawley
Replies
We should unconditionally praise BA. And give him another 10 years. Heil BA!
Ha ha ha in "more then a decade" ... 37 years bloke ffs
Well we did make the GF in 2009. You don't agree that was a good chance to win a GF?
The majority of successful teams have assistant coaches who have perhaps complemented/identified areas for improvement the head coach has missed-eg Fitzgibbon, Ciraldo -even Hagan for Qld.
Thats not to say they'll make it as a head coach as we've seen with Kearney and OBrien.
Personally I think BAs best role is as an assistant. He certainly had succes at Melbourne and Manly in that role. He's clearly passionate about Parra and from what we've heard the players love him but should he be the person making the hard calls-probably not.
Payton's success at N Qld has been built on making the hard calls
In 2002, Woolf began his coaching career as an assistant coach for the Townsville Brothers in the Townsville & District Rugby League (TDRL) competition. At the same time, Woolf was teaching at Ignatius Park College and coaching their senior rugby league side, winning the Queensland State Schoolboys Championship in 2004.[3]
In 2005, Woolf joined the North Queensland Cowboys as their junior development manager. After holding the role for four seasons, Woolf became the team's NYC coach in 2009. He took the side to the finals for the first time in 2010 and to their first Grand Final in 2011, which they lost in golden point to the New Zealand Warriors.[4]
In 2012, Woolf joined the Brisbane Broncos as an assistant coach to Anthony Griffin.[5]
In 2015, he returned to North Queensland as the inaugural coach of the new Intrust Super Cup side, the Townsville Blackhawks.[6] In the club's first season, the side finished in first place and qualified for the Grand Final, losing to the Ipswich Jets.[7][8]
Woolf was appointed head coach of the Tongan national team in 2014. In October 2015, Woolf recorded his first win with Tonga in the Asia-Pacific 2017 World Cup qualifying game against the Cook Islands.[9] In 2016, Woolf's Tonga team suffered a second straight defeat by Samoa in the Polynesian Cup.[10]
On 26 September 2018, Woolf officially left his role as Blackhawks' head coach, which he held for four seasons, to take up an assistant coaching position with the Newcastle Knights.[11]
On 27 August 2019, Woolf was named interim head coach with Newcastle for the remainder of the 2019 season after Nathan Brown stepped down.[12]
On 10 September 2019, it was announced that Woolf would take up the head coach role at St. Helens in 2020, signing a two-year contract with the club having the option to extend a further year.[13]
He coached St Helens in the club's 8-4 2020 Super League Grand Final victory over Wigan at the Kingston Communications Stadium in Hull.[14]
He coached St. Helens to victory in the 2021 Challenge Cup Final with a 26-12 victory over Castleford at Wembley Stadium.[15] On 9 October 2021, Woolf coached St. Helens to their 2021 Super League Grand Final victory over Catalans Dragons.[16]
Impressive credentials more than Brad Arthur. Why Arthur was given head coaching job is beyond me. Why he's still here after 8 to 9 years with no premiership is even more bewildering. Madge at Tigers, Green at Cowboys were booted and they've won a premiership. Anderson was booted after taking Eels to grand final. Yet, Brad Arthur remains after almost 9 years of nothing. Doesn't add up.
Yep got me stuffed.
Only possible explanation is he's got a dirt file on everyone at the club including the ball boys.
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