Parra and the continuous brawl team
PARRAMATTA have wanted to sack coach Daniel Anderson for two months but haven't had the courage in the boardroom to do it.
Chief executive Paul Osborne wouldn't have wasted an airfare to Melbourne in the first week of August to interview New Zealand coach Stephen Kearney if Anderson's job was secure.
When the story was leaked out of Melbourne just two days after Osborne approached Kearney, Eels chairman Roy Spagnolo panicked and publicly stated Anderson's job was safe.
But other board members wanted him out and instructed Osborne to conduct an independent review of the club's 2010 premiership campaign, hoping it would be critical enough of the coach to allow the chairman to do a backflip.
The Eels are still a club torn apart by old factions from the Denis Fitzgerald era, so a decision was made to put an old ally of the former supremo, Geoff Gerard, on a three-man panel to conduct the review of the season.
Gerard joined Osborne and recently elected board member Glen Duncan, the boss of major sponsor Pirtek, on the review committee.
Duncan was chosen because he was not a member of the 3P ticket that swept into power 18 months ago.
It's a decision Osborne made himself so that the review would be fair and couldn't be challenged or criticised by former Fitzgerald supporters.
The board's main concern was escaping criticism from 2GB broadcaster Ray Hadley, who still hasn't got over the embarrassment or pain from his failed campaign two years ago to save Fitzgerald, his best friend, from the sack.
The board even considered holding back the report - and a decision on sacking Anderson - until Hadley had left for Delhi to cover the Commonwealth Games swimming meet for Foxtel.
They knew it would be hard for him to deliver one of his vitriolic sprays all the way from India.
The review was completed on Friday and was to be presented to the board at a meeting on Tuesday night.
The plan came unstuck at a meeting between Osborne and Anderson on Friday afternoon in the Eels' football club offices.
Osborne was aware the board was split. Three directors wanted Anderson sacked, two wanted him to stay, and the other three - including the chairman - were still undecided but probably leaning slightly towards him going.
So Osborne thought he could short-circuit the decision by meeting the coach in his office on Friday afternoon.
He basically told Anderson: "I'm not sure if you've got the numbers. If things are going to get ugly at the board meeting on Tuesday night, do you want to resign beforehand?"
The offer was rejected. Anderson then rang his manager Jim Banaghan. Emails were exchanged late into the night with Osborne.
Details of the meeting were leaked to Hadley, knowing he would go to town on the board on his Continuous Call show over the weekend, which he did from midday yesterday.
It was also a tactic from the Anderson camp to use their radio mouthpiece to put enough pressure on a board already split, hoping it could save Anderson's job.
Last night, the coach's job remained in the balance, just as it has for the past eight weeks.
The board could still go either way on the coach but it's likely he'll go.
The board members are equally concerned about their own jobs, with the club elections in April next year.
They need the team to get off to a flying start in first six weeks of next year's premiership to get the fans to vote for them again.
They're not sure Daniel Anderson can deliver the start they need - and that's the real reason his job is in grave doubt.
