Chris Sandow

Statistically, he is the only coach with a 100% coaching record in history, though he has only been in charge of one game – a game that saw the Eels led by new coach Brad Arthur, defeat the Broncos at Suncorp Stadium, in a rather resounding fashion.

Rated next to no chance of winning last week against the Storm, let alone this week against the Broncos, both by fans and the bookies – the Eels burst out of the blocks, racing to a 30-6 lead at half-time.

Despite their successive wins over two competition heavyweights, the Eels are refusing to get carried away – with the impetus to now back up and these performances, and win consistently.

“We’ll saviour it, don’t worry. We’ll take the good bits out of it but it’s just one game,” said Eels retiring skipper, Nathan Hindmarsh.

“We got to do it again next week and, I know that sounds really boring and you’re not going to write about it, but we got the Tigers next Monday night and we’ve got to do it again and do it for the rest of the year.”

With the players given free reign to play their natural game, they did so – but for Hindmarsh, it was again their resolve and determination in defence, that he believes won them the game.

“Our defence frustrated them when they had the footy and that’s what we did to Melbourne last week,” said Arthur.

“I said to the boys and Hindy as well I wanted us to play a bit of footy.

“But it if you’re going to make errors, you’ve got to be able to defend them.

“If we’re going to turn up in defence for each other then we’ll keep playing that way.”

For Brad Arthur, nervous as one can be in their first NRL game as a coach, he embraced it well – cracking jokes at the press conference, before moving to a more serious tone.

It’s one game.

“After half time, the way we started (Brisbane scored two tries in five minutes) I was looking for the exit after 10 minutes.”

Broncos coach Anthony Griffin was rather disappointed with his side’s effort, his post-game words summing up how he felt overall.

We got what we deserved, tonight was an embarrassing effort.”

His thoughts were reiterated by captain Sam Thaiday, who described his team’s effort as terrible.

“We’ve got to go back and hit the reset button, we were terrible out there tonight,” he said.

“We have to find a bit of character, get back to playing some tough football.”

“We’re not playing like a finals side, we can’t think about the finals.”

With the spoon still a real threat for the club, the Eels are not thinking about it, but instead are choosing to focus on one game at a time.

“It hasn’t been spoken about unless it’s asked by one of you guys,” said Hindmarsh.

“We’ve come to the conclusion if we get it, we get and who cares really.

“As long as we’re going out there every week and playing our best and working hard for each other we’ll cop whatever at the end of the year.”

By ricky

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.