Angry Parramatta coach Michael Hagan has launched an extraordinary attack on his wayward players, accusing them of letting the club down and sabotaging the Eels' hopes of a winning start to the 2008 campaign.
A clearly frustrated Hagan took aim at several of his stars on Wednesday following another week of drama in which international winger Jarryd Hayne was shot at in a King Cross street following a long drinking session on Sunday night.
Hayne was with team-mates Junior Paulo and Weller Hauraki when the incident occurred after a fight at a nearby McDonald's.
Eels hooker Mark Riddell, along with the Roosters' Willie Mason, has also reportedly been the subject of a death threat following the shooting incident.
The drama at Parramatta follows half-back Tim Smith's well-documented alcohol problems which resulted in him spending Christmas in a Gold Coast rehabilitation centre.
Just 10 days out from the centenary season kick off, Hagan refused to defend his misbehaving players, declaring: "I think the team and the football club, the fans and the sponsors have been let down."
"There's been enough examples in the game and particular a couple of examples with our football club in pre-season which I’m getting tired of."
"The fans are sick of reading about it and hearing about it and I think it's time that players took some responsibility for what they do."
"You can't babysit them 24 hours a day."
"It's disappointing that we're talking about this instead of what should be an exciting start to the year against the Dogs in round one."
Hagan admits some of his players have been slow to learn from the mistakes of the past and were continuing to place themselves in dangerous situations following long drinking sessions.
He indicated the Eels may move past fines and start implementing tougher policies to deal with errant players.
"We're not taking the hint too well. I think we've had plenty of education and plenty of examples of this type of behaviour which I think everyone's sick and tired of to be perfectly honest," Hagan said.
"In the end, if you step out of line we'll have to just deal accordingly and I'm sure that'll be the case moving forward."
Returning to training after a few days' break, Hagan admitted: "It's not exactly what I was planning on."
"We gave the players a couple of days to recover from our second trial and what's been a really good preparation for round one and this certainly wasn't what I was hoping to come back to."
"I'm sure that we'll deal with those players in an appropriate manner later and hopefully we can focus on preparation for round one, which is what we're here for."