Dyldam Parramatta Eels Head Coach Brad Arthur is disappointed with his side’s performance, after the Blue and Gold suffered a 38-16 defeat to the Gold Coast Titans at Pirtek Stadium this afternoon.
“It’s very disappointing. I just feel we shot ourselves in the foot,” Arthur said after the game.
Arthur pinpointed another performance from the Eels where they lacked to complete their sets, attributing to their lack of energy towards the back end of the clash.
“The first set of the second half we dragged someone into touch and then after that we had 3 sets of 11 to start the second half,” Arthur said.
“We just can’t afford to complete at under 60% and not think that your energy is going to be drained.”
Arthur felt that it was decisions made in the game that ended up being detrimental to the Blue and Gold.
“We train well, we prepare well, same as every other team. In the situation of the game, we put ourselves under the pressure and it just drains you of energy,” he said.
“It just looked like at times we were a team of individuals and not a team.”
Arthur disagreed with the comment that playing at Pirtek Stadium might affect the way the team prepares mentally, labelling the team as it’s own worst enemy.
“It’s got nothing to do with where we play. We continually shoot ourselves in the foot and that’s what the problem is at the moment” Arthur said.
Eels captain Tim Mannah agreed with the Head Coach, saying the team made it difficult for themselves out there.
“It was pretty obvious that we made it hard on ourselves again,” Mannah said of the Eels performance.
“It’s always a bit harder when you’re giving away a fair bit of the footy,” Mannah said.
“We put ourselves in a position where obviously the score got to a position where we had to start playing some catch up.”
“But we put ourselves in that position. There was nothing else, no explanation other than us getting in that position because of our own doing.”
The statistics were heavily against the Eels and despite entering the half time break with a lead, Arthur was not happy with his side’s opening 40 minutes.
“I think we went out at half time as probably false leaders,” Arthur said.
“We were only completing at 59% and we had to do more tackles and it just takes its toll on us in the second half.”
“While we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot, we want to play football, but some of the errors that we made were just simple fundamentals putting ourselves under way too much pressure.”
“It’s just pass selection, you know you can’t be passing to a person that’s not in a better position than yourself and a times we’ve just got to be patient, take the tackle and build for it. We were in a hurry to get things done.”
The Eels will face the in form Newcastle Knights for their Round 7 clash, when they head to Hunter Stadium on Sunday 19 April.
