Eels half Mitchell Moses and sacked coach Brad Arthur have defended the Parramatta playing group amid growing talk of a bad culture at the club. And it comes as a TV reporter accused Moses of swearing at him at training.
The culture of the playing group has been blamed in part for Arthur’s removal and there is a fresh issue to deal with after a television reporter claimed he had a verbal altercation with the Eels’ biggest star, Moses.
Arthur was sacked on Monday, but has shielded the playing group from criticism after his departure and, for that matter, throughout his tenure as head coach. There is a school of thought that he was too good to his players and that cost him in the end. When asked about the players, he would not hear criticism of their approach.
When I put it to him – before news of the Moses incident – that there is a perception the players are difficult to deal with, he said: “They are not … the natural thing to happen when you are not winning games of football, people say things. They are a great playing group. Even when you have 48 points put on you, like on the weekend [against the Storm] they were still trying hard. They tried hard until the end.
“When you are spending so much time with them, you learn so much about them. I could look at blokes and know what they were thinking and how they feel. When you are so close to them, it’s going to be hard not being around them.”
Arthur was particularly close to Moses, the team’s heartbeat.
Channel 10 chief league reporter Trent Simpson told the Eels about Moses’ conduct at training.
“Last Tuesday, while waiting behind the Eels club offices for a routine press conference, two balls were kicked over the roof and landed near the car,” Simpson told me. “I thought I’d do the right thing to help the kit man and return the balls to the other side of the building.
“I walked around the back of the building, where training had finished, and a few players were left having kicks at goal or doing extra work. I took a step or two onto the field and kicked the balls back. As I kicked the second ball, Mitchell Moses yelled out, ‘Get off the f—ing field’, to which point I just walked away thinking I had done the right thing.”
Moses was bemused and angry when I asked him what had happened.
“I think it’s fair to set the scene,” he said. “I was doing my best to avoid the media as I was starting to run [as he makes a comeback from a serious foot injury]. The media had been told to leave the area and there is a clear sign saying where they can’t go. I was deliberately waiting for the cameras to go before I ran.
“I saw a journalist hanging around and I get people want to get the story on an injury comeback, but I told our media person to ask him to leave. When he came on the field, I did tell him to get off. I felt he was in an area he should not have been. I didn’t swear at the person. I’m not stupid. I’ve been around the game for a while and I’ve never had an issue like this nor would I swear at a journalist. I know the impact it can have.
“I know the stories go around about our playing group, and people can have any opinion of me or the group they like. But it should be based on what actually happened or happens, not on something that didn’t happen.”
Simpson stands by his version of events.
Arthur showed incredible class during his exit, making no criticism of the club. The maturity and calmness he displayed have been noted. He even interrupted his 50th birthday dinner to do an interview on Fox Sports’ NRL 360. And Arthur saw the Fox cameraman outside the restaurant and took a pizza out to him.
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