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Parramatta Eels coach Brad Arthur has praised the Eels’ gritty win over the New Zealand Warriors, saying they need to find ways to play like that more often when facing tough periods of the game.
Here’s what Arthur said in his post-match press conference.
What Arthur puts the win down to
“I think a bit of character. A majority of our wins have been a bit pretty, but it was nice to have to grind and dig in. It was a touch ugly at times but I thought that is the style of footy we need to be able to find when the going it tough and to aim up,” Arthur said.
On the playmakers’ performance
“Yeah I thought both teams played pretty well to tell you the truth. They didn’t make an error early. They threw plenty at us, they ran hard through the middle so, yeah our playmakers were good but that was on the back of a bit of momentum and opportunities created by our middle which copped a bit of a hammering last week. They rebounded pretty well today,” Arthur said.
On the referring
“Look, you know, what comes around goes around. There have been times this year where there have been a few decisions we’re not happy with, but I’ll just leave that up to the referees and just move on,” Arthur said.
On Clint Gutherson’s performance
“Yeah he was good in the second half. A few things for him there in the first half, but he responded really well in the second half for us, he was good,” Arthur said.
On the Moses/Gutherson try
“Yeah, Mitch is fast and we want him to use it (his speed) more. He put himself in a good position there around Mans (Manu Ma’u) who has got a good offload and yeah Gutho … that’s what we can always rely upon with Gutho. If we make a line-break he is pushing down the middle of the field and it (the ball) manages to find him a lot. But it’s just work ethic,” Arthur said.
On Maika Sivo’s game
“We know he can finish and score tries, but he is still learning the game. He still needs to learn. I had a bit of a chat to him during the week. We had a couple of things he wasn’t quite doing for us last week and the week before, but he has responded really well. Yeah I thought he did a fair job today. He’s pretty strong with that fend isn’t he? When you give him the ball, he knows how to find the line, but that’s what wingers have got to do … finish it off,” Arthur said.
On making the NRL top four
“We just need to keep focusing on periods of our game that we are getting wrong You know the two losses over the last six or seven games, we’ve had periods of 10 or 15 minutes where we have just leaked two, three, four tries and been horrible, but you know we had periods today where we struggled a bit, but we dug in, so we need to be worried about doing that, than playing semi finals,” Arthur said.
On Bankwest Stadium being the Eels’ fortress
“Oh look it’s great to play here. The boys obviously love playing here, but we love playing everywhere,” Arthur said.
On whether he likes the look of the team
“I thought against Manly last week, take out 15-20 minutes, we weren’t that bad against a team full of a few internationals so … the style of footy, our boys like to use the ball and we have a lot of talent there so we just have o get the balance of when we use our talent and when we have to dig in and I think tody we have done that,” Arthur said.
