BY CURTIS WOODWARD

@woodward_curtis

Fourteen months ago, in March of 2023, Parramatta Eels Chairman Sean McElduff proudly told the world that his club had re-signed head coach Brad Arthur until the end of 2025.

Granted, the Eels were coming off a grand final appearance against the Penrith Panthers the year before so it made some sense that the Eels would lock up Arthur in another feel-good story for the Western Sydney powerhouse.

That’s what it looked like on the surface.

Behind closed doors, it wasn’t all smooth sailing and it’s understood several officials at Parramatta weren’t given the opportunity to discuss the deal before it was hurried though.

It was McElduff’s baby.

“We have come a long way as a Club both on and off the field in recent years and Brad has played a major part in our success,” McElduff spruiked on parraeels.com.au at the time.

“Our NRL team has consistently played finals football since 2019 falling one game short of a premiership last season.

“The players love him and we’ve seen many of them develop and become better players under his coaching and guidance.”

A day later, the Eels lost to Manly-Warringah at 4 Pines Park to start the season 0-3.

Arthur’s Eels eventually missed the finals and the 2022 grand final might as well have been as distant a memory as Ray Price holding up the trophy way back in 1986.

Ask any old rugby league coach, as committed and as emotionally entrenched with his players as Arthur, and he’ll tell you that he was always going to be loyal to the men that had helped him reshape and rebuild an ancient legend.

While the Eels are considered a “big club” and help rugby league dominate Western Sydney, the fact is they haven’t won a premiership since ‘86.

Brad Arthur and his team thought they had a hand on the holy grail before the mighty Panthers banished them back into the dark ages.

Another fact is Arthur wasn’t proactive enough to keep his roster fresh while keeping the nucleus of the squad and the stars together.

Fan favourites were squeezed out and replaced, with all due respect to them, lesser names.

Injuries to their best players in Mitch Moses and Clint Gutherson didn’t help.

According to reports, Arthur was dead in the water weeks ago when McElduff travelled north for a secret meeting with Wayne Bennett.

Bennett, kept the meeting to himself, at the request of McElduff.

The whole while, Bennett’s return to South Sydney, was the worst kept secret in the NRL.

“My job is to look after the club,” McElduff told The Sydney Morning Herald.

“What I really said was I wasn’t going to play this out in the public and I didn’t play it out in the public.

“I wasn’t going to jeopardise any chance of the deal happening.

“My first obligation is to the club and I wouldn’t have been doing my job if I didn’t go and speak to Wayne Bennett.”

Arthur’s sacking also comes just weeks after (and around the same time the Eels met with Bennett) two Parramatta Eels board members, Col Robertshaw and Mark Jenkins “retired” on the same day.

‘If rugby league is a supermodel – the NFL is fashion week in New York, Paris, London and Milan all rolled into one’: Why gridiron will be the NRL’s next big threat

Beetson Raudonikis Medal Round 11 – 2024

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

“Col and Mark are highly accomplished business leaders who brought a range of skills and experience to our organisation,” McElduff again told the Eels website.

“On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank them for their tremendous contribution to the Eels and we wish them all the best in the future.”

On Monday night, the Eels confirmed Arthur’s sacking, again via their website.

Arthur’s time as the longest-serving Eels coach was over.

The Eels will pay Arthur out $750,000.

Happy birthday, Brad.

There were no quotes on the Parramatta website this time from Sean McElduff.

@woodward_curtis