His under-achieving team are losing matches again, but Parramatta NRL coach Stephen Kearney hasn’t yet lost his sense of humour.
After the last-placed Eels lost 24-6 to South Sydney on Saturday to slip to their 11th defeat in 13 games, Kearney was asked what his team needed to do to improve in the back half of the season.
The New Zealander emitted a little chuckle and said: “How long have you got?”
Fortunately for deadline-haunted journalists, Kearney’s more serious appraisal of the question lasted just under a minute and centred on one key issue – defence.
“For me that’s the little goal, we’re going to keep improving that defence, because I think probably the first half dozen to eight weeks that was a real issue for us,” Kearney said.
“That’s the focus, There’s a thousand things we want to fix, but that’s going to be the focus for us.”
The loss to Souths was a downer following a drought-breaking win over highly-placed Cronulla.
Asked to assess the club’s efforts over the first half of the year Kearney rated them ‘very disappointing’.
“I thought we took a bit of a backward step, but I think the last month of footy for us has been positive. We’ve been taking steps in the right direction,” Kearney said.
“But in terms of overall, it’s been a real challenge, disappointing. But it’s not going to stop us from keep finding ways to move forward.”
Kearney clearly felt his halfback and big money off-season recruit Chris Sandow took a step backwards against his former club and wanted more from his halves in general.
“I thought the progress he (Sandow) had made over the last couple of weeks, three weeks even was a real positive for him and the team, but I thought he was fairly quiet tonight,” Kearney said.
While every loss generates more talk about Kearney’s future at Parramatta, the man himself won’t dwell on his job security.
“I can’t, my focus is just dealing with what I’ve got in front of me,” Kearney said.