Random Tigers articles from the media

[gordsy]

Gee Pascoe doesn't take much blame for his miserable failings does he ?

 

[Ron's_Mate]

The NRL big names that remain unsigned for 2022 are Aaron Woods, Blake Ferguson, Dylan Napa, Will Chambers, Josh Dugan, Tyrone Peachey, Ashley Taylor, Dylan Walker, Edrick Lee and Corey Norman.

LOL at the journo calling that lot "big names". Having said that, I would sign Fergo for a couple of years. Also, the club should definitely be talking to Bennett, if not to coach then to run an independent review, as the problem obviously extends beyond the head coach.

 

[Das Hassler]

Wayne Bennett must be stopped amid NRL expansion bid

Adam Lucius says Wayne Bennett's push for NRL expansion wreaks of 'vested interests'. Read his column here.

au.sports.yahoo.com

View attachment 53529

I think WT have to at least pick up the phone to Bennett and ask him if he would stay in Sydney.

He's made it clear he is going back to Brisbane but he is also the no. 1 expansion cheerleader which shows that staying in coaching is obviously a big deal to him.

My reading on expansion is that
a) Redcliffe Dolphins are huge favourites to win (given they have $100mill in the bank) and are more inclined to appoint one if its favourite sons as inagural coach - Paul Green
b) It's not a given that the new team is admitted for 2023 with '24 also being discussed.

If the above is right why wouldnt Bennett at least consider an offer to coach WT? It would represent probably his biggest challenge as a coach but if he could turn the club around it would be among his greatest achievements.

If the above is right why wouldnt Bennett at least consider an offer to coach WT? It would represent probably his biggest challenge as a coach but if he could turn the club around it would be among his greatest achievements.

And he is quoted as saying ...when asked "i would have loved to coach WT". ...he doesn't waste his words when he's talking about his career. ...nothing's a throwaway line. He's the NRL's Todd Gack ( seinfeld) ....he sets up a date without actually asking for a date...he gets what he wants with no chance of rejection

 

[stryker]

Gee Pascoe doesn't take much blame for his miserable failings does he ?

I think his hair answers that question.

 

[Ron's_Mate]

Damning feedback that could end Maguire’s tenure and open door for new coaching dream team
By Michael Chammas
September 6, 2021 — 3.45pm

Damning revelations surfacing in the Wests Tigers’ end-of-season review have cast serious doubt over embattled coach Michael Maguire’s defensive strategies at the club.

The Herald has learned that a common theme that has emerged from interviews with players and staff which began last week is a belief from some that Maguire has been unable to communicate a definitive defensive system to improve the team.

The Tigers have been diabolical in defence this year - conceding the second most points in a season in the club’s 22-year history - and suggestions from within that there is a lack of strategy and game plan around defence will do little to pacify concerned club powerbrokers.

The Tigers’ defensive woes were laid bare in the 38-0 defeat to last-placed Canterbury Bulldogs on Sunday, a result which is now etched into the record books as the biggest loss by any team against a side coming last. The result appears to be the final nail in the coffin of Maguire’s failed three-year tenure.

While the Tigers want to complete their annual internal review before contemplating whether they should explore alternative options, external debate over who should replace Maguire will intensify in coming days.

Penrith’s assistant coach Cameron Ciraldo is considered by many within the game as the best young mentor without a head coaching job, and his achievements at the Panthers suggest he would be high on the Tigers’ list of targets.

Those who know Ciraldo say they don’t believe he would be willing to leave Penrith to take on the role at the Tigers. However, he has a clause in his deal with Penrith that would allow him to take on a head coaching role at another club.

Ciraldo is the defence coach under Ivan Cleary and the Panthers have had the best defensive record in the competition for the past two years.

The Panthers have conceded 524 points in the past two seasons, averaging less than 12 points against per game. To put that in perspective, the Tigers have conceded 714 points this season alone at an average of almost 30 points a game.

Ciraldo is renowned for his strong relationship with the younger players at Penrith, a skill that will be required to help improve the Tigers' inexperienced but talented roster.

As reported by the Herald over the weekend, Maguire wasn’t thrilled about the appointment of the club’s 2005 premiership-winning coach, Tim Sheens.

The club appointed Sheens without Maguire’s knowledge, but Sheens’ role was limited to pathways and development, kept out of football operations.

The appointment of a defence-minded rookie coach like Ciraldo could allow the Tigers to bring Sheens back into the fold to mentor Ciraldo and provide the attacking prowess that he is renowned for.

Sheens, who is now residing in England, isn't due to arrive back in Australia until the end of October because of COVID-19 related delays. He has been assisting with the club's internal review.

