Eels Blogs

Who replaces Arthur for 2019?

He has done a great job navigating us through some dark days & lifting us up off the bottom, but his time is well and truly up. Bernie show some balls and make the call on the coach and the jerseys while your at it. We are not a local C Grade team, we are an NRL team who should strive for excellence like any professional business does.

We are not going to win a premiership with him at the helm and the bottom line is, that is what we are aiming to do every year, are we not? Apparently a great bloke but an average coach who gets on well with the players. We need more than that.

On a side note, I was not a fan of seeing his son next to him in the coaches box tonight, his other son being the ball boy should be enough. It's not the Rouse Hill Rhinos Brad and the players have a sausage sandwich and a can of coke after the game. Its the NRL. I have never seen Craig Bellamy's son sitting next to him in the coaches box or a 12 year old training with the 1st grade side causing unwanted headlines.

I have to agree with Fong's sentiments. In his 5 years our attack and defence has not improved or shown any consistency. We have a team full of rocks or diamonds players who make the same mistakes week in week out and Arthur for some reason can't get consistency out of them. That is his job.

This is the team he assembled so no excuses. There were some great players available to sign during the off-season and the best he could come up with was Kane Evans and unfortunately the Hayne gamble has not paid off due to bad luck with injuries, but he was always going to be a toss of the coin signing.

Our roster consisting of too many "dads army" over paid players and to use Al Hunts words "money ball players" has clearly not worked.

Our junior development and pathway to 1st grade under his watch has been dog shit. Look at the Penrith production line, why are we not capable of doing the same? And why have junior players he punted kicked on at other clubs when given an opportunity?

The unicorn came out in me last year where I talked myself into believing we were a top 4 side, but deep down I knew we over achieved thanks to a very favourable draw, some luck and Semi Radradra.

It was probably the worst thing that could have happened really and just put a big band-aid over our problems that has well and truly been ripped off come round 1 2018. We simply aren't up to it or even progressed like the weaker teams have in 2018.

I won't watch the press conference because lets call a spade a spade we have heard the same bullshit excuses rolled out week after week too long now. 

Enough is enough. Time to make tough decisions and plan for 2019, give the new coach time to recruit players and do a clean out, opposed to letting Arthur re-sign players.

The new stadium looks amazing. Lets start a new era upon its opening where mediocracy is not acceptable anymore and we are a professional outfit that doesn't settle for a steak sandwich and a can of coke for trying hard.

"The effort was there.... we need to be better.....we can't keep gifting them field position....we gave away too many penalties....we made 100 more tackles then them.... we are not giving ourselves a chance...discipline cost us"...blah, blah, blah.

The record is broken Brad. The season is over. Time for the excuses to be over. 

Make the call Bernie before it gets too late, or it will be just like the new jerseys.... we will be stuck with the same crap for 2019.