NRL 2021: Vicious rumours derailing Parramatta Eels’ NRL title push | Paul Kent

The Eel’s once-promising season is seemingly in free fall, which means the knives are out at Parramatta, writes PAUL KENT.

It is a lonely place when your short-term future might depend on a fragile piece of bone still in repair.

More when the bone is not your own.

Parramatta Eels went through a light session in their Queensland hub on Monday, trying to find reason in last Thursday’s heavy loss to the Sydney Roosters, knowing what the next month will bring.

It is as tough a run into the finals as any team in the NRL.

They worked on their defensive systems and their left and right-edge attack before it was back to the hotel and quarantine. Teams have to resist the urge to extend their training sessions, and overwork, just to enjoy the sunshine.

The key to their turnaround, though, remains the small piece of bone in Mitch Moses’s back.

He cracked it early in Origin III and hasn’t played since and the Eels have been quietly chaotic.

For reasons coach Brad Arthur is trying to understand they have gone away from playing for each other and focused their efforts inward and that has upset everything.

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Clint Gutherson was clearly frustrated with his side in their loss to the Roosters. Picture: Getty Images.

“We just need to front load our effort instead of making it reactionary effort,” Arthur said to his team Saturday and so, since then, they have been working hard at it.

Right on time, though, rumours of unrest at Parramatta began and now a wild rumour is going around the game that the Eels are quietly sounding out Wayne Bennett to take over next season.

They are as much based in fact as there is the chance of Bennett playing the lead in Baywatch: The Musical. Yet it suits the narrative, apparently.

Whenever a team is in trouble everybody wants to sack the coach, proving there is nothing more friendless on earth than a losing coach.

This risk for coaches has doubled since football club members realised some years back that football club boards could no longer stack the vote and so, suddenly, they were answerable the sometimes wild swings of fan emotions.

Better to sack the coach and save themselves, is the unwritten boardroom law.

Could Wayne Bennett be a shock contender to become Parramatta’s coach? Picture: Getty Images.

That fans are an emotive lot, and don’t often behave according to the rules of good manners or smart business, only heightens the drama.

The spectacular absurdity of this current swill surrounding Arthur is that, so far as anyone can tell, these dangerous rumours began about a week ago when a viewer wrote in to your faithful agent here for the #askKenty segment on NRL360, asking if Parramatta would ever consider inviting Bennett to take over the Eels after he exits South Sydney.

It was as crazy then as it is now, with even Bennett stating numerous times that he will return to Brisbane next year for more pressing matters than coaching football teams.

In the week that has followed the query has had time to complete two or three full laps of the NRL rumour mill until somebody thought that the second or third hearing gave it the whiff of legitimacy, so there must be something to it.

“I’ve heard it,” Parramatta chief executive Jim Sarantinos said on Monday.

“It’s not true. I don’t know where it’s coming from.”

Arthur is contracted next season and so, as far as Sarantinos is concerned, that is where the matter closed.

With The Eels promising title push under threat, coach Brad Arthur will come under pressure. Picture: Jonathan Ng

At this, Parramatta are in territory that last affected South Sydney this greatly.

No team is currently waiting longer for a premiership than the Parramatta Eels.

Their last premiership was 1986, meaning Eels fans are now in their 35th season since they lasted wanted to burn down a grandstand.

The easy solution for many is always, when the wins don’t come, to change the coach.

Half the Wests Tigers fans are currently convincing themselves it is the only way ahead, pressuring the Tigers’ board to reconsider the future of head coach Michael Maguire.

As absurd as such speculation can sometimes be, as it currently is with Arthur, the mounting pressure on Maguire reveals the true dangers if pressure is allowed to gain momentum, which is accelerated by losses.

Suddenly, boards get nervous and so to appease their fans they move on the head coach, all done with the happy coincidence that they also save their own backsides.

The pressure at Parramatta is exaggerated by recent losses and the reputation that the Eels are late-season faders, which is not fully true.

