Dyldam Parramatta Eels Head Coach Brad Arthur has based his side’s “gutsy” win over the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles on resilience and aggression in defence.
“All our wins have been very gutsy,” Arthur said.
“We haven’t played outstanding football, but it’s been built off plenty of resiliance.”
“A good mindset in defence has been aggressive. We talked tonight about just trying to find a way to win it.”
"A goal kick, it doesn’t matter how you win, doesn’t matter if you come in after 80 minutes one point in front, it’s how it worked out for us."
Eels re-sign Arthur until 2019
Although the Eels are out of finals contention, Arthur emphasised the importance of maintaining the hard work and efforts his team has been putting in all year.
“We’ve done a lot of good work this year, we need to make sure that we go into next year on a positive and the style of football and the team we want to be,” he said.
“We cant just flick a switch in the pre season saying ‘we want to be that team’.”
“We’ve earnt the right to do that a bit this year and we need to make sure we continue.”
“It would be silly to undo alot of the good work that we’ve done, it’s a long pre season wth a lot of regrets.”
Before kick off, news of Arthur’s contract extension til the end of the 2019 season broke and co-captain Beau Scott spoke of how the players responded to the news in the sheds.
“It was great news to hear before the game,” Scott said.
“Obviously a bit of positive news at the end of the week.”
“We put in a full performance tonight, we can enjoy now and enjoy Brad’s future.”
“We’ve had plenty of excuses through the year, to not turn up and play.”
“It’s a credit to the playing group and Brad keeping us on task every week to put in a performance like tonight.”
When asked about the impact Arthur has had on Scott’s time at the club, the co-captain said “huge”.
“I haven’t been at a club that’s gone through the amount of back page and front page stories we’ve had this year.”
“Like I said its credit to Brad to been ableto get the playing group on task every week and perform.”
With all that he has had to face this season, Arthur said the decision to stay on with the blue and gold was an easy one.
“It’s easy, I love the club, I love this playing group, we’re all in it together,” the Head Coach said.
“It doesn’t look great from the outside but trust me it’s a real strong playing group.”
“They’re all very happy here, they love coming to training.”
“ I love my job and I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
