NRL 2022: Inside Eels coach Brad Arthur’s US flight eight years ago when a grand final plan was born
Eight years ago Eels coach Brad Arthur had a vision for his players. On a flight to Seattle in 2014, he revealed to David Riccio the plan that on Sunday against Penrith, will finally be realised.
NRL
Don't miss out on the headlines from NRL. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Brad Arthur lifted his head from his neck pillow and glanced up with a scowl as though someone had just annoyed him at 30,000 feet.
The truth is, someone had. Your writer. In November, 2014, I’d been invited as the travelling journalist to join the Eels on a pre-season training tour to Seattle.
Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, I thought it would be a good idea to use the 15-hour flight as a perfect chance to interview the Eels mentor, who had just finished 10th in his first season as an NRL head coach. So I tapped him on the shoulder under the dim of the cabin lights.
Arthur shifted his eye mask just high enough above his eyebrows to expose the type of look you’d expect to see when one of his players had dropped the ball over the tryline.
New to the hot seat of the NRL, Arthur had little rapport or relationship with the media.
Not that he craved the attention of journalists either.
It was the direct opposite, spending the majority of his early years as a head coach appearing grumpy, stand-offish and guarded. That was the body language inside the confines of Air Canada AC34.
With a grunt, Arthur then offered me the empty aisle seat.
In the recorded interview I still have tucked away on tape, Arthur began discussing the pillars he wanted to drive into the players and the entire Parramatta club.
Eight years on, it’s remarkable to listen back to, as those are the pillars of which the Eels stand on grand final day tonight.
“Don’t you dare make out like this is some sort of junket,’’ Arthur began. “It is anything but. I’ve left players at home in Sydney because they didn’t have the right attitude to come.
“(Halfback) Chrissy Sandow is only here because his skin folds have come down to where they should be.
“(Forward) Pauli Pauli had to meet a certain weight that we’ve been wanting him to reach. He made it by 1kg.
“I’ve asked every mini-bar in the players’ hotel rooms to be locked.
“It’s easy for us to come over here and have a good time. But what we need to start doing here at this club, is laying down principles and disciplines that this playing group will pass onto the next players that walk through the door.
“It’s a gradual, year-on-year process. That has to be our intention. It’s not going to happen overnight.
“But within the next five to 10 years, this club needs to have built a culture that is not only upheld, but driven by the players themselves.
“We need to get to a point where, everyone, including myself, are better for every up and down that we go on.”
Arthur’s final quote is prophetic considering the coach that he is today.
No longer the coiled spring of the past, Arthur radiates a coach comfortable in his skin and with self-belief in his team.
Consider the Eels flying to humid Townsville last week just 48 hours before a prelim final when everyone else thought they were mad.
Consider the amount of interviews the Eels coach has conducted this week.
He followed up Thursday’s coach and captain press conference with another press opportunity on Friday.
Consider the decision to ignore going into camp this week as a team and bunkering down or knocking back the NRL’s offer to hold the Eels captains’ run at Accor Stadium.
“Nah, we’ll just stick to what has worked for us all year,’’ Arthur said. “The players have reached a point where they know what we stand for and what is required every day.’’
Arthur‘s mission to turn the Eels into a grand final side began eight years ago on a plane to Seattle. There’s no turning back now.
EELS MOMENT THAT HURT ARTHUR MOST
By Brent Read
In his darkest hours, Parramatta coach Brad Arthur found it difficult to leave the house.
He was too ashamed. Embarrassed that the club he led to the finals in 2017 was about to be handed the wooden spoon.
On face value, the club had been through worse – two years prior, they had been engulfed by a salary-cap scandal.
But ask Arthur, and it was the wooden spoon that hurt the most.
“Around that year when we got the wooden spoon, I didn’t want to walk out of our house,” Arthur said.
“Everyone says the salary cap [was the worst] but that was a drawn-out process. You could see things coming. The one for me was coming last.
“I took that real personally because I was the leader of the club and I got a few things wrong. At the end of the day, everyone has to take some responsibility but it mainly falls on me.
“That was hard, that was tough. I knew what I had done wrong early and it was too hard to change.
“Once we got in the hole, we kept digging the hole.”