The Eels boast the NRL’s longest premiership drought at 35 years. Picture: NRL Imagery.

Parramatta won four of their final seven regular season games last year and eight of their final 11 in 2019, although they have struggled with early exits once in the finals.

Arthur, a practical man immune to hysterics, gives these statistics no more attention than they deserve.

“The stats are there but we have just got to be better,” he says.

“We can’t be worrying about that now.”

Instead, he watched Moses back doing weights last week and is expected to name him when teams are lodged on Tuesday afternoon.

Moses was thought to be well enough to play against the Sydney Roosters but Arthur played the long game, preferring to rest Moses an extra week to safeguard any chance of refracturing his back because it was not fully healed.

That speaks of a coach who understands where games are won and lost.

More, it speaks to one that intends sticking around for the long haul, rumours be damned.

Moses carrying Eels and Arthur’s future on his back

— Paul Crawley

With his own position coming under mounting pressure, Parramatta coach Brad Arthur will be counting on Mitchell Moses’ dodgy back to support a crushing load of expectation in the countdown to the finals.

The star halfback is tipped to return in Friday’s blockbuster against South Sydney after being sidelined for the back-to-back losses against Canberra and the Sydney Roosters.

But if Moses thought filling the boots of injured Blues halfback Nathan Cleary was a big job in Origin III, he now has another huge challenge with the Eels’ season officially in free fall.

And just to add to the degree of difficulty, Moses will be up against a Rabbitohs halves pairing in Adam Reynolds and Cody Walker who will no doubt have their own point to prove after being snubbed by the Blues.

The Eels had a tough night against the Roosters. Picture: Albert Perez/Getty Images

Arthur is also likely to be without prop Reagan Campbell-Gillard who suffered a groin injury in the early stages of the 28-0 belting by the injury depleted Roosters, while Waqa Blake will need to pass concussion protocols after failing to finish the game.

But Moses’ inclusion will be critical given the team’s crisis of confidence.

A week after copping a spray from club legend Peter Sterling for playing too conservative in the shock loss to the injury ravaged Raiders, the Eels were absolutely panned for their “lacklustre” and “very predictable” attack against the spare-parts Roosters.

Michael Ennis declared their attack “has fallen off a cliff” with the Eels having now lost three of the last four games.

They also have the toughest draw of any team heading into the final five weeks of the regular season.

After the Bunnies they take on the Sea Eagles, Cowboys, Storm and Panthers with their hopes of finishing in the top four looking increasingly unlikely.

Thursday’s loss keeps them on 28 competition points, now level with the Roosters, but with Manly also a real chance of finishing over the top of them.

The slump in form couldn’t have come at a worse time given the pressure that was already on Arthur coming into this season.

Mitchell Moses is so important to the Eels, and coach Brad Arthur. Picture: NRL Images

While most anticipated Parramatta had a roster good enough to finish high up the ladder, they have a terrible finals record under Arthur — having won only one from six finals games.

Last year was the third time in four years the Eels had crashed out of the play offs in week two.

While Arthur is contracted until the end of 2022 there is no denying some are starting to question if he is the coach who can get this team to the next level.

The Eels are already all but assured a top-eight finish but the reality is they could be playing sudden death as soon as they get to the finals.

Adding to that their star playmaker will be nursing a serious back injury which will only put a bigger target on Moses.

It really is a worrying time for all involved but there is just no avoiding the reality that the pressure is already starting to take it toll.

It was written all over captain Clint Gutherson’s face when he blasted Tom Opacic for giving up an escort penalty against the Roosters.

Gutherson was heard yelling at Opacic: “F*** me you dumb c***”.

It was a moment Gutherson has since regretted, yet it highlighted where the team is at.

Arthur also looked a coach running out of answers when he labelled the performance “dumb” several times during his post match media conference.

Originally published as NRL 2021: Vicious rumours derailing Parramatta Eels’ NRL title push | Paul Kent