Arthur to put faith in his youngsters

On the back of another demoralising loss, Parramatta coach Brad Arthur says he'll start looking at his development players to give them some NRL experience in the remaining 10 rounds.

The Eels' 42-24 loss to Souths at ANZ Stadium was 12th of the season and they are in grave danger of picking up their first wooden spoon since 2013.

Reed Mahoney, who has played just two NRL games, and Marata Niukore [five games] are among the youngsters who have been blooded in recent weeks and shown good signs.

"Reed had been given an opportunity and Marata is getting better," Arthur said.

"We have a couple of blokes there that might get a chance."

Rabbitohs winger Robert Jennings took the family bragging rights over brothers Michael and George, scoring four tries down the Eels right edge. He is the first player to score four tries in a match in 2018.

Arthur put it down to a lack of communication on the edges.

"We just weren't connected together. Our two inside defenders were up and our two outside defenders were back," the Eels coach said.

"They've [Michael and George] been playing together on that edge for a while now and they've been looking comfortable together but we didn't tonight.

"Obviously the talk wasn't there and we weren't backing ourselves. We're coming outside our systems and not working together."

It's now back to the drawing board for Arthur and his players, who were unable to carry on the momentum from last weekend's win over the Cowboys in Darwin.

Arthur said the team's defensive display to allow the Rabbitohs to run in eight tries was "reserve grade" level.

"We're obviously a team that's down on confidence and I think that showed a little bit in the second half where we're not backing ourselves with our defence," Arthur said.

"Souths executed their plays really well but we've seen them plays a thousand times, we've defended them a thousand times at training.

"Some of the defensive reads and some of the errors that we made tonight were reserve grade standard.

"We just weren't aggressive or we weren't passive and working together, we were trying to do both."