NRL 2021: Brad Arthur reveals horror Reed Mahoney diagnosis, Eels stand by coach
Parramatta’s faltering season has hit another snag with star hooker Reed Mahoney sent for surgery.
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Parramatta have confirmed the worst on Reed Mahoney, who has been sent for surgery and ruled out for the season.
Mahoney dislocated his shoulder in Friday’s loss to the Rabbitohs after carrying an injury into the match.
Joey Lussick will take over hooking duties.
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Horrible news that Reed Mahoney did suffer a shoulder subluxation again, & will now undergo shoulder reconstruction surgery (via @NRLcom). When damage to joint/surrounding structures or instability is significant, risk of permanent/long term damage can get too high to play on
— NRL PHYSIO (@nrlphysio) August 8, 2021
EELS STAND BY ARTHUR
Parramatta’s hierarchy have thrown their support behind coach Brad Arthur and his struggling playing group with the club adamant the Eels boss can turn the tide heading into the finals.
Eels chief executive Jim Sarantinos declared the past few weeks was “not reflective” of what the team was capable of.
With Parramatta’s top four hopes now on life support, the club was dealt another blow with hooker Reed Mahoney expected to be sidelined for an extended period.
The Eels premiership credentials were again whacked when they lost 40-12 against South Sydney on Friday night. Losses by the Roosters and Manly on Saturday allowed the Eels to cling onto fourth. Parramatta have now lost four of their past five matches with their only win against the Titans during that period.
Despite pressure mounting on Arthur, who has another 12 months left on his deal, Sarantinos said the club had faith the coach and believed the playing group can still make a premiership tilt.
“It’s obviously been a tough few weeks and we’ve been below our best,” Sarantinos told The Sunday Telegraph. “As Brad pointed out after the game, we need to regain some confidence.
“We are sitting fourth because we’ve shown throughout the year that we’re a good football team.
“The last couple of weeks isn’t reflective of who this team is. We’ve got a tough run coming but we have confidence in Brad and our leaders to turn things around and get back to playing their best footy heading into the finals.”
The Eels’ record as premiership heavyweights makes for concerning reading. Before their loss to South Sydney they lost to Penrith and the Roosters and look like a shadow of the team which beat the Storm 16-12 in round two.
Parramatta’s final month of matches is arguably the toughest of any side.
While Arthur declared a top four finish remains a chance, they will need to quickly find form if they are any chance of salvaging this season.
“We’re just down a bit on confidence I think,” Arthur said. “There’s still four weeks to go but we can’t be worrying about the top-four finish at the moment, we’ve got to worry about getting some football back on that we know that we need to be playing and find our rhythm again.”
Parramatta take on Manly on Saturday before a game against the Cowboys. They end the regular season with successive matches against premiership favourites Melbourne and Penrith.
‘CRASHING AND BURNING’: INJURY THREATENS EELS PREMIERSHIP HOPES
—Travis Meyn
Parramatta’s late-season crash has continued after Adam Reynolds broke South Sydney’s all-time points record and the Rabbitohs announced they are genuine NRL premiership contenders with a 40-12 thrashing of the Eels.
The Rabbitohs racked up their ninth straight win with a six–try masterclass on Friday night to bury the struggling Eels at Cbus Super Stadium on the Gold Coast.
To make matters worse for Parramatta, dynamo hooker Reed Mahoney suffered a potential season-ending shoulder injury.
With a top four finish assured, the Rabbitohs have hit their straps at the right time of the year as master coach Wayne Bennett warms up for his final stint in charge of South Sydney.
The Rabbitohs haven’t lost since Round 11 when they were trounced 56-12 by Penrith in Dubbo and have emerged as a genuine title threat alongside Melbourne and the Panthers.
They took a 14-nil lead into halftime against the Eels and racked up 32 unanswered points before Parramatta got on the board.
RABBIT OUT OF A HAT
The Rabbitohs have been in the top four since Round 4 but there has been question marks on whether they are a genuine title threat.
Based on the last two months, the slide of Penrith and the talent in this team they have to be.
While their winning streak has come mostly against bottom eight teams, the Rabbitohs boast the big-game players you need to win finals.
If they can remain fit, seven-time premiership winning coach Bennett will fancy himself when it gets to the money end of the season, particularly with the uncertainty this year has dished up.
“We’ve got a special group of men trying to be the best they can,” Bennett said.
“We’re not doing anything we can’t do, it’s a case of keeping our game together.
“That game was a semi-final game, no doubt about that. They’re the type of games we need. We got challenged big time and answered that.
“As we go up the ladder and play the other teams we will be challenged again. It’s a team on the improve.”
EELS LACK SPARK
The Eels have forgotten how to score points at the wrong time of the year and have a serious creativity problem in their spine as they face tumbling out of the top four.
The Eels have lost four of their past five games and look gone, especially after Mahoney re-injured his troublesome shoulder late in the game.
Parramatta went 140 minutes without scoring, dating back to their Round 19 loss to Canberra, and didn’t cross until the 56th minute when they were trailing Souths 32-nil.
Halfback Mitchell Moses was below his best in his return from a painful back injury and needs more help from five-eighth Dylan Brown.
Brown has remarkably only created one try-assist in 16 games this year – a shocking statistic for a key playmaker.
In contrast, South Sydney No. 6 Cody Walker has registered 31 try-assists in 19 games this season and terrorised Parramatta in tandem with Latrell Mitchell.
“It’s disappointing, they just outplayed us, they were too good,” Eels coach Brad Arthur said.
“There’s still four weeks to go. We can’t be worried about the top four, we have to find our rhythm again. We need to be able to move on from this.
“The last couple of games we haven’t been good. We can’t panic, we did a lot of work early to get ourselves in a reasonable position.
