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'I've got no reason to leave': Eels coach stands his ground

(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

Parramatta coach Brad Arthur says his commute to work would be the envy of most people in Australia as he laughed off reports linking him with a move away from the Eels.

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“I’ve got no reason to leave,” Arthur said on Tuesday. “I drive seven minutes to work. I think everyone would love to drive seven minutes to work and work for Parramatta.”

Reports surfaced on Monday that Arthur’s management firm, Pacific Sports Management, had offered his services to a rival NRL club despite the fact he is contracted to the Eels until the end of 2024.

Arthur labelled the speculation as “funny”.

Canterbury remain without a head coach for next year while there is long-term uncertainty about the head coaching positions at St George Illawarra, Gold Coast and Newcastle.

Arthur has been at the Eels since 2014 but has yet to break the club’s quest for their first premiership since 1986.

“I’m nine years into my job and at some stage every year there’s a question mark around whether I’m the right coach moving forward,” he said.

“It’s just part and parcel of a job that’s results driven.”

Exploring his options now could be a smart move for Arthur. His stock is still high given he has finished in the top eight in four of the last five seasons.

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When they are firing Parramatta are one of the most entertaining and dominant teams in the competition.

This season they have a 11-6 record and sit in sixth spot.

Improving on that beyond 2022 could be more challenging with Isaiah Papalii, Marata Niukore and Reed Mahoney all leaving the Eels at the end of this year.

“This (2022 season) is our best opportunity (at winning a premiership) that I’ve had since being here,” Arthur said.

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“Does it mean it (our premiership window) is shutting? I don’t believe so. We’ve got a lot of good young blokes coming through.”

The knock on Arthur has been his inability to get his side peaking at the right time of the year and that the Eels have often floundered in the big games.

Ahead of Thursday’s home game with Brisbane, the Eels coach has taken his side to the Central Coast to recharge ahead of the remaining six weeks of the season where they will hope to jump into the NRL’s top four.

“We’re in a better position right now than we were this time last year,” Arthur added.

“We still haven’t played our best footy, our besty footy is ahead of us.”

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

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