Chairman Lee Hagipantelis, who a few weeks ago said Maguire’s two-year tenure at the club wasn’t under threat, appears to have had a change of heart.

"I'm not in a position to speculate on anything until such time as the review process has been complete," Hagipantelis told the Herald on Monday morning.

"It would be inappropriate for me to do so. There's a full board to discuss those matters and determine a path forward."

Former Sharks coach Shane Flanagan, who led Cronulla to a premiership in 2016, is understood to be interested in the job if it becomes vacant.

Flanagan’s strongest quality is his history of recruiting big-name players at Cronulla. It’s an area where the Tigers have struggled under Maguire.

Wayne Bennett would be the club's best option considering his comments over the weekend about his regret in turning down the Tigers job in 2018.

However, Bennett is telling people that he plans to return to live in Queensland next year and has been linked to the expansion team in 2023 or 2024.

Other options include St Helens and Tonga coach Kristian Woolf, Queensland Origin coach Paul Green, NSW Origin coach Brad Fittler, ex-Sharks coach John Morris and Catalans coach Steve McNamara, who was once Trent Robinson's assistant at the Roosters.

There is also speculation that both Parramatta’s Brad Arthur and North Queensland’s Todd Payten are both under pressure at their respective clubs which could provide the Tigers with some food for thought in the coming weeks.

Damning feedback that could end Maguire’s tenure and open door for new coaching dream team

A common theme discovered by the Wests Tigers’ internal review points towards a Cameron Ciraldo-Tim Sheens combination as a solution to the club’s woes.

www.smh.com.au

 

[Das Hassler]

Interesting viewpoint of Roy Masters

NRL 2021: Tim Sheens’ second coming is closest Wests Tigers will get to a messiah

amp-watoday-com-au.cdn.ampproject.org

 

[Vozzy]

As much as Fittlers comments can be hard to fathom how can you deny it after witnessing the Cowboys game, titans game, storm game, warriors game, sharks game and what happened yesterday. Madge needs to go because he is still responsible for the effort and attitude that's why the score gets ugly. We actually have some skill believe or not it's just effort areas and playing with brains that let's us down. In saying that we need to tap the players on the shoulder that can't be motivated because Madge is putting his heart and soul into this for the club to go backwards. We need a new coach, new captain and new halfback. It's not always Brooks fault but he is a common denominator for 8 years when we need him to build pressure, have a go at his forwards for slacking being prepared for a good kick. There are halfbacks with 20 game experienced that do this better him time for a change. It gases the team when he can't do bread and butter stuff. His only strength is his running game.

 

[gordsy]

Easy to be an assistant coach at the Panthers, great team, facilities, money, great results on the park.
Very different when everything is on you and you are dealing with a bunch of lazy pea hearts and a bunch of useless merkins in the board rooms

 

[Old Time Tiger]

Another day, another media article: This one though is spot on in regards to who should be included in the review.

The Wests Tigers have been taken to task for launching a “mickey mouse review” that will be run by the very people it should almost certainly be investigating.

Immediately following a disastrous 38-0 loss at the hands of bottom-placed Canterbury on Sunday, the Concord powerbrokers set about trying to figure out how the season went from bad to worse for a team that hasn’t played finals in a decade.

The Bulldogs, who had won only two games for the entire year before Sunday, waltzed through a listless and lazy Tigers side that looked like it didn’t want to be there.

“It was a putrid performance,” Fox Sports reporter James Hooper told NRL 360.

In the immediate aftermath, the Tigers began end-of-year reviews but it is the coach, Michael Maguire, who dominated headlines on Monday.

His future as coach is in serous jeopardy following the debacle that was 2021.

The Daily Telegraph’s Paul Kent, though, believes the fault lies with the men on the field, not the one holding the clipboard.

“It lifted the lid on the character of the Wests Tigers,” he said.

“And it showed what Michael Maguire has been battling all season, which is they are, as a collective, weak.

“They haven’t got the character to get in the fight and stay in the fight. The fact they quit so easily yesterday in that game … as a group they turned it up, 38-0 against the worst team in the competition … if they have any semblance of professional pride they put in a performance yesterday, and they didn’t turn up.”

A review has been launched by the Tigers board to get to the bottom of the horror campaign.

But, bizarrely, the review will be run by club chief executive Justin Pascoe and his football manager Adam Hartigan.

“Why have a review done by people who should be being reviewed?” The Daily Telegraph’s Phil Rothfield said.

“They need an independent mob in there to do this review.”

Kent revealed the Tigers board will enlist the help of former coach Tim Sheens, who will return to Concord once he can fly into Australia from England.

“The ace up the sleeve of the Tigers is Tim Sheens,” Kent said.

