Coach

[DIEHARD]

Parramatta Eels directors close in on Jason Taylor for top job

A vote of Parramatta directors is expected to confirm Jason Taylor as the next Eels coach within days.

Taylor, who has previously coached Parramatta in a caretaker capacity before taking charge of South Sydney for two seasons, was an assistant to Sydney Roosters mentor Trent Robinson this year and has been credited by players for refining their attack.

Taylor is also highly regarded by Eels superstar Jarryd Hayne after giving him his NRL debut in 2006 and managed to get the best out of Parramatta halfback Chris Sandow when he was at the Rabbitohs.

Fairfax Media was told that Taylor met Eels officials on Thursday and it is believed his appointment will be ratified either at a meeting or phone hook-up of the club's directors, who voted 3-2 against the recommendation of chairman Steve Sharp to give the job to Brad Arthur on Tuesday night.

Advertisement Taylor, who was a member of the Eels' 2001 grand-final team before retiring to take up coaching, has always had a desire to return to the club in the top job and only narrowly missed out last year when the board opted to appoint Ricky Stuart.

Despite wanting Arthur, who coached Parramatta for six games at the end of the 2012 season after Stephen Kearney's sacking, Sharp has said he would work with Taylor if the majority of the board supported his appointment. New Eels chief executive Scott Seward, who started in the job two weeks ago, said he would make a recommendation to the board on the appointment of the coach.

''We are moving on it pretty quickly and I'd like to get to a stage where we can get it done soon,'' Seward said. ''It will be the recommendation of the CEO to the board and I will play my role in it.''

Seward said it was possible the Eels would announce the appointment of a general manager of football at the same time.

''I just want to make sure we get the right people because we need to build a culture of success here and that is what we are going to do,'' he said.

Parramatta players are due to resume pre-season training on November 7.

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/

[TITAN PETE]

William Hopoate's Parramatta deal in jeopardy after Eels committ to Jason Taylor as coach

Josh Massoud and James Hooper The Daily Telegraph October 11, 2013 12:00AM

PARRAMATTA have committed to Jason Taylor as 2014 head coach, defying concerns that star recruit Will Hopoate might be pushed elsewhere should the Sydney Roosters assistant be appointed.

The plot at Parramatta became decidedly murkier Thursday, when Eels officials were informed that Hopoate’s advisers wanted Manly assistant Brad Arthur to be head coach.

There were even suggestions Hopoate could activate a get-out clause in his three-year deal, which begins next month, should Taylor get the nod over Arthur.

The 21-year-old - currently completing his Mormon Mission in Brisbane - has been linked with a possible move to South Sydney.

It’s understood Hopoate’s father, John, holds Arthur in high esteem from defensive, boxing and wrestling work they’ve done together at Manly this year.

When contacted Thursday night, Hopoate Sr referred all inquiries to his son’s agent, who did not return calls.

But The Daily Telegraph is aware that Hopoate Sr made calls Thursday to inquire about whether Arthur was still in contention for the Eels job.

The latest developments indicate Arthur is out of the running, with Taylor meeting Eels officials Thursday to finalise his new contract.

The deal could be announced as soon as Friday, ending an *unprecedented week of boardroom machinations - even by Parramatta’s standards.

Prior to a board meeting on Tuesday night, Eels chairman Steve Sharp publicly declared his support for Arthur and urged fellow directors on the five-man board to toe the line.

But when a vote on Arthur’s application was taken later that night Sharp was defeated, 3-2.

The three dissenting directors want Taylor to be head coach and were on Thursday unmoved by speculation that Hopoate could seek a release as a result.

Club officials and Taylor spent Thursday afternoon putting the final touches on the new contract, which will see Taylor resume head coaching for the first time since his dismissal from South Sydney in 2008.

Hopoate is within his rights to backflip on the $2.3 million deal, which included a clause that tied him to Parramatta so long as Steve Kearney remained coach.

Kearney’s sacking last July made Hopoate a free agent, but Eels *coaching staff have continued to monitor his progress through regular trips to Brisbane.

They are expecting him to report for preseason training on November 7.

[TITAN PETE]

The Eels look destined to chase a 3rd consecutive spoon the way everything is going.....

[DIEHARD]

Which is extraordinary in this age. Back to Back to Back spooners.

And nearly were in 2011 as well when we played them for it in Round 26. We lost and got the damn spoon.

[DIEHARD]

Daniel Anderson set for Eels return

NRL referees' boss Daniel Anderson has been linked with a return to Parramatta next season as the club's new general manager of football.

