Eels Round 10 Press Conference
The Parramatta Eels have suffered a defeat to the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs at ANZ Stadium tonight, going down 20-12 in their Round 10 affair.
Despite the Eels looking in control for the majority of the match, a try in the 71st minute and four penalty goes swung the result in the Bulldogs favour despite two tries a piece.
Blue & Gold Head Coach Brad Arthur said the side was their own worst enemy.
“We were just dumb. Killing ourselves, we were our own worst enemy.” Arthur said.
“It is very, very frustrating, we have a lot of disappointed players in there but working hard and trying hard and coming away with a heap of effort is just not good enough to win an NRL game.”
Despite looking in control for the majority of the game, Arthur said he was feeling for his players after not coming away with the two points.
“I am disappointed for our players. I feel for them,” Arthur said.
“They are hurting and I know our fans, our sponsors and supporters are hurting.. In tough times you need tough people to stick it out with us. But we cant keep talking about it, we need to get it to happen.”
“When you try that hard, you deserve better but it doesn’t work out that way. You have to be smarter, they are NRL players and you have to find a way to win that game. The Bulldogs found a way to win it.” He added.
Eels co-captain Beau Scott echoed the coaches sentiments.
“There is plenty of passion in the sheds like Brad talked about and obviously a lot of disappointment.” Scott said.
“We are trying hard but we are our own worst enemy at the moment.”
“As soon as we can figure that one out, we will be right.”
The Eels have now slumped to two wins and eight losses to start their season yet Arthur said the side would continue to fight
With the history books predicting the Eels would be little to no chance to make the Finals in 2018, Arthur said the side would not give up, looking to become the second team to make the Finals series after just two wins after their opening ten rounds.
“We are going to have to make it two teams because we are not giving up. We are here for the long haul and in for the fight.” Arthur said.
“I reckon we can see that in them but we have to stop with the talk and we have to start putting it on the field. But we aren’t giving up, we are not rolling over.”
“You can definitely see in the dressing shed that there is plenty of hurt.” Arthur added when asked of how he can stay so positive about making the Finals.
“We have grown men, after a football game, brought to tears. That is how important it is to them. While it is important to them, if you keep chipping away and keep working hard, it will turn but it needs to happen.”
“We need to make it turn. We just can’t keep saying it will turn, and rely on other things, we need to make it happen. We need to stick together and ride it out.”
Bulldogs v Eels Match Highlights
The game remained in the balance with ten minutes remaining on the clock before the Bulldogs pounced on a fortuitous moment. Eels fullback Clint Gutherson was unable to kick the ball into touch before Bulldogs Adam Elliott dove on the loose ball to put the Bulldogs ahead on the scoreboard with under 10 minutes remaining.
“I haven’t spoken to Gutherson yet. Every player in their career is going to go through their career making an error that they are not going to be proud of, but it is what it is,” Arthur said when asked of the moment.
“We did some good things when we controlled the game early.” He added when asked of the Eels left edge.
“We bombed a try down there in the first half so we had some opportunities that we need to execute a bit better and take our chances, but they had a chance at the end of the game on our try line and they took it.”