“We don’t think it’s great (for Mahoney), he will have to get scans. It could be the end of him for the year.”
REYNOLDS BECOMES A RABBITOHS LEGEND
Reynolds became South Sydney’s all-time leading point scorer in his final season at the club.
Reynolds eclipsed the record of 1841 career points set by Eric Simms in 1975, taking his tally to 1850 with 16 points against the Eels.
It took Reynolds 225 games to set a new record for Souths, with his tally coming from 37 tries, 839 goals and 22 field goals.
He will depart Redfern at season’s end with one of the most prestigious records next to his name and it is well-deserved for a player who’s been a great servant.
“I couldn’t have done it without my teammate scoring tries, I get to kick the goals,” Reynolds said.
“It’s something I’ll look back at at the end of my career. There’s a lot more I want to do here at Souths which will be my main focus.
“We’re continually working hard each week. The coach is doing a fantastic job to get us prepared each week.”
JOHNS: CAN ARTHUR FIX FATAL FLAW IN EELS’ GAME PLAN?
—Matthew Johns
Is Brad Arthur capable of taking the Eels to a title?
The answer to the question will come after the club’s next five matches.
Parramatta face Souths on Friday night, followed by Manly, North Queensland, Melbourne and Penrith. Only the Cowboys look like a straightforward win.
Given Parramatta’s recent form, a top-four position looks shaky.
But first things first, the Eels need to address how they are going about their football. Last week’s loss to the Roosters was alarming.
Sure, no Mitch Moses, but that excuse doesn’t carry a lot of weight when you consider the Roosters are going about their football with a roster decimated by injury, some of whom are their most important players.
There’s been plenty of criticism of Parramatta’s attack, some of which came from Eels legend Peter Sterling, saying their attack is too one-dimensional, with not enough ball movement. It’s criticism Arthur rejected, but it’s plain to see the criticism had merit.
I like it when Parramatta move the football around, but not when they manufacture it.
When Parramatta play a strong power game, with plenty of short passing and footwork, they produce offloads, and this is when Parramatta look dangerous … playing fast, pushing the ball to the edge, or the halves taking on the disrupted defence, which an offload creates.
I don’t like the Eels’ pre-organised attacking shapes, and I like them even less when I see their forwards trying to lay lateral marks on the field as set-up plays.
It pushes their attack sideways lacking punch and unpredictability.
The Eels struggle to threaten the best defences because these high quality defence lines easily recognise Parramatta’s attacking formations.
Last week Parramatta was given opportunity after opportunity early, but the Roosters rarely looked threatened. From there you could see the Eels’ confidence dwindle away.
Equally as concerning for Arthur was how the Roosters tore holes in their middle defence.
As the Roosters started to get consistent possession they centralised their attack and by halftime Parramatta’s big men were starting to look vulnerable.
In the second half, Tedesco and the in-demand Joey Manu tormented these defenders and broke through at will.
The top sides would have taken note, so it’s not just the attack the Eels need to address fast.
It’s a huge challenge but you have to look on the bright side of life, in this case Arthur has no other choice.
If the Eels can lift, take some big scalps and hold their top four spot, it could be the making of this football team. But if they continue to fade, can the Parramatta club afford to keep the status quo with this roster’s premiership opportunity starting to close?
Arthur has done a good job, he’s turned Parramatta into a finals regular but now that’s not enough.
Rugby league coaches are a bit like sprint coaches. Some sprint coaches are great at taking their athlete from running the 100m in 10.8 seconds to 10.1.
Enough to run fourth or fifth; bronze at best. But then they need the coach who can give them that tiny bit extra, 10.1 to 9.8 … the gold medal finish.
It’s only 0.3 but the difference is huge and not many coaches can do it.
Arthur is still trying to find the trigger to get this talented Parramatta team to run under 10 seconds and time is running out.
On Friday Arthur coaches against a man whose speciality is finding teams that extra little bit, Wayne Bennett.
We all remember what a great job Nathan Brown did at the Dragons, turning them into a consistent top four team. But Browny just couldn’t give the Dragons that little puff of magic they needed to take the next step.
Enter Wayne Bennett … who takes them from 10.1 to 9.8 and a gold medal.
That’s why rumours of Parramatta flirting with the idea of bringing Bennett to the club have grown stronger since they first circulated in the mid-season.
The Parramatta team appear to be in Bennett’s sweet spot, as the Dragons were just over a decade ago.
But the Eels’ insistence they aren’t going in that direction, combined with Bennett’s insistence on returning to Brisbane, suggests it is indeed just a rumour, but far from an outrageous one.
I’d be amazed if no club doesn’t at least try to entice Bennett to stay in Sydney a little longer, particularly with the likelihood of the new Brisbane team’s entry being delayed.
Let’s face it, there’s not so many great coaches in the game as to allow Bennett to take a break without at least a fight.
Everything points to a Souths victory on Friday night, they have a hot hand and look to be timing their title run nicely. But there’s a couple of key factors which give the Eels hope of an upset.
Firstly, the Bunnies have a quick turnaround after what was a chaotic weekend where they were forced to travel back and forth from Rockhampton with their game delayed 24 hours.
The Eels are well-rested, with the luxury of their Thursday night game not just giving them an eight-day turnaround but also keeping them out of the scramble of the Saturday and Sunday postponements last week.
The other thing is Souths will let them play football. The Bunnies don’t suffocate an opponent like Melbourne do, and that’s the type of football that Parramatta struggle with most.
I reckon there will be plenty of points and with Parra fresh and desperate, I expect it to be a lot closer than most expect.
Souths by 6.
Originally published as NRL 2021: Brad Arthur reveals horror Reed Mahoney diagnosis, Eels stand by coach
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