Parramatta Eels head coach Brad Arthur has confirmed he has had no internal conversations with the club over his future.
Arthur's Eels have lost six of their last seven matches, following on from a dismal 2023 campaign where they missed the finals.
It has moved the 2022 grand final well into the rear-view mirror, with almost weekly speculation over the future of Arthur in recent weeks, including the recent linking of Wayne Bennett to the club.
Things got worse on Sunday afternoon at Magic Round for the Eels when they came up well short against the Melbourne Storm, but the coach said the club only want the best for he and his staff.
"Yes I do [I believe that I'm still the right man for the job]. The facts will be there at the end of the year, but we need to get better at managing the game while Mitch is out so we don't have those periods when we are under the pump," Arthur said during the post-match press conference.
"We are five minutes after the game, but there hasn't been any indication from the club towards me. All they want to do is get around us and support myself and the coaches, and the rest of the staff and the team. At the end of the day, what matters is what we are doing on that field for 80 minutes and it's not good enough at the moment."
Arthur admitted the speculation over his future was warranted.
"It's going to be the same [the criticism in the coming week], but I've never walked away from a fight and I'm going to keep fighting hard. I still believe in this team, but they have to start believing in themselves, especially when they are under a bit of pressure," Arthur said.
"They need to believe in themselves that they can get themselves out of it with one set of six in defence.
The Parramatta coach, who has been in charge of the club for a decade, has only managed one grand final during his time in charge without breaking through for an elusive premiership.
The game on Sunday against Melbourne saw the Eels implode against a side who lost Cameron Munster at halftime and were already playing without Jahrome Hughes.
Despite having neither Clint Gutherson or Mitchell Moses on the park, the blue and gold went from trailing 16-10 at halftime to losing 48-16 at fulltime.
Arthur admitted it was "embarrassing" and implored his side to show resillience.
"The second half was embarrassing. We just fell in a hole for a period of ten or minutes, lacked resilience in that period and just kept digging the hole deeper," Arthur said.
"At times we'd fight out of it for a bit, but the damage was done."
"It's happening too often over the last month or two. Obviously when we get under a little bit of fatigue, we are lacking that resilience to defend a set, things seem to go against us, we drop our head, but we are putting ourselves at a level of fatigue from the things we are doing in the first half. We only had about 30 per cent possession in the first 15 minutes, so we are our own worst enemies and at some stage, that catches up with you."
