Phil Gould knocked back $800,000 a season offer to coach Parramatta Eels

THE desperate Parramatta Eels board secretly approached Phil Gould about making an $800,000-a-season return to the NRL coaching ranks.

THE desperate Parramatta Eels board secretly approached Phil Gould about making an $800,000-a-season return to the NRL coaching ranks a fortnight ago.

The Sunday Telegraph has been told that Eels chairman Roy Spagnolo reached out to the Penrith Panthers general manager with a lucrative offer to switch western Sydney allegiances.

But the two-time premiership-winning coach and most successful NSW State of Origin coach told the Eels he had his hands full at the foot of the mountains fixing Penrith.

Parramatta powerbrokers hatched the plan as sacked coach Stephen Kearney continued to struggle to make any form of impact with the Eels current roster.

Gould won premierships with Canterbury-Bankstown in 1988 and Penrith in 1991 before walking away from the Sydney Roosters as a career coach in 1999.

The Panthers general manager was also the coaching director at the Sydney Roosters when Ricky Stuart won a premiership with the Bondi Junction outfit back in 2002.

With Gould having rejected the Eels, Spagnolo and the seven-member Parramatta board then began to focus their sights on landing current NSW State of Origin coach Stuart.

The under-fire Eels boardroom was locked in a meeting at Parramatta Leagues club from 11am yesterday attempting to thrash out solutions to the club's litany of problems.

Landing Stuart's signature remains top priority but the Eels are locked in a bidding war with the Canberra Raiders.