{"id":395587,"date":"2024-05-20T07:37:28","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T07:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=395587"},"modified":"2024-05-20T08:04:20","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T08:04:20","slug":"eels-secret-talks-with-bennett-before-arthur-axed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=395587","title":{"rendered":"Eels&#039; secret talks with Bennett before Arthur axed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>E\ufeffels coach Brad Arthur has been sacked effective immediately and in a stunning twist it can be revealed that Parramatta entered talks with Wayne Bennett but were turned down.<\/p>\n<p>Parramatta was secretly talking to \ufeffBennett over the last four weeks in an effort to flip him from signing with the Rabbitohs. The club&#x27;s approach to the master coach was rejected.<\/p>\n<p>Bennett was having conversations with Eels \ufeffchairman Sean McElduff, while also continuing negotiations with the Rabbitohs.<\/p>\n<p>During the top secret talks, Bennett told the Eels \ufeffthat he had &quot;unfinished business with the Rabbitohs&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>The master coach told Parramatta he would prefer to link with Souths as he is familiar with the club\ufeff after coaching them for three years from 2019-2021, finishing up with the Rabbitohs after narrowly losing the 2021 grand final to the Panthers.<\/p>\n<p>Bennett is a free agent in 2025 and has been open with his interest in returning to Souths, who have offered him a three-year deal.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>The talks with Bennett started as pressure mounted on Arthur, Parramatta&#x27;s long-term coach, with the Eels deciding to cut ties with \ufeffhim after a heavy Magic Round loss to the Storm.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday afternoon the club released a statement, dropping a bombshell on the NRL.<\/p>\n<p>It said Arthur&#x27;s contract had been terminated &quot;effective immediately&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It was the view of the Board and CEO that the progress of our NRL team has stalled,&quot; the statement said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Our goal is to win premierships and it is time for the club to go in a new direction.\ufeff&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Assistant coach Trent Barrett, who has previously coached Manly and the Bulldogs will take Arthur&#x27;s job in an interim capacity.<\/p>\n<p>MORE TO FOLLOW\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>E\ufeffels coach Brad Arthur has been sacked effective immediately and in a stunning twist it can be revealed that Parramatta entered talks with Wayne Bennett <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=395587\" title=\"Eels&#039; secret talks with Bennett before Arthur axed\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=395587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395588,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395587\/revisions\/395588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=395587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=395587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=395587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}