“The board will be putting it to Justin Pascoe and Adam Hartigan to go and come back with some answers they want asked. It’s not about pathways or anything like that, it’s all about the performance of the NRL team.

“They want answers and they want them back from Pascoe and Hartigan. But I ask the question, what if they’re the problem? What is Pascoe and Hartigan are part of the problem? That (information) won’t come back.

“The board will sit down with the answers to those questions, Tim Sheens will be part of that review as well.”

Hooper slammed the Tigers board for handing the review duties to the two men who should be included in the investigations.

He also revealed Hartigan and coach Maguire recently had a stink while in camp in Queensland.

“It’s a mickey mouse review when you’ve got the CEO who’s under enormous pressure, and a general manager of football who’s in the same boat, who’s had a big stink with Maguire up in Brisbane,” Hooper said.

“Inside the bubble they’ve had a bust-up, they’ve obviously tried to smoke the peace pipe and bring it back on the same page.

“You can really see the self preservation and the desperation start to creep into things at the Tigers.”

‘Putrid’: Tigers exposed after horror show

The Wests Tigers have been taken to task for launching a “mickey mouse review” that will be run by the very people it should almost certainly be investigating.

www.news.com.au

 

[Old Time Tiger]

And another one:

Is there a greater cop-out in rugby league than a club announcing it will launch an “exhausting review”? It’s the fluffy, corporate gibber-jabber management spits out when it’s run out of answers.

The Wests Tigers are about to conduct a review that will arrive at a result we already know: Michael Maguire ushered out the door and another poor soul given the NRL’s toughest job before he, too, is inevitably thrown on the scrapheap. Next!

The Dragons asked Phil Gould to conduct a review at the end of a miserable 2019, told him coach Paul McGregor couldn’t be sacked, then sacked McGregor after a miserable 2020, then brought in Anthony Griffin, who has presided over a miserable 2021.
It hasn’t just been a special year for the NRL’s joint ventures — it’s been a special decade: the Tigers haven’t played finals football since 2011, the Dragons have reached the playoffs twice.

The comparisons are compelling: two clubs featuring one partner that holds all the money (WIN Corp in the case of the Dragons, Wests Ashfield in the case of the Tigers); two dysfunctional boards with deep distrust between factions that don’t see themselves as a united entity; two rosters loaded with players whose hands should be shaking when collecting their pay packets; two football departments incapable of finding a solution, digging a deeper hole with every move they make.

The Tigers and Dragons need to stop treating their fans like fools

Rugby league’s two joint ventures have rarely looked so broken. In both cases, the blame should be placed squarely in the front office.

www.smh.com.au

 

[Ned Kelly]

Club chairman Lee Hagipantelis anticipates the annual review to be completed "within a couple of weeks".

A couple of weeks says it all. How can it be that they are not able to say tomorrow (I am being lenient) that we will have a new coach next year and by the end of next week (I am being lenient) who that coach would be?

 

[Tiger05]

A couple of weeks says it all. How can it be that they are not able to say tomorrow (I am being lenient) that we will have a new coach next year and by the end of next week (I am being lenient) who that coach would be?

There is a game being played. I still don't see how sacking the coach helps us move forward.

I don't have answers but I don't feel we are in that bad a situation. Our cap is in a much better place. I'm so glad we didn't purchase Finucane for instance on a 4 year top dollar contract. That is a club killer right there.

We have some good young players coming through.

We really need to develop a couple of gun players. We aren't going to purchase these guys.

 

[Shredder]

Whereas I think paying Finucane top dollar to be here would have been a good idea.

 

[WA Tiger]

Interesting viewpoint of Roy Masters

NRL 2021: Tim Sheens’ second coming is closest Wests Tigers will get to a messiah

amp-watoday-com-au.cdn.ampproject.org

Very Interesting

 

[WA Tiger]

Club chairman Lee Hagipantelis anticipates the annual review to be completed "within a couple of weeks".

A couple of weeks says it all. How can it be that they are not able to say tomorrow (I am being lenient) that we will have a new coach next year and by the end of next week (I am being lenient) who that coach would be?

Haha spot on

 

[WA Tiger]

And another one:

Is there a greater cop-out in rugby league than a club announcing it will launch an “exhausting review”? It’s the fluffy, corporate gibber-jabber management spits out when it’s run out of answers.

The Wests Tigers are about to conduct a review that will arrive at a result we already know: Michael Maguire ushered out the door and another poor soul given the NRL’s toughest job before he, too, is inevitably thrown on the scrapheap. Next!

The Dragons asked Phil Gould to conduct a review at the end of a miserable 2019, told him coach Paul McGregor couldn’t be sacked, then sacked McGregor after a miserable 2020, then brought in Anthony Griffin, who has presided over a miserable 2021.
It hasn’t just been a special year for the NRL’s joint ventures — it’s been a special decade: the Tigers haven’t played finals football since 2011, the Dragons have reached the playoffs twice.

