Wests Tigers have made progress on the field this season but their standing within the agent ranks is more of a slow burn after it emerged they were regarded as the most difficult club to deal with by player managers.
In a rugby league first, over 50 of the game’s longest-serving and most significant player agents have taken part in an exclusive CODE Sports survey, delivering responses which will have unprecedented ramifications for the entire game.
The survey revealed that 19.2 per cent of agents considered the Tigers the most difficult club just ahead of St George Illawarra (17.3 per cent), Parramatta (13.5 per cent) and Canterbury (11.5 per cent).
The Melbourne Storm were rated the best club in the NRL by a fair margin over Canberra and the Warriors.
The Storm have long been regarded as the benchmark in the game and the club has made a concerted effort in recent years to ensure their roster isn’t dominated by players from one management company.
Instead, they have concentrated on spreading the talent and working with a range of agents rather than focusing on a select few.
The Storm have also been able to negotiate from a position of strength given their status as perennial premiership contenders and a power base that includes chairman Matt Tripp, chief executive Justin Rodski, coach Craig Bellamy, head of football Frank Ponissi and recruitment boss Paul Bunn.
“I take that as a huge compliment,” Tripp said.
“I would like to think that we have the best recruiter in the business in Paul Bunn and clearly he has a strong rapport with these guys as everyone in the game does.
“It works both ways - we show respect to these guys because they look after the players in the game who put the show on.
“As I said I take that as a great compliment because we try to be professional and detailed with these guys so they know their players are landing at the right club.”
While the Storm have been able to sell a club that has been a constant at the top of the ladder, the Tigers are coming from a long way back.
The club hasn’t played finals football for more than a decade and more often than not in recent years, have found themselves at the mercy of player agents.
Chief executive Shane Richardson and coach Benji Marshall have begun the process of tipping the scales back in their favour and that has meant butting heads with agents on occasions, most recently when the
club went to war with Isaac Moses over the future of Lachlan Galvin.
Their determination to wrest back some control from agents hasn’t always gone down well in the management ranks yet the club has still managed to land some major signings, led by four-time premiership winner Jarome Luai and Sydney Roosters prop Terrell May.
Richardson declined to comment when contacted by this masthead but there was a sense that the result didn’t bother him. If anything, the feeling was that Richardson was content that his club was on the right track if they were ruffling some feathers in the agent ranks.
The Dragons, another club that has struggled in recent years, was only ranked slightly better than the Tigers while the Eels are also in a rebuilding phase under coach Jason Ryles.
The most surprising result was the number of votes for the Bulldogs given they are a club on the rise and their football department is headed up by general manager Phil Gould.
Gould is regarded as one of the smartest and savviest minds in the game, yet he wouldn’t appear to be a favourite among the agents given the Bulldogs polled strongly in terms of the most difficult clubs to deal with.
The revelation comes as Gould cryptically suggested on his social media accounts that there was plenty happening at the moment and things were “bubbling away behind the scenes”.
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