PARRAMATTA’s star halfback Mitchell Moses has backed current Leeds Rhinos head coach Brad Arthur to take over at Manly, the NRL club that sacked its coach Anthony Seibold after it opened the season with three successive defeats.
Before being appointed at Leeds in 2024, Arthur coached 264 NRL games, including a Grand Final appearance in 2022 for Parramatta.
After missing out on the Perth Bears to Mal Meninga and PNG Chiefs to Willie Peters, Arthur took Leeds temporarily to the top of the Super League table with their 24-12 win at Bradford Bulls on Friday night.
Earlier in his career he was an assistant coach at Manly before taking over at Parramatta and Moses, who was a member of last year’s Kangaroos touring party, believes he would be a perfect pick for the club, which broke its duck last Thursday under interim coach Kieran Foran with a stunning 52-18 win over the Dolphins.
“He’d be unreal,” Moses told the Sydney Morning Herald.
“I’ve had him first-hand here and seeing what he can do for a team, and especially a team not going so well.
“The brand of footy that he tries to play and implement and training wise, everything like that, he’d be perfect for them. He’d be able to get the best out of everyone in all the little aspects of the footy.
“It’s not so much their attack – they can score points whenever they want – it’s all the little things around that. However that’s coached, I think he’d be perfect for that brand of footy.”
Moses said that Arthur had helped him professionally and personally when he coached Parramatta.
“He helped my game out massively,” Moses said.
“I feel like I was a kid coming here and I’d just do whatever, not worry about the consequences and things like that.
“He taught me how to really control myself in certain situations, game wise, things like that.
“Just being under him for so long, our relationship grew to be very good. He’s really good around the team and he’s a bit more than a coach. He’s really good.”
However, in his weekly media conference last week Arthur refused to be drawn on whether he would be interested in returning to the NRL with Manly.
“My commitment is this team and this club (Leeds) and that’s all I’m worried about,” he said.
“I’m not going to be talking about that any more.”