^^^^^
“Bevan French has had an average year himself but he comes into the fullback role, if he plays well, if (Clint) Gutherson and (Mitch) Moses works as a combination and they gel they might think, ‘well, we don’t need Corey Norman anymore’,” Anasta said.
“He’s actually put himself into that position.
“They want to start 2019 a hell of a lot better than they’ve started 2018, Jarryd Hayne may now be retained and have a position there at the back end of this year when he was probably a chance of being moved on.
“So Corey Norman, he could have dug his own grave.”
Norman’s $20,000 fine came from a rule made by Parramatta’s senior players, which bans injured players from drinking alcohol.
Anasta said Norman’s teammates would be “filthy” with him for breaking a team rule and said it was made worse by the fact that he was a senior member of the squad.
“Going against your own players is huge in our game,” Anasta said.
“You set those rules for a reason, it’s the leadership group that usually comes up with it and I’m pretty sure Corey would have been part of that, so he would have actually set the rules with his teammates.
“To totally disregard that shows a lack of respect for your playing group, it shows where your head is at, which is not in a good position at the moment and the other players would be filthy about it.
“He’s got a long rap sheet, Corey Norman, and he just can’t keep on going the way he’s going at the moment.
“The players would be off him now, the fans are probably already off him, the coach will be off him and now the players, they’ll be filthy about it.”
Norman was one of the Eels’ stars of 2016 and made a promising start to his halves partnership with Moses last year when the two led the club’s charge into the top four.
It set them up to be one of the premiership favourites before the 2018 season got under way but those hopes have been dashed by a nightmare opening 12 rounds.
“It’s been a horrible year,” Anasta said.
“It’s been shocking and we all thought it was going to be fantastic. We had them in our top four and top eight and it couldn’t get any worse.
“Situations like this from Corey Norman don’t help and they need to turn things around on and off the field.”
