Parramatta Eels five-eighth Dylan Brown has labelled the sacking of former coach Brad Arthur as "unexpected" and "unfair".
Brown has had to take plenty of Parramatta's burden in recent weeks after being shuffled from five-eighth to halfback while regular number seven Mitchell Moses has watched on from the sideline with a foot injury.
Brown moves back to the number six this week with Moses to return, but the star's injury helped end the decade-long tenure of Arthur at the Eels, with the club moving to terminate his contract effective immediately last week.
Trent Barrett has been installed as the interim coach in the meantime, with the former Dragon indicating during the post-match press conference after a heavy loss to the South Sydney Rabbitohs on Saturday evening that it had been a "tough" week for the entire club.
Brown elaborated on that when speaking this week, saying per The Sydney Morning Herald a lot of players were close with Brad and that it was "disappointing" for him to depart.
โWe're all adults and things happen that we don't want to happen,โ Brown said.
โIt was unexpected what happened โ we're talking about Brad here โ and it's disappointing to see him go because a lot of us are really close with Brad.
โFor him to be gone just like that, especially at this time of the season, is disappointing. We are disappointed, but we've got to move on and get results because there are fans waiting for us to perform. Brad wasn't going to perform on the field, it's us players that have to.
โIt's disappointing that results were the reason that he did get sacked, and that's up to us. A lot of us dwelled on that, and we think it was our fault, but the only thing that's going to get us out of this is each other. There's nothing we can do about it except to perform, and we're not doing that at the moment.โ
Arthur's sacking - while maybe surprising in its timeline - was unsurprising in that the club have been on a downward spiral for the better part of 18 months.
After playing in the 2022 NRL grand final, the Eels have all but gone out in reverse since, missing the finals last year and sitting in the bottom four this time around halfway through the season.
The club can still play finals rugby league this year but will likely need to win at least 9 of their remaining 13 games.
