The Parramatta Eels suffered a 48-10 defeat to the Sydney Roosters at Allianz Stadium tonight.
Head Coach Brad Arthur said there was no excuse for tonight’s performance.
They were simply out played and out muscled.
“We just got out muscled, the physicality we weren’t in it today and that is something we want to pride ourselves on. We were outplayed in every aspect of the game,” Arthur said.
“We trained really well, warm up was great. They got an early try on us, and out of the first nine sets we had one set, made 58 tackles to 11, and that took the gas out of us. When we got back to 14-4, I thought maybe if we got some ball we would be okay but they were just way too good for us.” Arthur added.
“The week break wasn’t an excuse. We were just out played, out muscled.”
Blue & Gold Tim Mannah echoed the Head Coach.
“It was disappointing. All of us in the middle could of probably muscled up a lot better than we did. We just made it really hard on ourselves, and to allow them to roll through us, to be honest it was embarrassing,” Mannah said.
“We are on against next week, need to learn our lessons pretty quickly and be ready for a big pack in Canberra.”
Blue & Gold halfback Corey Norman suffered an injury that saw him leave the field in the 51st minute of the match, and Head Coach Brad Arthur gave an update on the playmaker.
“I think, obviously they will need to send him for scans, but I think it’s a Grade Two medial,” Arthur said of Norman.
“We have to get scans, but maybe four weeks.”
“There was a bigger blow today, and it wasn’t Corey Norman.”
However with Norman expected to be ruled out for a few weeks, Arthur says the reshuffle in halves will be something the side will just have to fight on through.
“We will be right, we just have to fight on. We will be fine,” Arthur said.
“We have had that many changes through our halves through a four year period, I don’t think this is going to make too much of a difference.” He added.
“We are going to have to toughen up and just aim up.”
