Dyldam Parramatta Eels Head Coach says the Blue and Gold will need to up their communication on Saturday night to counter a Panthers side that isn't afraid to move the football.
The Indigenous Round clash at Darwin's TIO Stadium will be the second time the two sides have met this season, and the Eels are set to welcome back Corey Norman, Brad Takairangi and Will Hopoate to their line up as they look to bounce back from a disappointing loss to the Gold Coast Titans.
“I don’t think we’ve had our left edge all together for a long long time now,” Arthur said.
“They’ll be a positive addition to us. And Normy’s (Corey Norman) a pretty influential leader in our team so it’ll be good to have him back.”
“We’ve done our video [after the Titans game] and it was more or less our communication. We had a couple of different edges on different pages, and bringing Normy back into the team will help Luke Kelly steer the ship for us and take a bit of pressure off him.”
Wrapping up the Eels’ Captain’s Run session in 30 degree weather on Friday morning, Arthur was confident the Territory conditions would produce an open game for the two Western Sydney rivals.
“Come 7 o’clock on Saturday night the temperature should be good and it should be a dry pitch,” Arthur said.
“Both teams like to move the ball around so I think it’ll suit that type of footy.”
“They’re (the Panthers) number one for offloads in the competition, and they like to throw a lot of passes so we’ve got to make sure we have a mentality of keep turning up in defence.”
The Eels kick off against the Panthers at 7pm local time (7.30pm AEST) on Saturday, August 8 at TIO Stadium in Darwin as part of NRL Indigenous Round. Click through to pre-purchase your tickets!
