Thirty seven-year record standing in Parramatta’s way on the charge to the finals
Paul Crawley, The Daily Telegraph August 4, 2017 6:45pm
IT’S the record that stands between Brad Arthur’s no frills Parramatta Eels and rugby league history.
While the Eels rose to glory in the 1980s with one of the greatest teams ever assembled, today they are the only team in the NRL top eight without a current Origin player.
Not only that, they also don’t have any current internationals from Australia, New Zealand or England.
But if Arthur’s unsung heroes are to continue their charge all the way to premiership glory, they will have to overcome a record that has since before the Eels won their first premiership in 1981.
Fox Sports Stats shows that since State of Origin kicked off in 1980, no team has been able to win a grand final without a current player from NSW, Queensland, or one of the top tier rugby league nations.
In fact, in that time only the Wests Tigers in 2005 have been able to do it without a current Origin player.
Tim Sheens at least had an emerging superstar in Benji Marshall, who had already made his debut for New Zealand before he starred in the Tigers’ stunning grand final victory over North Queensland.
It’s not as if the Eels don’t have talent, it just none of their players are currently playing at the top level of rep footy.
Semi Radradra and Michael Jennings have both played for Australia, while Manu Ma’u and Frank Pritchard have represented New Zealand.
Tim Mannah also has four Origin games on his CV, though those date back to 2010-11.
But that’s it for the Eels.
Now compare that to the star-studded rosters some of the other top eight contenders have at their disposal:
• Brisbane has the most current representative players with 10, seven Origin and three Kiwis;
• Melbourne is next with seven Origin players and two Kiwis.
• North Queensland has five Origin players and one Kiwi.
• Cronulla and the Sydney Roosters have five Origin players.
• St George Illawarra has two Origin players, a Kiwi and an Englishman.
• And even Manly, who have been widely praised for their over-achieving roster, has one current Origin player in Jake Trbojevic, and Kiwi Martin Taupau.
While Arthur doesn’t want his players to get ahead of themselves with four rounds of the regular season remaining, what is obvious to all is that Parramatta won’t be going into the finals just to make up the numbers.
They have now won their last six straight games and on the back of their crushing 20-4 win over the Bulldogs on Thursday night, even had Eels legend Peter Sterling was re-evaluating his initial thoughts.
“If they finish top four anything can happen,” Sterling said, after previously thinking 2017 was too early to be rating the Eels a genuine premiership contender.
“You wouldn’t want to be playing Parramatta in the last month, not with their confidence up.”
It’s a credit to Arthur who has been a bit of a forgotten man in the talk about who will be the Dally M coach of the year.
You could make an argument for any of the top eight coaches counting down to the finals with the likes of Craig Bellamy, Trent Robinson, Paul Green and Trent Barrett all doing great jobs.
But if the Eels can continue on and lock down a top four finish, Arthur would be hard to overlook.
“There is no doubt that Brad is doing an excellent job,’ chief executive Bernie Gurr said.
“But we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves.
“The rebuilding of Parramatta is continuing, it’s a journey.
“We are not where we want to be yet internally and with our footy program.
“We know where we want to go.
“It has been quite a large job.
“Everybody in the organisation is on board with what we want to do.”
Replies
That stat means absolutely nothing considering we have former Origin and Test players. Crawley even states it in this useless article. Dope of the highest order!
True
Reckon he will win it...betcha boots on it! Wonder what he could do with the budget most of the ones mentioned above have.
Records are there to be SMASHED.
Fark off morons.