With 2015 behind us, and the serious business of the 2016 Premiership campaign about to dawn, I find myself believing that success for the Parramatta Eels can be a reality in the near future.
Please allow me a little latitude here. I’m not going to refer to any statistics or analyse the strengths of the playing roster. What I intend exploring is the genuine value of belief in any football organisation, from the fans to the club executive, and I’ll openly admit to doing so through my blue and gold coloured eyes.
As a fan, I begin any season with hope. It’s pretty simple in its nature. I hope that I will enjoy the season through being able to witness victories achieved by a competitive football team. Ultimately, I hope that the season can extend into September. My greatest fear is losing all hope by about Round 13. Being realistic, only one team out of 16 can win a Premiership and it’s probably only the fans of a few select teams that have a genuine belief in their chances of raising the trophy in any given year.
So what is the determining factor in transitioning from hope to belief? Is it the talent that is assembled within the roster? No doubt having “the cattle” is an integral component of any campaign. Yet when one considers that the difference between the talents of a Top 8 team and an “also ran” can be just one key player, it becomes obvious that there is an intangible component once a team demonstrates its potential to be in the finals.
Is that what pundits are referring to when they discuss the culture of a club? Is the culture of a winning club as simple as having belief in the probability of success?
How is this culture of belief demonstrable within a winning club?
Club Executive
From a club executive position, it is reflected in providing support, financial and personal, to the football operation.
Can this be witnessed at the Eels?
I’m not ignoring governance issues. This is a work in progress and to discuss aspects of club administration that could involve political ramifications, past or current, is not the direction that we wish to explore on The Cumberland Throw. Of course the “front office” must deliver an effective administration of the football operation. However, TCT is a football site, first and foremost.
So to the football. The provision of the much improved facilities at the Old Saleyards Complex begins the financial support. It is both an investment in the now and in the future.
This investment in the Saleyards Base is further strengthened through the funding of the key support staff. Such staff are new to the Eels operation and could prove to be a crucial component going forward.
Importantly, there is the personal support of key executive. I have personally witnessed members of the Board and Club Executive in attendance at training sessions and junior rep trials. Having spoken to these people at such events, they are often in attendance to demonstrate their support of the operation and because they are genuinely excited by what is building at the club.
Coaches
Coaching staff, through their words and their actions, demonstrate positivity about their teams chances without placing undue pressure on themselves and their team.
The coaching staff are confident in their charges going into 2016.
Are the Parramatta Coaches Meeting This Criteria?
It feels odd to call such a subjective statement a criteria. However, I often look to what a coach has to say when assessing what the season has in store. Case in point, Ricky Stuart. In two recent seasons with two different clubs, Stuart has basically stated that he didn’t have the roster to match other teams and that big losses were to be expected. Naturally, big losses followed. Other coaches have spoken about 5 year plans going into their first season. This does not sell any hope for me as a fan and I can only imagine the psychological message for the players.
In his first season at Parramatta, after inheriting a team that had won consecutive wooden spoons, Brad Arthur spoke about his goal for the team to be competitive in every match and to approach every match believing that they could win. Taking his team to within one victory of a finals appearance, it was obvious what a difference this approach made.
Going into 2016, Arthur has spoken about fine tuning aspects like discipline, spoken about competition for positions and importantly, spoken about his desire to get straight back into the new season. The coaching team has been strengthened, with uniformity of purpose being a key feature. Brad Arthur has pushed himself through the same gruelling pre-season fitness regime that he demanded of the players, thereby demonstrating through both words and actions that he is chomping at the bit for the new season to begin. Implicit in this is the belief that a big season awaits. Sensing this from the coach only heightens my anticipation.
The Players
The players need to possess a belief that winning is an expectation.
How Do We Know That This Exists?
Talking with Peter Wynn provided an insight to the mindset of the players during the glory days of Parramatta in the 1980s. If they lost a match, their attitude was that they simply ran out of time to win. They viewed winning as a natural consequence of their play and that they could win every match.
In modern times we see this in a team like the Cowboys who were seemingly out of many games, including the Grand Final, yet would have the confidence in their game to use the full eighty minutes to win the match.
Obviously, this is something that can’t be demonstrated during training, but it is something that we need to see unfolding in the team’s play as the season progresses.
The players have belief in their team mates.
What I can report right now is the positive talk from the players that is being heard around training. I’m not talking about the usual pre-season rhetoric that is the standard fare from every NRL player about their team’s work ethic and their chances for the year. Rather, when they are around each other at training, there is the type of talk and faith in the team mates that you usually find in winning teams. Given the influx of key players from winning clubs, this understandably is worthy of attention.
The Fans
As Parramatta fans, we’ve become accustomed to teams that have not been able to achieve success. The media have always been quick to use the phrase “the high expectations of the Parramatta fans”, especially when referring to the recruitment of a halfback. However, I would argue that the Eels faithful display a level of loyalty and tolerance rarely exhibited by the fans of other clubs. Our expectations could hardly be described as high. Can you imagine Bulldogs, Roosters, Manly or Bronco fans tolerating 30 years without success? Indeed, club memberships have reached record numbers in recent times, a testimony to the fan base staying strongly behind the club.
Surely this demonstrates belief from the fans? Perhaps, but more likely it’s indicative of the great hope that burns brightly inside of all of us.
Back to the question posed in the title. Does club culture equate to belief? Belief that success can be achieved?
As fans, we deserve the type of success that other supporters have had the privilege of enjoying. Given the strides being made in an around the football operation, perhaps it is belief from the fans, not simply our hope, that might just be the icing on the club culture cake.
Sixties
Credit to the Parramatta Eels for all images used.