How times have changed. When Arthur leaves the house now, there is nothing but backslapping and words of encouragement.
Bus drivers stop in the middle of the street to wish him luck. Morning walks with his wife are interrupted by fans who offer their support as they spy the day when the club’s 36-year premiership drought comes to an end.
Arthur has sacrificed much in his pursuit of that elusive title. He has spurned a social life. He has endured personal criticism.
He has been accused of nepotism over the selection of his son Jake. He has been bashed from pillar to post, but he is still standing and on Sunday night he has the chance to etch his name into Eels folklore.
“My wife and kids have been great because our social life has suffered,” Arthur said.
“When I first started coaching we had a lot of friends that we spent a lot of time with. The last three or four years I hardly spend any time with anyone – I go to work and go home.
“There have never been any complaints from my family. At times, I have wondered what it is doing to my family but there have never been any complaints from them.
“At the end of the day, I get paid well. You have to be able to take it [the criticism] and see the long-term picture. I knew the club was moving in the right direction, even when we came last.
“Things were changing in terms of the administration and with the stability. You could just see if you toughed it out, you would get there in the end.”
That day has now arrived. Parramatta dominated the 1980s but the years since have been lean.
Comparisons with the past have been unavoidable. A shadow dating back nearly 40 years has lingered over the club.
And when the Eels have had their opportunities, they have invariably fallen at the final hurdle.
They have endured tough times. The salary-cap scandal ripped the club to its core, forcing sweeping changes off the field in the club’s governance structure.
Remarkably, the Eels are still being sued by administrators for one of the companies caught up in the cap scandal.
The wooden spoon season was devastating but rather than turn on their coach, the club extended his tenure.
Their finals record under Arthur has been a source of mirth. At least it was before this season.
Sunday night’s game against Penrith at Accor Stadium is a reward for staying the course when others would have faltered.
Arthur has been the constant. With each year, he has become a better and more rounded coach. He has become more measured in his talks with the players and learned to control his emotions.
Arthur commands loyalty and respect, sometimes through fear and often through favour. He has looked after Marata Niukore’s children. He has struck up a bond with Dylan Brown, more than 20 years his junior.
He has seemingly arrived at coaching nirvana – the ideal destination between coach and confidante. His players appear to adore and respect him. The answer, he says, is to be honest and upfront.
Tell them how it is and chances are you will get the same in return.
“You want the truth and the honesty, you have to be able to accept it and do something about it,” he says.
“Don’t tell me bullshit either. Be honest so I can help ya. Sometimes you’re going to have to tell me something you don’t want to, and that is not going to be great for you.
“But we can work through it. What I have had to learn, too, is that my honesty used to be brutal. But there is a way I can be honest with them where it is how I say it to them and not what I say that is important.”
His message, he says, is still finding its mark. When it doesn’t, he will know.
“At some stage I will know when it is time for the club to have a change, when it is time for the players to have a change and when it is time for me to have a change,” Arthur said.
“I know nothing is forever. Going into next year it is 10 years – when I started I wasn’t thinking about 10 years. But I am not in a hurry to leave either. I love it here.
“I don’t want to not be valued when I am here. That’s when I know my time will be up.
“It is my junior club in terms of the team I supported as a kid. I grew up in the area, played for the area.
“All my friends and family are Parramatta supporters. The playing group, we have worked really hard. I think there are eight or nine of the blokes I have handed their debut jerseys that are playing this week in the grand final.
“Where the club is at now with the administration and financially, I just focus on coaching now – I just come to work and I coach. I have more time to have more relationships with the players and not just be the coach.
“Then I go home. That is my life, I love it.”
ALL YOUR NRL GRAND FINAL PUNTING NEEDS: BEST MULTIS, CLIVE CHURCHILL MEDAL & MORE
Gus’ ‘doctored’ claim ignites NRL conspiracy
The NRL Grand Final’s controversial no try scandal has taken a wild turn despite the game releasing the angle the decision was based on.
Kangaroos selection shocks: NRL legends’ Test careers appear over
Mal Meninga has dropped a major selection bombshell by overlooking both James Tedesco and Kalyn Ponga for Kangaroos selection, with the list of surprise omissions and debutants not ending there. See the full squad.