Parramatta Eels coach Brad Arthur opens up on 7.30am call to debutant Haze Dunster
An early morning bombshell has led to a stunning elimination final debut for an 21-year-old Eel against the Rabbitohs.
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The Parramatta Eels will unleash debutant Haze Dunster in the biggest game of the club‘s season against the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
The move was forced after the shock news that veteran centre Michael Jennings had been provisionally suspended after allegedly testing positive to banned substance Ligandrol.
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It was news that‘s rocked the NRL with the league and Eels releasing a statement, while Jennings has promised to fight to “clear my name”.
It means the Eels, already without wingers Maika Sivo and Blake Ferguson through injury, will now have a youngster play his first NRL game.
At 187cm and 95kg, Fox League‘s Michael Ennis said he was a “big unit” with Dunster having played in the Perth 9’s before the season began.
But despite a tough day with the Jennings news leaving the Eels with few friends with many tipping the distraction to be too much for Parramatta, Eels coach Brad Arthur put a rosy spin on the start to the day.
“It started early for me but I rang Haze (debutant Dunster) at 7.30am, he was still asleep,” Arthur said.
“It‘s a bit of a funny story, I asked ’what’d you do last night?’ He said ’I went to Woolies – am I in trouble?’
“I asked him if he‘d had any beers overnight and he said ’no’ and he thought he was in trouble. But he’s excited to play Haze, he’s going top play on the right wing, Waqa (Blake) in the right centres. We trained a different way all week, we had Jenko (Michael Jennings) at right centre so in terms of his preparation Haze it’s not great for him but I just walked out of the sheds then and the energy, I haven’t seen it like that in my time in seven years.”
Arthur added that he had confident in Dunster despite calling him up for his debut in an all important semi-final.
He may have even jinxed himself.
“I only said to him yesterday, he got flogged out here on the training field yesterday after our session and I said to him ‘an injury is only just around the corner and you’re closer to a game than you feel,” he said.
“I rang all the boys this morning and every one of them roared down the phone at me and were so excited about Haze getting an opportunity, so like I said, I‘ve never seen the energy like that in seven years.”
Arthur also put the Eels game down to possession and defence, and said “the forwards have to win this game tonight”.
On Fox League, Cooper Cronk was surprised by Arthur‘s demeanour.
“I‘ll be honest, I really didn’t expect that reaction from Brad Arthur,” he said.
“I thought it would be grit in the eye, not giving away too much, it was about us versus the rest of the world. I actually like the energy.
“But the thing that worries me about it is that they threw everything at the Melbourne Storm in the first 20 minutes last week, they were emotional, they were up for it, the energy was through the roof and then they fell in a hole because the Melbourne Storm kept grinding away. If the Eels win tonight, it‘s going to be one of the greatest wins in the Eels history.”
Originally published as Parramatta Eels coach Brad Arthur opens up on 7.30am call to debutant Haze Dunster