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Arthur: It was important we showed our captain what we think of him

The Eels ran away with a 42-4 win over the Cowboys to secure their top of the table position for another week.

Here's what coach Brad Arthur had to say after the win.

On the win

“The start of the second half was good because I was pretty disappointed with the last five to ten minutes before halftime. We controlled the game and then we just got a bit loose defensively. We discussed it at halftime and I think our intent was better in the second half, to start anyway,” Arthur said.

“It’s great. It’s good for fans of Rugby League to be back and support the boys and our fans and the crowd deserves that sort of win,” he said.

“They were a bit dirty in the end when I told them to take the two. They wanted to go for five (tries to Sivo), but we need to just get out a bit healthy,” Arthur said.

Post Match Press Conference: Brad Arthur, Round Eight

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On Sivo's form

“He’s going well. He just needed to work on his timing and his depth and he’s put himself in a better position to give those guys inside him to get those nice passes to him. He got some nice passes off Guts (Gutherson) tonight and Laney is doing a good job keeping defenders interested as well,” Arthur said.

“Sometimes you’ve just got to give them an opportunity and put a bit of belief and faith in him. We were out there trialling against Penrith and George Jennings was on the wing and George was probably our best player that day on the wing and he got injure din the trial and Maika got fifteen minutes at the back end of that trial and from there he got the debut and you can just see that he could get better with better players around him and I think I said it last week; Steve Murphy, our assistant coach has done a really good job with Semi Radradra and he has done a really good job with Maika,” he said.

On Dylan Brown's performance

“Dyl did a really good job. He stepped up and well, he just played his usual game and that’s what we needed from him. Dylan, to just be Dylan Brown. He ran the footy, he played on both sides of the field, he got a couple of kicks wrong but you know, he’ll learn from them. I think our halves, you know off the back of that forward pack, well they were just tremendous, they worked their backsides off tonight,” Arthur said.

Jai Field's debut

“He’s fast isn’t he? He got some opportunities and he backed himself to run the footy, which was good. But, like I said, I think the forwards just laid the platform and gave him that space and that time,” Arthur said.

Gutherson's 100th NRL game

“It was important that we showed our captain what we think of him, number one. Probably what was more important was not so much the win, but our attitude and how we want to play each week.  I keep saying, sometimes that’s going to be good enough and sometimes that’s not, but we don’t want to beat ourselves and we don’t want to get beaten because we have a bad attitude,” Arthur said.

“We probably haven’t been good enough with milestones in the past and it’s pretty important for a lot of our players and the club. At Captain’s Run, there was a bit of a presentation to Gutho and a bit of a highlights package which we do for all the boys and so yeah, it’s important we do it,” Arthur said.

On Gutheron stepping up as goal kicker

“Before Mitch came, Gutho did a bit of kicking and he wasn’t too bad, he kicked them pretty straight. He has a bad cork from last week’s game and he didn’t do any kicking practice this week because he couldn’t, so that just shows the type of bloke he is. I offered to rest him up a bit this week, but nup, he wasn’t interested,” Arthur said.

Acknowledgement of Country

Parramatta Eels respect and honour the Traditional Custodians of the land and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and future. We acknowledge the stories, traditions and living cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on the lands we meet, gather and play on.

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