https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/br...ares-new-parramatta-boss-20180810-p4zwu6.html
Brad Arthur's job is safe, declares new Parramatta boss
Adrian Proszenko10 August 2018 — 8:35pm
New Parramatta chairman Sean McElduff has guaranteed Brad Arthur will see out the final year of his contract and outlined his desire to build a club that can emulate the sustained success enjoyed by the Sydney Swans.
McElduff, who replaces previous chair Max Donnelly, comes into the role at a critical juncture for the Eels. They are sitting in wooden-spoon position and have their coach and CEO, Bernie Gurr, coming off contract next season, at a time when their home ground is being built into one of the best venues in the country.
An independent party is in the process of conducting a review of the football department, but McElduff is adamant that Arthur will emerge from the project with his job intact.
“Brad Arthur will definitely be coaching the team next year,” McElduff said.
“Max has said that, Bernie has said that and you can take that from me as well.
“I talk about stability a lot and Brad has been here, in his second stint, for five years. In 12 or 13 years we’ve had seven coaches. In his first few years it wasn’t the most stable environment.
“Max comes in, in 2016, and, adjusted for the salary cap points [deduction], he makes the top eight.
“Last year he makes the top four and this year we’re not doing anywhere near as well as we would like. But the team are playing for him, we’ve seen that in the last seven weeks.
“He hasn’t dropped the ball. He’s a young coach, he’s resilient and he’s about learning.
“From my perspective and the rest of the board and Bernie, he deserves an opportunity to correct the ledger in 2019.
“He will get that opportunity.”
McElduff comes from humble beginnings. He was born in Scotland and came to Australia at the age of five. One of 10 siblings, he started out in a Villawood hostel but rose up the ranks to enjoy a 40-year career in the banking sector, which included being part of the Westpac executive team that oversaw a $12 billion divestment of AGC.
His latest challenge is delivering a three-year strategic plan for the Eels that he hopes will soon result in Parramatta becoming a benchmark sporting franchise akin to the Swans.
“You look at a club like the Swans in the AFL, they have made the finals for 19 of the past 20 years,” he said.
“You look at them in terms of corporate and membership, they just do a lot. They attract good people and good players, they have had success.
“I want the Eels to be the destination of choice for players, the coaching staff, for our staff generally and for our members.
“When people are looking for a team, I want them to gravitate towards us. Obviously consistent on-field success is a key part of that.
“[After] the boom-bust that has been the last 30 years, we want sustained performance on and off the field.”
Arthur isn’t afraid to seek inspiration from the Swans either. As revealed by Fairfax Media,
the Eels mentor caught up with Swans counterpart John Longmire in April to bounce ideas off each other.
Parramatta’s football review is not yet complete, but McElduff has already pinpointed a need for the creation of a supremo to oversee the football department.
“We need a GM of football,” he said.
“In hindsight, Brad and Bernie were doing things a GM of football would do.“To be successful on the field we need a properly resourced football department. There are already areas from the review we need to do better. Brad will have what he needs to to do his job.”
In the past three years, Parramatta has blown a staggering $32 million on their football department. This year, the figure will come down to about $5 million. However, McElduff is adamant Arthur will be properly resourced and isn’t afraid to look to other clubs – such as the Swans – for ways of doing things better.
“There’s no mortgage on good ideas,” he said. "The best example I can give people is they swam racehorses for 60 years.
“It took football clubs that amount of time to wake up to ice baths. How can that be when they were doing it with horses for a long period of time?
“You can learn from other sports and that’s what we need to do. Whatever it takes to learn and get new ideas, that's what achievers do.”
