Happy 50th birthday Brad!
I know it’s not how you wanted to celebrate. Normally, when you blow out candles on a cake, the wish is always the same: to oversee a Parramatta premiership.
As a long-suffering Eels fan, I have been wishing for the same thing. I don’t know if Tuesday’s celebration will by your most memorable birthday, but mine was my 10th. My aunty had flown from Russia for the first time and the entire family – all blue and gold supporters – gathered at our place to celebrate her arrival, mark my milestone, and watch us win the 1986 grand final. Good times.
It seems inconceivable that almost four decades have passed and we haven’t won another.
At least you got us close. You guided us all the way to the 2022 decider, but we had the misfortune of running into one of the greatest rugby league teams of all time.
It’s a reminder that timing is everything.
Day one … Brad Arthur with his children Matthew, Charlotte and Jake in Bali in 2013 on the day he was announced as Parramatta coach.
Like in October 2013, when Parramatta were so far down the track in appointing Jason Taylor as head coach, they even got “JT” to record a video message about the job. It got deleted when the board backflipped and gave you the role instead. You got the news while having a Bintang in Bali.
It will hurt knowing that, more recently, the Eels board had gone behind your back in a bid to snare Wayne Bennett. It’s worth noting that those same directors knocked back Bennett, in 2018, before Bennett knocked them back.
When your (our) team finished last in 2016 and you were under pressure to keep your job, a third party, with the permission and knowledge of Bennett, approached Eels chairman Sean McElduff.
Bennett was going through a rough patch up in Brisbane and Parramatta were told the seven-time premiership-winning mentor was very interested in heading to the golden west if your job became available.
Bennett loved the idea of following in the footsteps of Jack Gibson and Ron Massey at one of the biggest clubs in the league. However, the board stuck solid with you and we all know how it played out from there.
It was one of those great Sliding Doors moments. There have been others, like when Manly offered you $1 million to coach them in 2016, at a time when the former Parramatta administration was reneging on a deal to upgrade and extend your tenure. In the end, you stayed for less, because it’s the only job you ever wanted.
That move created a domino effect: Trent Barrett ended up taking over at Manly. A million things have transpired since, but it seems strangely fitting that Barrett will now replace you, at least on an interim basis, at the Eels.
You can be proud of what you have achieved in your time there. The most-capped Parramatta clipboard holder of all time, a grand final appearance and the knowledge that you left the club in a better place than you found it. Which is saying something after all you’ve had to navigate: countless changes in board and management, a salary cap scandal, Jarryd Hayne.
As much as Monday’s news would have hurt, I reckon deep down you knew it was time to go. Every coach, at some point, gets moved on. It’s even happened to Bennett.
In Bennett’s case, he felt a strong enough connection to South Sydney that it eventually brought him back to the club. Ivan Cleary went back to the Panthers. Who knows? Maybe, at some point down the track, you might again be the best person to coach the Eels.
Regardless, wishing you every success in your next endeavour. And happy birthday mate.
