Here Lies The Wests Tigers
I am not a Wests Tigers fan, let that be known.
But they are a team that has had far too big an impact on my life for me to simply not care about their wellbeing. My father, who played lower grades for the Magpies in the 1970s, has been with them through the decades. Hell, I was even persuaded to become a Tigers member for a few seasons.
Whenever I’m at home, I’ll sit down on the couch with my dad and watch the Tigers game. It’s the only game I’ll religiously make time for in a weekend of footy besides the Penrith game. Every other game is “oh if I can watch I will”.
Every weekend for 10 years now has been disappointment followed by heartbreak followed by hope followed by disappointment again.
A packed out Leichhardt Oval
What has become of the Tigers right now is something even I’m embarrassed about.
The Wests Tigers are a club so devoid of identity, purpose and direction. If you genuinely asked a Wests Tigers fan right now to name one flagpole that the club can hang their banner off, you wouldn’t get two answers the same.
Go through the clubs in the NRL, how many are worse off in that regard?
The Tigers were tipped by several to challenge for the top eight this season. On face value, that’s hardly a scathing assessment of an upcoming season. Cautious optimism? Sure why not.
Except that is exactly the problem. The Tigers have been that team that “might challenge for the finals” for the last 10 years. The laurels they’ve been resting on have racked up so many miles they need new brake pads and a wheel alignment.
The Wests Tigers fanbase is genuinely one of the most passionate, parochial and emotional group of people you will ever come across. They pack out Leichhardt Oval on a Sunday like it’s midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. It’s church to them.
The Tigers have an underrated reach and impact across all of Sydney, thanks to their merger. Most clubs can only boast one stronghold, one pocket of heartland. Tigers? You’ll find hordes in the Inner West, through Ryde, Canada Bay, Ashfield, all the way out to the deep southwest of Campbelltown. They’re spread, but they’re strong.
Commercially, the Tigers should be one of the most easily marketable brands in Australian sport, or the NRL at the very least. Forget the 2005 premiership, arguably the most entertaining in the NRL era. You have a history moulded by one of the game’s icons in Benji Marshall. A player who looms so large there are stacks of his peers who cite him as their hero growing up.
The Tigers should be one of the strongest brands in the National Rugby League.
The Tigers have been treated with thinly veiled disdain for years now, and it’s all at the top.
The Tigers have been a club with a penchant for scapegoating and projecting issues away from the upper management. It’s so evident this season from the outside looking in at the situation with coach Michael Maguire.
I think even the most ardent Maguire defender would note he’s been somewhat lacklustre this season. Michael Chee Kam and Joe Ofahengaue should not be starting on an NRL edge in 2021. But do you know how many premiership coaches there are in the NRL currently? Six.
It takes a club of extreme mediocrity, laziness and haste to make a premiership winning coach like Michael Maguire look like such a traffic cone. Guess who employs him currently? The most mediocre, lazy and quick fix club in the entire NRL.
Maguire inherited a shocking roster. Bloated contracts for over the hill former stars filled out his squad. What sane club signs a 30 year old Chris McQueen on a 3 year deal worth $1.2M? The same club that then gave Ben Matulino a 3 year deal, that’s who.
While Maguire inherited a bloated roster, there’s one constant among all the carnage; Justin Pascoe.
The Tigers have made a habit of repainting the same crusty wall every offseason, instead of knocking down the wall entirely and rebuilding. That much is evident in their signings.
Rare proof of Chris McQueen playing first grade for the Tigers
Ben Matulino, Josh Reynolds, Chris McQueen and Russell Packer in one offseason was bad enough. Signing former rep guys past their prime to huge contracts doesn’t make your club “attractive” Justin. It doesn’t show you to be some major player in the recruitment game.
All it does is put the blinkers up for every agent looking to re-house a dimming lamp.
You never want to become known as the club that’ll pay overs for aging guys. The Tigers are just that.
No one knows what position Moses Mbye is best at, probably not even Moses himself. Didn’t stop the Tigers chasing him hard in 2018.
Or what about James Roberts? The mercurial speedster who fell through the bottom at FOUR previous clubs (one of them twice). Of course the Tigers took the punt on him. Guess what? He’s been bad.
Tigers CEO Justin Pascoe
Brisbane fans spent all of 2020 calling for Joe Ofahengaue to be shipped off to the Super League. Guess who offered him a three year contract?
The Tigers have made some commendable signings to be fair to them. Signing James Tamou gave the squad a backbone it didn’t have previously, while gambles on young talent like Daine Laurie, Luciano Leilua, Jake Simpkin, Stefano Utoikamanu and Adam Doueihi look to be paying early dividends.
But none of it will be relevant while the same people remain in charge at the top.
Justin Pascoe is a chequebook warrior on the march for his next heralded veteran saviour. Who’d be surprised to see someone like the corpse of Josh Jackson at Concord in the coming years?
Your major sponsor should not be providing media quotes about the day to day operations of your club. I don’t think that memo got to Lee Hagipantelis, Brydens Lawyers boss.
Lee Hagipantelis, Tigers Chairman and Brydens Principal
Nothing is a secret at the Wests Tigers, everything is out in the open. Just know in about three months the next round of retreads will be presented to the fans with a smile and assurances that their veteran leadership will help guide the club forward.
The Tigers will keep painting the wall.
The fans want to knock it down.
