Brad Arthur has lauded Dylan Brown as the best defensive half he has coached on the eve of the Parramatta five-eighth's 100th NRL game.
Brown's milestone coincides with the Eels' first game of the season against Canterbury this Saturday, when both club and player will hope to bounce back from nightmarish years in 2023.
Parramatta missed the top eight altogether last season after making it to the grand final the year before.
Brown's individual campaign was torpedoed after he pleaded guilty to two counts of unwanted sexual touching following an incident at a Sydney pub last June.
An embarrassed Brown quit drinking amid the ordeal and vowed to regain the trust of his teammates when he returned from a seven-game suspension.
Now, the 23-year-old has the chance at a full season alongside halves partner Mitch Moses, with both critical to Parramatta's hopes of improving on a 10th-placed finish.
"I've got a lot of time for Dyl," Arthur said ahead of Brown's 100th game.
"He's made a few mistakes along the way, he's learned from them. But he's such a good person.
"I feel like it's my son playing, at the moment, with Dyl playing his 100th game. That's how emotional and proud I am of the situation."
Brown's toughness and defensive grit have stood out to Arthur through his five seasons of first-grade.
Arthur handed the teenaged Brown his NRL debut in 2019, only to put him on ice three weeks later after scans revealed he had been playing with stress fractures in his back the whole time.
"That just shows you the character of the kid," Arthur said.
"The tough players in our game don't tell you how tough they are and carry on about it, they just get on with their job. He's one of those guys."
In 10 seasons as Parramatta's head coach, Arthur has mentored such other halves as Moses, Chris Sandow and Corey Norman.
Prior to that, he was an assistant coach at Melbourne at 2010 when Cooper Cronk was on the books, and at Manly in 2013, where Kieran Foran and Daly Cherry-Evans were elite young halves.
Arthur said Brown stood out from the lot.
"I can confidently say (Brown) is the best defending half that I've ever had to do with as a coach," Arthur said.
"His best footy is still ahead of him. I've had some private conversations with Dylan over three, four years.
"I feel like his ceiling of where he can get to is endless. That's what we're challenging him around and I'm talking to him about.
"He's just got to make sure he stays on the field for the full season. I'm sure we'll be talking about him at the end of the year really positively."
