Arthur: We had to fight to the death
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Eels coach Brad Arthur addresses the media after his team’s win over the Raiders in Round Seven at Bankwest Stadium.
On the Eels’ golden point win
“Yeah, it’s a good way to finish a tough month of football. We had Manly, Penrith, the Roosters and then Raiders. We had to fight to the death in all those games and work hard and continue to fight when we got pushed into golden point and we showed some real good signs of decent character,” Arthur said.
On Mitch Moses’ injury
“It’s his calf, he’ll get scans and that, but he’ll be out for a bit. He was back peddling for a bit and it was after a stoppage and he just was back peddling to try to get onside I think,” Arthur said.
“He had a bit of a calf complaint in that COVID period and it just is what it is. The turf has nothing to do with it,” he said.
How the Eels handled playing without Moses
“Yeah I thought we did alright actually. Dylan did a good job, took control of the team and thought he had some tremendous help from our middles; they were really good. We knew we had to keep it simple and play through the middle and barge our way over for a couple of tries and yeah. I thought Dylan handled it well and did a really good job,” Arthur said.
On Gutherson’s field goal
“They all think they can kick field goals so they practice at the end of training. Mitch and Gutho did a bit in the pre-season and they do practice them after training but we have got a few forwards that fancy themselves for that job,,” Arthur said.
“We talked to Gutho about practicing his goal kicking too. He hit nice kicks tonight which was important so it’s good we have a bit of backup there,” he said.
On the Eels’ performance compared to last week
“I thought our first 20-25 minutes was really good. We completed 100 per cent there and I think we might have been ten from ten and then the last 15 minutes of the first half we went with back-to-back errors so we weren’t smart there. The start of the first half, really good, built pressure and knew we needed to control possession well. When it was five, six minutes to go and we were up by 12 … probably needed to be better there to close the game out,” Arthur said.
On where the Eels are at
“I think we’re in a really good place with the desire, the want, the character and trying to build as a team. We played against the two grand finalists in the last two weeks and we showed that we have got a bit of belief. There are still some areas that we need to tidy up , but if we keep coming with the same attitude, that’s what we want to pride ourselves on and if we turn up every week, we’re going to be really tough to beat,” Arthur said.
On RCG’s performance
“Both the front rowers have been really reliable and they’ve been able to back up and repeat their efforts week in week out and Reg was really good again tonight. We’re tyring to play physical and that might frustrate other teams, but we have to make sure it doesn’t frustrate us,” Arthur said.
