What's new
The Front Row Forums

Register a free account today to become a member of the world's largest Rugby League discussion forum! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

2018 Footy Club Review

emjaycee

Coach
Messages
12,868
open.aspx


open.aspx

MODS: I have been given permission from the club to post this here in its entirety.

Parramatta Eels Club release findings of Football Department Review


Dear Members,

I am writing to you to update you all on the findings of our Football Department Review, conducted by independent consultant, Shane McCurry.

The scope of the review which was overseen by the Board was to examine all aspects of our Football Department including:
  • Culture, Governance & Leadership
  • Player Program & Support
  • Football Operations & Compliance.
  • Coaching (NRL & Pathways).
  • Structure & Resourcing.
  • Recruitment & Roster Management.
  • Retention & Development.
  • Wellbeing (Welfare) & Education.
  • High Performance, Medical, Conditioning & Sports Science.
  • Facilities & Infrastructure.
  • Junior/Representative Programs.
  • Staff Development

The process involved over 160 interviews with a broad cross section of our Football Club including coaches, players, staff, senior management and the Board as well as former coaches, players and administrators. In the interests of understanding the characteristics of high performing sporting environments across a range of professional sports, additional administrators, coaches, CEOs, General Managers of Football and past players were also interviewed.

The review had been a thorough and extensive process and provides us with a roadmap to help drive sustained performance going forward.

Our entire Club was disappointed for our Members and fans in 2018, and we realised that we needed to re-assess how we were doing things.

The broader purpose and rationale for conducting this project was to assess ourselves against best practise sporting organisations to ensure that, going forward, the Club has appropriate personnel, systems, resources, processes and structures in place to deliver sustainable on-field success at the NRL level.

We are committed to delivering success for our Members and fans and we believe the review and the recommendations out of the review give us the best opportunity to do that.

The review identified a number of areas of improvement as well as a number of areas where we are doing well.

The major recommendations which the Board has endorsed include:

Investment:
An increased investment in the Football Department to ensure additional resources are placed into the coaching and development of our playing group at both NRL and Junior Representative levels.

Cultural Foundations:
As part of our Strategic Plan, we are undertaking a review of the Club’s Cultural Foundations. This important piece of work will be facilitated by Shane McCurry and will involve all staff and players in the Club.

Development System:
A confirmation that the Parramatta Eels is a Development Club; with a large and thriving Parramatta Junior League and a good Junior Representative Program, our Club has ambitions to develop elite, young players through to our NRL squad.

To ensure we have the optimum pathways system, we have made the decision to have our own Parramatta branded ISP / 2nd Grade team in 2020; we have the 2019 season to run in our joint venture with the Wentworthville Magpies and we certainly value this relationship.

Our Junior Representative Program (Under 20’s, Under 18’s, Under 16’s, Tarsha Gale Girls, Academies) will also be provided with a full-time Coaching Coordinator to ensure a consistency of football philosophy across the entire Club.

NRL:
  • Additional specialist coaching resources will be engaged;
  • Expanded High Performance Unit;
  • Expanded leadership program facilitated by an external third party for coaches and players.

General Manager of Football:
The Club has appointed Mark O’Neill as General Manager of Football to assume management responsibilities of the Football Department; this appointment will enable our Head Coach, Brad Arthur, to focus on coaching and to provide an experienced resource to help develop and execute a best-practice, high performance football strategy.

Recruitment:
We will restructure our Recruitment Department and commence a search for a new Head of Recruitment. We will establish a Player Roster Management Committee in order to develop a more sophisticated approach to player roster management for both our NRL & Development squads. A further analysis will be conducted by the General Manager of Football into the List Management operations. Peter Sharp will remain a valuable member of our recruitment team.

Wellbeing & Education:
In an NRL first, we will appoint a full-time resource dedicated to our large Pasifika & Indigenous playing groups in the Parramatta District & broader Rugby League community. Additionally, we will create a new role responsible for NRL Player Welfare, Safety and Integrity.

Facilities and Infrastructure:
We are working on plans to upgrade our existing facilities at the Old Saleyards. Over the longer term and as part of our new Strategic Plan, the Club will establish a project team focused on delivering our longer term vision for a Centre of Excellence for our playing, coaching and office staff in five years.

The above recommendations will now form part of a performance framework that will be reviewed, modified and challenged on an ongoing basis to ensure we provide an elite performance environment for our players, coaches and staff.

We will certainly keep you updated with the progress and changes regarding our Football Department.

We thank you for your ongoing support of the Parramatta Eels.


Bernie Gurr
Chief Executive Officer
Parramatta National Rugby League Club Pty Limited
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Happy MEel

First Grade
Messages
9,377
Hmmm...so number 2 on the list is “Cultural Foundations” and Shane McCurry is continuing on to facilitate it :thinking:. Let’s hope he knows what culture is eh @Gary Gutful?
 

Obscene Assassin

First Grade
Messages
6,084
There's some generic stuff there that many would've been able to point out, but the one thing that I like the most is the hiring of an Indigenous and Pasifika resource.
 

Obscene Assassin

First Grade
Messages
6,084
Very happy we will get our identity back in ISP so kids can aspire to be Eels and stay in the blue and gold from HM/Flegg all the way through.

Seems like a lot of nswrl clubs are going back to having their own junior/reserve teams. I see the raiders announced that they're going to re-branding their Jersey Flegg team back to being the raiders from Mounties.

Now if only the WSS trust would allow the Eels to hold all 3 grades on game-day to truly make the young ones feel a part of the club and not an afterthought.
 

