SPORT Eels on song to develop harmony

IT was a sight to behold on a sunny Saturday morning at Parramatta training.

Around 200 players across five grades completing in a tough pre-season session together.

It’s a far cry from last season when poor performances resulted in a fractured team environment.

“Last year when we had team lunches only half the side would be there,” prop Tepai Moeroa said.

“But this year we have everyone coming. There is definitely a different mentality to last year.

“I think training with all the grades helps.

“When you are training NRL or NSW Cup you don’t realise you have such an impact on the lower grades or the girls.

“But joint sessions like this make you understand you can help them.”

Eels coach Brad Arthur says the joint training sessions were implemented to improve club harmony.

He concedes the team culture dropped this season compared to 2017 when Parramatta put aside salary cap claims to reach the semi-finals.

“I’ve talked about us becoming tighter as a group,” Arthur said.

“In 2017 we were really tight and we had a few external things driving us.

“Maybe last season we thought it was just going to happen and we didn’t work hard enough on being that tight group.”

Arthur has noticed a significant difference around the club this pre-season, especially in the joint training sessions.

“We’ve had two sessions now with our 16s, 18s and the girls and I’ve been extremely impressed with the NRL players’ attitude to embracing a whole club approach,” he said.

“We want to be a development club and we can’t just talk about it, we’ve got to action it.

“This is a part of that process. It is a big process to make sure we are a development club.

“We are trying to grow our leadership. It doesn’t happen overnight and we need to educate our players around that.”

Prized recruit Blake Ferguson thoroughly enjoyed his first joint training session, saying it highlighted why he had no concerns about the Eels’ culture when putting pen to paper.

“I look at the culture of the club and a lot has been said about it being a bad culture but I haven’t seen that yet,” Ferguson said.

“For me I’ve come in here with a blank piece of paper and I’m trying to learn as much as I can.

“I know I can give a lot but I want to learn as well.

“Today was my first club session and I haven’t been to many of them in my career and I’ve been playing for a long time.

“It is good to get all the age groups into a club session to spread the culture around.”