Preston Campbell has urged NRL strugglers Parramatta to strike a playing-style compromise with frustrated halfback Chris Sandow to get the best return from their expensive off-season signing.

Campbell, who hung up his boots at the end of last season following a 265-game career with Cronulla, Penrith and Gold Coast, said he felt for Sandow with the Eels desperately searching for answers to their disturbing 2012 form.

Banishing the gifted Sandow to the NSW Premier League or playing him off the bench in the NRL was not the key to unlocking his natural brilliance, according to Campbell, a Dally M Medal winner as a mercurial halfback early in his career.

Coach Stephen Kearney didn’t inject Sandow into Parramatta’s defeat to Canterbury on Friday night until the game was well and truly lost.

“I really want to give Chris a call to see if he is OK,” Campbell said.

Sandow’s much-heralded arrival at Parramatta – applauded by Eels great Peter Sterling before he recently questioned Sandow’s fitness – has coincided with the club’s worst start to a season in more than half a century.

But Campbell – who missed the opportunity to play alongside Sandow in this year’s annual Indigenous All Star clash – warned the Eels needed to realise some players were free spirits on the football field.

While there was a place for structure, Campbell said Parramatta needed to find a compromise with the 2008 Rookie of the Year who was a “special talent”.

“Guys like Chrissy Sandow … some of the things he does … it turns footy players into heroes and then into legends,” Campbell told AAP.

“Some of the stuff he does, if he did it in Origin or in a Test, he’d be remembered forever.”

Campbell likened Sandow to the likes of Billy Slater, Matthew Bowen, Johnathan Thurston and Jarryd Hayne, whom he said were wonderful players because they did things instinctively.

“You’ve got to have confidence in Sandow so he can have confidence to do the things he does that few other players can do,” Campbell said.

Campbell questioned Parramatta’s decision to splash out massive money on a halfback to play structured football when it was obvious Sandow’s brilliance and flair in the No.7 jersey was what made him such a dangerous player at Souths.

An instinctive player himself who scored 86 career tries, Campbell went through a similar dilemma under Sharks coach Chris Anderson before learning how to blend structure into his natural attacking style.

“I played off-the-cuff, that’s the way I loved to play rugby league,” he said.

“If I had put that out of my game I would not have enjoyed playing rugby league.

“But I learned if it wasn’t for structure, I wouldn’t have lasted as long in the game.

“Chris plays like a free spirit, he plays off the top of his head.

“If they take that off him he might feel he is being caged.”