Parramatta coach Brad Arthur concedes he has no idea who his fullback will be next year as up to half-a-dozen candidates vie for the No.1 jersey.
Jarryd Hayne is the obvious choice for the key position, but the cross-code star remains without a contract due to the club’s salary cap dramas. The Eels need to offload at least one player to fit in Hayne, who was a notable absentee when the players returned to pre-season on Thursday.
In the dark: Brad Arthur is unclear about his best fullback option.AAP
Hayne started just one game – the final-round loss to the Roosters – in the custodian role as Arthur chopped and changed his spine in the hope that it would gel. With doubt growing over his availability, the wooden spooners will consider Bevan French, Clint Gutherson, Will Smith, Josh Hoffman and even Corey Norman as alternate options.
“Good question. I don’t know,” Arthur said when asked who will fill the position.
“My thoughts are that I can’t wait for them all to get back, rip in and train hard.
“Bevan French is keen to make a fist of the fullback role, I’m sure Clint Gutherson has some aspirations. Will Smith has some aspirations there too and there’s Josh Hoffman. There’s plenty of people that want the opportunity, but reputations won’t count for a great deal at the moment. They will have to earn the right.”
Difficult season: The halves combination between Corey Norman, right, and Mitchell Moses, left, failed to yield results.NRL PHOTOS
Norman also spent time at fullback last year when it was evident his halves combination with Mitchell Moses wasn’t working. Arthur said the pair would be working hard over the summer on their partnership.
“There was nothing wrong with the combination that Corey and Mitchell struck up in 2017,” Arthur said.
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The blue-and-golds have made a raft of changes after conducting a full review after their horror season. Former Wests Tigers coach Mick Potter joins Arthur’s brains trust after a stint as an assistant in Newcastle. The club’s feeder team has been rebranded from Wentworthville to Parramatta and Mark O’Neill recently started as the head of football.
The club will undertake several initiatives to ensure a tighter bond between the players, beginning with an off-season camp in Armidale.
“Overall, we need to try harder to have better relationships,” Arthur said.
“We are hungry. We are not sugar-coating what happened but we can’t continue to talk about last year.
“We’ve dealt with it, it’s there in the back of our minds and we’re not dismissing it. We are hungry as a staff, a playing group and as a club.
“We want to get it right.”
The Eels will play out of the new Western Sydney Stadium from Easter Monday after the club finalised a hiring arrangement just before the NRL draw was released. However, Arthur conceded the fans won’t come if they have another diabolical start to the season.
“We need to earn the right to have people want to come and support their team and watch them play.
“That’s imperative, we can’t turn up there and think everyone will come into a new stadium. We need to give them a reason to come.”
Replies
All I read was Brad Arthur blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah no idea. Yep spot on.
How do you go into a season without your number 1 or number 9 sorted??? This is just amateur hour.
Our best 9 isn't in the top 28 and he has no idea who is playing 1 and he has halves he is trying to offload.
This isn't some bush league this is the best Rugby comp in the world, only at a rabble mediocre club like ours would this be acceptable. The sooner this bum is punted from the club the sooner we can move on and build with this talented crop of juniors coming through.
This man never has any idea what hes going to do, starting to remind me of Steven Kearney
Kearney took over one of the worst roosters in the History of Parra, and in his first year he avoided the spoon.
The roster Arthur had this year was lightyears better but he won the spoon.
SK>>>>>>>>> Bush Bum Huggy Mc Spoon Spoon.
He left before he was pushed coral, it doesn't change the fact in 2011 he took over the worst roster I can remember since 1995. And his second season we barely played with our best player Hayne.
I'm not saying Kearney can coach but Arthur took over a much stronger squad in 2014 and he Jarryd Hayne in Dally M form and we still couldn't make the 8.
The real problem being, this is his sixth season of planning/building towards having a premiership winning team, yet we haven't a settled fullback or dummy half - that's half of your spine who haven't been accouted for.
Then, the unicorns are still backing this guy and are against looking elsewhere until late in 19, and that my friends will be way too late. We're going to end up with John Cartwright guaranteed.
Gurr needs to put his foot down right now and be in negotiations with a future coach. I'm absolutely sick of these Arthur supporting unicorns - especially the mob on that other site.
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