A number of well informed sources have told Fairfax Media that Anderson has been sounded out for the role and there is strong speculation he has accepted a four year deal.

However, NRL officials say they are unaware that Anderson was leaving and Fairfax Media has been unable to contact him.

Anderson was recently linked to the vacant Parramatta coaching job, which he previously held for two seasons until being sacked in 2010.

Another former Eels coach Jason Taylor is expected to be appointed to that job within days and it is understood Parramatta officials hope to announce him and Anderson at the same time.

However, Fairfax Media was told the appointments are unrelated and the Eels wanted Anderson to be general manager of football if Manly assistant Brad Arthur had got the coach's job.

A recommendation from Parramatta chairman Steve Sharp that Arthur be appointed was outvoted 3-2 at Tuesday night's board meeting and it is understood directors now only have to approve the terms of Taylor's deal for him to get the job.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/l...#ixzz2hOHljTZ7

[DIEHARD]

Parramatta Eels' many backflips embarrass chairman

In early August, Steve Sharp sat outside a harbourside café in Pyrmont and made a solemn pledge.

It seemed believable enough.

"If we're sitting around this table again this time next year,” Sharp said in an interview with Fairfax Media, "judge me on where we are on the table and financially at that time, provided we're given a clean break by the interfering factions at the moment. We've been criticised and chastised, rightly or wrongly, for only two months of work."

If the last two-and-a-half months of calamity since are any indication, the Eels chairman won't even make it to the Christmas party.

Advertisement Many in the beleaguered club considered the shock appointment on Wednesday of Brad Arthur – ahead of Jason Taylor – as the breaking of a new dawn, a chance for some stability.

With chief executive Scott Seward, general manager of football Daniel Anderson and now the head coach in Arthur now in place - along with a new major sponsor - Parramatta can finally start about with the business of trying to resemble a professional footy club.

If only it was that simple.

The ham-fisted machinations in the past few weeks that arrived at this point means any dawn is a false one.

Sharp had publicly declared Arthur should get the job weeks ago, and the reason behind his thinking was to put pressure on fellow board members to vote that way.

When he was outvoted 3-2, with the majority of directors wanting Taylor – a former caretaker who took over from Brian Smith midway through 2006 – it created a situation that went very close to making Sharp's position untenable.

The deal-breaker for Taylor was he didn't want to be under the control of Anderson, who had taken on a wide-ranging role at the club that punted him within a year of guiding them to the grand final in 2009.

There have been whispers the Eels board was nervous about Taylor's departure from South Sydney following the infamous David Fa'alogo “karate kid” incident, and that he also wanted too much cash.

Eels insiders say it was more a case of him wanting a say in the newly created general manager's position, which will result in Anderson being in charge of every facet of the football operation at Parramatta.

Either way, the Eels were so far down the track with Taylor he had all but been assured the role. This surprising backflip in preference of Arthur now embarrasses the Eels and even Sharp.

The chairman has his man, but at what cost to his credibility and that of his board?

To that end, is Arthur now on a kamikaze mission?

Highly regarded at the Sea Eagles, and also wanted by many players at the Eels, he told Manly now was the time to have a crack at the main game.

Having missed out on the Cowboys job, he wanted what all rookie coaches want – a start.

Manly's seasoned players could not speak highly enough about his influence this season, but he's now in charge of an Eels roster that seemed reluctant to tackle the corner post let alone a rival player this year.

The talk about Jarryd Hayne being courted by the Bulldogs and rugby union won't go away. Neither will the speculation of Will Hopoate's cold feet.

Those within the club keep assuring that both players have made it crystal clear they will be staying.

Preventing the side from claiming three wooden spoons in a row is only part of the cancer that's infected Parramatta.

When NRL boss Dave Smith sat in on one of their board meetings a few weeks ago, he was surprised about three things: the passion of the directors, how much money the club had in its back pocket . . . and how riven the club was by outside factions.

In other words, Denis Fitzgerald and Roy Spagnolo. Sharp says he's a puppet for neither.

But in the last two-and-a-half months since speaking at Pyrmont that afternoon, the chairman has given little indication he's as appropriate for the job as they were.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/l...#ixzz2i4F6dNnJ

[DIEHARD]

I'd like to thank the Parramatta Eels for always making the Titans look better. On the field and off the field.

[TITAN PETE]

I'd like to thank the Parramatta Eels for always making the Titans look better. On the field and off the field.

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