Parramatta Eels Head Coach Brad Arthur said his side put themselves in a position to win their tough Round 11 match against the Canberra Raiders but couldn’t close it out, suffering a 22-16 defeat at ANZ Stadium tonight (Saturday 20 May).
“We should’ve won that game tonight. We need to be better. We need to find a way to win that game.” Arthur said.
“It was a tight game to the death. We had some opportunities we didn’t take and they had opportunities that they took so we’ve got to get better at that,”.
The Eels were without halfback Corey Norman, an injury Arthur said the side just had to deal with.
“He’s (Norman) a big part of that but we can’t make excuses. It’s what it is, you get injuries and you’ve just got to find a way to get through it.” Arthur said.
See Match Highlights from the clash.
In Norman’s place was mid-season signing Mitchell Moses who had an “okay” game according to Arthur.
“It was okay. A couple of wrong kick options but other than that he’s had two training sessions with us so it’s going to take a bit of time but the problem is we don’t have a lot of time. We need to start to win some games.” Arthur said.
“It’s not easy for anyone to come in. You could see we put ourselves in positions down on the try line but we just, at times, went a bit sideways and so you could tell that we’ve only had two sessions together.
During the match the Eels lost lock Nathan Brown inside the first 25 minutes which proved have a big impact on the team.
“Losing Nathan Brown early was a big loss to our footy as well but I thought we did enough to put ourselves in a position to win it and we couldn’t win it,” said Arthur.
“He’s hurt his ribs so he’s gone to the hospital to see where it’s at. He was in a fair bit of discomfort and he’s pretty tough, so fingers crossed it’s not too bad.”
Also injured in the match was centre Michael Jennings who will be sent for scans on an injured quad.
