Anthony Griffin waxed lyrical - by his understated standards at least - for nine minutes about how everything is OK at the foot of the mountains.Â
Brad Arthur walked in a few moments later, said his team "played dumb, really dumb" and lasted all of two minutes after fielding a couple of innocent questions from the media.
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Eels hold off Penrith
Parramatta made it back-to-back wins as they beat Penrith in the western Sydney derby.
Just in case you're wondering, Griffin's team were the early-season premiership favourites but are now mired in a 2-6 rut with the Broncos in Brisbane looming next weekend.
Arthur's team won twice in the space of five days at ANZ Stadium as likeable if not lavish tradesmen, the no-frills blue-collar side Parramatta should always be. Did we mention they had just knocked off their sworn western Sydney rivals Penrith?
But the clipboard carriers were reading off different scripts.
"When you're not getting the result on the weekend, you look at a million things and you get a lot of advice," Griffin shrugged after the Eels survived a late rally to condemn the Panthers to a fourth straight loss with an 18-12 win at ANZ Stadium on Saturday.
"I know where this club is going, I know where this team is going and it's tough. But we've got the right people in the right places.
"I'm filthy about losing every week – I'm a bad loser – but we need to be patient with some of the people we've got here at the moment. When we get it right, it will be right and we'll get moving again.
"We're a fairly young side still developing and we're learning some tough lessons at the moment. That's the bottom line. We'll be better in the future, but when that it is I can't guarantee you that. Hopefully it is next week."
It would want to be. Because if they leave their run any later, then not only will the top four be a distant memory, but also the top eight. And that would be a flat-out failure for Griffin and Gus Gould, no matter how right they are in pointing out the early-season hype – and betting markets – weren't framed by them.
"They're all must-win games," Griffin deadpanned. "Obviously, we'd rather be 4-3 or 3-4 or something like that, but it's 2-6. We've got some work to do. Â Particularly that second half today will give us something to work off for next week. But it's 2-6 and we've got to keep working."
Which is exactly what Parramatta do. Corey Norman, who faces being paired with another half after Brad Takairangi's knee injury, scored in precisely the third minute of each half, blasted the hosts out to an 18-0 lead and they never looked like getting beat from there despite Peta Hiku and Corey Harawira-Naera's late four-pointers.
Gus wants more western Sydney derbies, but he might want to think about that one again.
Parramatta don't want to. They'll play Penrith every week in this form. At ANZ Stadium. At Pepper Stadium. On the construction site that is Pirtek Stadium. Name the place and time. Not that Arthur is easily pleased.
"We just didn't play smart," Arthur snarled. "We just played dumb. Real dumb. I thought the effort was outstanding. I thought the collision was really good. I don't think our intent dropped, we just didn't play smart at all.
"We started to run on really tired legs, but I think that's probably got to do with the 30 per cent second-half completion rate."
It needn't matter in the end. And their only chance of suiting up against the Panthers again will be in September, which would have been a lock for the great entertainers of 2016 at the start of the year. Not now.
Scarily, it was only when Hiku reached around the corner post to plant the ball down midway through the second half that Griffin's team busted a try-less streak stretching more than three halves of football.
They had only scored one four-pointer in four halves if you want to go back that far. Panic?
"I didn't expect [to be here] going into the season," skipper Matt Moylan said. "We were training very well in the off-season and had a lot of confidence coming into the year, so it's a bit surprising.
"[But] we've still got a lot of confidence. We played a decent brand of footy there in the second half and as 'Hook' [Griffin] said it's something to build off going forward."
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