The comparisons are compelling: two clubs featuring one partner that holds all the money (WIN Corp in the case of the Dragons, Wests Ashfield in the case of the Tigers); two dysfunctional boards with deep distrust between factions that don’t see themselves as a united entity; two rosters loaded with players whose hands should be shaking when collecting their pay packets; two football departments incapable of finding a solution, digging a deeper hole with every move they make.

The Tigers and Dragons need to stop treating their fans like fools

Rugby league’s two joint ventures have rarely looked so broken. In both cases, the blame should be placed squarely in the front office.

www.smh.com.au

It’s a bit scary knowing thus far what they are capable of..pee hearts a phrase someone Gordy used
We need a leader / coach on the field coz there’s not one off it

 

[Tiger05]

Whereas I think paying Finucane top dollar to be here would have been a good idea.

Interesting. I think he would have been a disaster.

 

[BrotherJim05]

Interesting. I think he would have been a disaster.

Anyone with any sort of NRL career would be a disaster here. Within a few months they would quickly realize what a stupid, stupid decision they made for a bit of extra money.

 

[Tigerm]

Anyone with any sort of NRL career would be a disaster here. Within a few months they would quickly realize what a stupid, stupid decision they made for a bit of extra money.

So they go to the dogs?

 

[Ron's_Mate]

I know you guys are all hanging out for yet another Tigers article, so here we go ..

‘It makes no sense to start again’: Tamou, Leilua back embattled Maguire
By Adrian Proszenko
September 7, 2021 — 7.45pm

Wests Tigers captain James Tamou and fellow forward Luciano Leilua have come out strongly in support of Michael Maguire on the same day Maroons coach Paul Green stepped down from his post in a bid to return to the NRL.

The joint-venture outfit is undertaking a review after the side slumped to a 13th-placed finish in a season that ended with a 38-0 defeat to wooden-spooners Canterbury. The pressure is on Maguire after the Tigers missed the finals for the 10th successive year, despite the fact the premiership-winning coach is contracted for the next two seasons.

However, Tamou and Leilua are adamant that the Kiwis mentor retains the support of the players and should still be given the chance to turn around the club’s fortunes.

“As far as Madge goes, you see these things all the time; you read that the coach has lost the playing group. But in our case it definitely hasn’t happened with the players and Madge,” Tamou told the Herald.

“In terms of players not listening to the words that Madge says, that’s far from the truth. When we left Brisbane, everyone gave Madge a handshake and a hug to say that we’ll be in touch whenever you need.

“I understand we’re in a results-driven business and you want results now. But I’ve been in a team where Penrith, in 2019, we came 12th or 13th and lost about seven in a row. Come the 2020 season, Jimmy [James] Maloney left and no one gave us a hope - and then we played in the grand final.

“I’ve been a part of that and that’s what I see at the Wests Tigers. You need cohesion for a team to be successful. Everyone wants results now, but it just doesn’t happen like that. You need to be in a system playing with each other for a long period of time to understand how people work.

“I think this year hasn’t been a total write-off. We’ve unearthed some talent and the boys now understand what it means to play first grade week in and week out.

“As far as throwing support behind Madge, I’m all for it.”

The Tigers are under pressure to make changes after another disastrous season in which they conceded the second most points in a season in the club’s 22-year history. The club has been criticised for not being able to sign established players, but Tamou and Leilua - both internationals - shifted to Concord to be coached by Maguire.

“I’m definitely a big fan of Madge,” Leilua said. “When he brought me over here, I was only a 20-minute player. He’s turned me into an 80-minute player. He’s been a big part of not just my fitness but my defence as well.

“I was sort of known as being a bit lazy, but he transformed me into a consistent 80-minute player. The boys in the club love his coaching. He cares for us, he’s done a lot for my family as well. I definitely hope he stays with us, I want to continue playing under him at the Tigers.”

Green wants to return to NRL coaching, an ambition at odds with the QRL’s desire for their clipboard holder to be committed to the Maroons full-time. However, the move is not related to the speculation about Maguire’s job; the club is still to decide whether to back or sack him.

“I don’t see the sense of packing Madge on his way, bringing in someone else and us having to start all over again,” Tamou said.

“This year hasn’t been a complete write off, the things we’ve learnt will be taken into next year. I know next year will be a lot better. It makes no sense to start all over again.”

‘It makes no sense to start again’: Tamou, Leilua back embattled Maguire

Wests Tigers captain James Tamou and fellow forward Luciano Leilua have become the first players to throw their support behind Michael Maguire since their season ended.

www.smh.com.au