Gronk

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
73,554
Parramatta Eels team returning to Intrust Super Premiership

Parramatta will have a reserve grade team back in the Intrust Super Premiership in 2020 as the Eels refocus their attention on becoming a strong development club.

Severing ties with their NRL-feeder team Wentworthville Magpies after an amicable 10-year association to have an Eels presence in the ISP is one of the key recommendations from a two-month review of Parramatta's football operations.

"Out of the review we found if we want to be a successful development club we need to have the Parramatta Eels in the ISP. Then you've got a clear one-club mentality," CEO Bernie Gurr told NRL.com."So from 2020, we're bringing it back in-house."

Another was the faith the NRL players had in current head coach Brad Arthur, who was placed under the spotlight after the Eels finished fourth in 2017 but slumped to 16th in 2018.

The Eels lost six games this year by six points or less – three by two points.

"Bottom line out of this review, there was nothing negative about Brad. The players have confidence in Brad; they think they are well prepared every week," Gurr said.

"The issue from the players if that they're not taking that onto the field."

So in addition to appointing a new position of "development coach", the Eels want to appoint a few of skills coaches to help the NRL squad, and have already filled the new positions of general manager of football, former Wests Tigers 2005 premiership winner Mark O'Neill.

"It's an absolutely critical appointment to maximise the potential of our footy department," Gurr said of O'Neill who will work closing with football operations manager Craig Sultana.

"We're also going to have a full-time dedicated coaching co-ordinator for our junior representative program. That's not commonplace in rugby league clubs," Gurr said.

"Some do it in different forms but we're going to have someone fulltime who will have a strong dotted line to Brad around coaching philosophy."

Working alongside current assistant NRL coaches Steve Murphy and David Kidwell, the Eels will look to appoint a goal-kicking coach, and an "attacking spine" coach to help the fullback, five-eighth, halfback and hooker gel better.

"So additional resources in the shape of a couple of extra staff. The idea of additional people is to number one bring expertise, and number two, to get more ideas," said Gurr, who denied it meant Arthur wasn't up to the task.

"Not at all. It's not a huge jump from what we currently have. It's refining it and adding some expertise to it. It's all centred on giving Brad, the footy program, and players all the resources they need to be successful."

Gurr said the Eels board was not marking any particular round in the 2019 draw to review Arthur's progress towards a new contract.

"When you put a date around it, you put a noose around your neck," he said.

"What we're going to do is have a good pre-season, get into the 2019 season, hopefully win some football games, and it will be assessed at the appropriate time.

normanc-180824700-sd.jpg

Eels star Corey Norman.:copyright:Scott Davis/NRL Photos
"But at the moment we're not even thinking about that."

Gurr also said he expected Mitchell Moses and Corey Norman to remain the Eels halves, dismissing speculation both players had been shopped around to other clubs.

"They're contracted with us," he said.

"Bottom line though is we can't sugar coat it – they didn't play well but neither did the team play well.

"If your forwards aren't going well then even if you have Peter Sterling and Brett Kenny in the halves your team isn't going to go well."

The Parramatta review interviewed directors, administration staff, football department employees, coaches, players, and even "outsiders" to hear their perception of the Eels.

Best-practice methods in football departments over a range of sports were considered.

The review was headed by leading AFL and sports consultant Shane McCurry, who did an internal review of the Richmond Tigers club in 2016 – they won the AFL premiership the following season.

https://www.nrl.com/news/2018/10/10/parramatta-eels-team-returning-to-intrust-super-premiership/
 

Gronk

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
73,554
For reasons only known to them, Fairfax are using the below headline, extracted from the Bernie quote.

https://www.watoday.com.au/sport/nr...e-model-of-sydney-rivals-20181009-p508ld.html

In other words, we should be like a Penrith, Brisbane, North Queensland, Newcastle. They're clubs that produce players, they come through their systems and graduate to the NRL and suddenly someone says, 'I've never seen that bloke before and he's been in the system for five years'.

‘We need to be more like Penrith': Eels eye model of Sydney rivals
 

Joshuatheeel

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
19,581
Well I think the result of the review looks very promising!!

And looks like the cheque book will be opened to spend on a fair bit of additional resources!!

Also BA is going to have more time to focus on coaching!

I like it!!
 

Happy MEel

First Grade
Messages
9,377
Good to see we’ll be addressing our glaring weaknesses from 2018 with an attacking spine coach and a goal kicking coach.
 

Chipmunk

Coach
Messages
16,148
We could do worse than Jason Taylor to be a Senior Assistant, as well as to cover those goal kicking and specialist spine coach roles. In the three years he was an assistant coach at the Roosters they won two Premierships. Apparently he is being replaced at the Roosters by Adam O'Brien.
 

Happy MEel

First Grade
Messages
9,377
We could do worse than Jason Taylor to be a Senior Assistant, as well as to cover those goal kicking and specialist spine coach roles. In the three years he was an assistant coach at the Roosters they won two Premierships. Apparently he is being replaced at the Roosters by Adam O'Brien.
I think I read somewhere that JT was a chance of the Manly coaching gig.
 

Twizzle

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
150,753
I would like the see the C of E earlier rather than later, 5 years is a long way off

Also, could it be possible we could see Dean Widders return to the club, he played a similar role to that of Indigenous development not just for the Eels but also other communities.
 

Happy MEel

First Grade
Messages
9,377
I would like the see the C of E earlier rather than later, 5 years is a long way off

Also, could it be possible we could see Dean Widders return to the club, he played a similar role to that of Indigenous development not just for the Eels but also other communities.
Widders would be an outstanding choice, very impressive bloke.
 
Top