New coach Brad Arthur discusses his long-term future, initial impressions and potential for overseas recruitment.
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00:00Which is absolutely fine. What kind of factors, what kind of metrics will shape that decision as the season goes on?
00:06And have you set a time frame with the club for when you would inform them of that decision?
00:09No, the club hasn't put any pressure on me whatsoever and I haven't put any pressure on myself around that.
00:14I'm just really excited to see what we produce this weekend and then the next weekend
00:21and then make sure that we're seeing gradual signs of improvement both at training,
00:25both with their intake of their understanding of what's required to win games of footy and how to manage a game.
00:34Because, like I said, I feel like the team plays a really exciting brand of football at times
00:39but we're last for errors in the competition, last for errors out of red zone.
00:43You need to be able to build a little bit of pressure.
00:46You can't play exciting football if you don't have the ball.
00:50There's no time frame on it and obviously if we go well, we're enjoying it and I like the place, well that helps doesn't it?
00:58And if the players buy in and certainly the way the club's treated me, there's no real reasons.
01:05But like I said, I still have a real desire to want to coach at NRL level
01:10but I've got a real desire to try and do the best I can right now.
01:14I'm sure you're aware of guys like Brodie Croft, Matt Frawley, Paul Momorowski, who you will have crossed paths with in the NRL.
01:19How much do you know about the squad as a whole, the English lads that you've inherited?
01:23How aware are you of them?
01:25Well, I tried to do as much once it sort of came around pretty sudden.
01:29So, once I knew that I was on my way here, I watched plenty of vision.
01:34But you can watch vision and it's not until you actually have a conversation with them
01:40and I held a meeting with the guys on Friday where we didn't really review the game
01:45but I just talked to them about some things that we want to stand for and look at moving forward
01:50and my approach and how I'm going to deal with them.
01:52And then having the video session yesterday and how they interact with each other.
01:58We train what level can they actually take in, what's too much for them, what's not enough.
02:04So that's when I'll start to learn more.
02:07I reckon I learned more about it yesterday than I did watching the three or four games.
02:12Some of the guys yesterday were very pleased on what we did with our training.
02:21It was only a moderate day and we have a big day tomorrow.
02:28I can't ask for any more at the moment but when we get to Saturday
02:32I'm going to be asking for a lot more in terms of our performance.
02:36You mentioned recruitment long term and potential help in the club with that.
02:39Have you had any assurances or conversations that there's scope to do business in the immediate term
02:43or are you still trying to get your head around it?
02:45Look, I'm still trying to get my head around it.
02:48But what I do know is that Ian's got his finger on the pulse
02:52and he's right across making sure that wherever we are right now
02:56he wants to still give the squad the best opportunity and possibility of winning games of football
03:02and that means there's a possibility of bringing players in.
03:05He'll look at that.
03:08Brad, you mentioned errors in red zone and stuff like that.
03:12Are they the main changes that you think need to be made in the short term
03:16to start giving yourself the ability to win games?
03:19Look, I need to be very careful because I said to the team that
03:22I don't want to judge them on what's happened in the past
03:24because I don't think that's going to help us.
03:26We need to outline a bit of a plan and what our standards and expectations are as a group,
03:34which we've done, and that's probably the main priority moving forward.
03:40But part of the stuff that we've talked about,
03:44if you talk about errors and you just keep trying to concentrate on errors,
03:47sometimes it becomes more of a problem than it was and they stop playing a bit of footy.
03:51So we're talking about the style of footy we want to play
03:54and how we've got to build a game and then hopefully that cuts out some of the errors
03:58because you're going to go through a game making errors.
04:01But on the back of the errors, what's probably more important is how we respond to them.
04:05You can't go error and then we give away a penalty
04:08or we come up with some poor efforts in defence,
04:12which then the error becomes an issue because a lot of good teams make errors
04:16but then they handle it and get back into the flow of the game.
04:20One thing that this team of school this year is beating the teams that are currently in the top six,
04:24I mean they've lost the last seven and been like 12 points or more,
04:27so there's a big turnaround to do that.
04:29I think seven of your last ten are against those top six teams.
04:32Have you seen enough so far to be confident that that can be addressed?
04:40Look, I get it, it's a short period.
04:42I wish I had a pre-season with these guys because I can guarantee you
04:45we could make a lot more significant change and improvement.
04:48But the aim is that we need to be better than where we sit right now.
04:54I'm looking at it as a positive that there is seven of those ten games
05:00but they're against the teams that we need to take points off.
05:03So we need to look at that as a positive that it might be two points for us
05:07but it's two points off them.
05:09If you can manage to do that on a few of them,
05:14they're four-point games, aren't they?
05:16Look, I'll keep referring back to their standards and expectations
05:20that we've talked about and we've said,
05:21and I'm not going to chop and change from week to week.
05:23The boys have got real clarity around how our game needs to look.
05:27Now it's a matter of trying to execute that on a weekly basis
05:31and it's going to take a bit of time,
05:33but as long as they're committed to doing it and not straying away from it
05:37and hopefully we get a few small wins with it along the way.
05:40But when things don't go their way or they didn't quite work,
05:44well, they've got to stick at it
05:45and just trust that we'll come out the other side.
05:48But we're actually looking forward to those games
05:50because they're pretty important and they can be real positive for us.
05:55Just lastly for me, obviously at the minute it's short-term
05:58but you'll be looking to leave the club in a better position
06:01whenever you were to leave.
06:02How does short-term decision-making and what you're trying to do now,
06:06how do you make sure that that also positively impacts the long-term?
06:10Because he's trying to get the two right at the same time, isn't he?
06:13Well, we drive real high standards and expectations
06:16that you'd like to think that then that starts to become ingrained in the players
06:19and it takes more than two weeks to ingrain good habits.
06:23So we hope that we can start to ingrain those good habits
06:27and that they see the positiveness about it
06:34and see that it's going to better them
06:36and then that they continue to drive it.
06:39That's where it's got to come from, that they continue to drive it
06:42and then hopefully, regardless of if it's me or someone else coaching next year,
06:46whoever is doing it, that the club is in a better position to start.