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Speaker 1: It's West Tigers Podcast. Unfortunately you guessed it. It's another
Speaker 1: post loss edition of the West Tigers Podcast after the
Speaker 1: twenty eight to ten surrender to Manly drop fell on
Speaker 1: Friday night. And Steve is here, and Eddie is here,
Speaker 1: and Gary is here. Gentlemen, I've got one, two, three, four, five,
Speaker 1: I've got seven one words, so I've splurged a.
Speaker 2: Bit on one words. Gary. Have you been able to
Speaker 2: keep it to one? Have you got more than one?
Speaker 3: I actually found it really hard to find a one
Speaker 3: word this week because how do you describe that performance?
Speaker 3: There's so many words that can describe such an inapt display,
Speaker 3: So I'm just going to stick with in apt. It
Speaker 3: was a horrible game on Friday night and it showed
Speaker 3: our performance was just in apt for an NRL team.
Speaker 1: Steve's dressed in red and black. It kind of looks
Speaker 1: a little bit like the Perth Bears colors. I hope
Speaker 1: we're not losing you to the WA team.
Speaker 4: Steve Well, I've considered it carefully, but not at this stage.
Speaker 4: Perth might be a bad option then. So my one
Speaker 4: word is, well, it's a phrase. It's a phrase. Chiles
Speaker 4: ten to fifteen percent, and it just seems to me
Speaker 4: that we play ten to fifteen percent worse than whoever
Speaker 4: we're playing. So we play the Raiders and they turn
Speaker 4: up and we played ten to fifteen percent worse than
Speaker 4: they do and just don't get away with the points.
Speaker 4: Then we play Manly, who are there for the taking,
Speaker 4: who were absolutely horrible, and we played ten to fifteen
Speaker 4: percent worse than them. So that best sums up our season.
Speaker 3: I Reckon and Steve. I think Manly only played at
Speaker 3: ten percent themselves, so I guess that puts us at
Speaker 3: negaty five percent.
Speaker 4: That's one hundred percent, right, Eddie, which would be eighty
Speaker 4: five percent if you take the fifteen.
Speaker 2: Off, Eddie, how are you feeling?
Speaker 5: Not very good? Jobs? The boys have got sensible one
Speaker 5: words mine not very sensible. You know. I went outside
Speaker 5: this morning, jol and it was a bit slippy and
Speaker 5: I fell over, actually so just outside the front door.
Speaker 5: So I went online and I went to a place
Speaker 5: called Sydney Doormats, and I thought, I need a new doormat,
Speaker 5: and I'm going to get an orange and black one
Speaker 5: to call it West Tigers, because that's what we are.
Speaker 5: We are a walkover as a club on and off
Speaker 5: the field. And I'll get into some of my rants later.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the topic that sort of sums that
Speaker 1: up has something to do with talent the silver and
Speaker 1: we'll talk about talent in a moment, because my seventh
Speaker 1: one word does lead us into a bit of a
Speaker 1: discussion about that. So I've got talk and sometimes it
Speaker 1: comes up on the forums, and our fellow West Tigers
Speaker 1: fans say to me, you know, they are sick of
Speaker 1: hearing all of the talk. If you remember last week,
Speaker 1: there were the press conferences, the media opportunities where players
Speaker 1: stood up there and they spoke about this and spoke
Speaker 1: about that, and it just all becomes talk and they
Speaker 1: don't follow through on it. The other thing I'd like
Speaker 1: to say is I'm a little bit over the excuses.
Speaker 2: All of the time. There is always an excuse you know,
Speaker 2: it's the referees, it's the weather, it's the it's the.
Speaker 1: This, it's that, there's always an excuse, and that that
Speaker 1: only runs so far as far as I'm concerned, I
Speaker 1: think there was a certain amount of complacency in that
Speaker 1: in the way the West Tigers approached that game, albeit
Speaker 1: obviously missing some really key players, but I think they
Speaker 1: thought that they just had to turn up.
Speaker 2: I think they looked at that manly lineup, they looked at.
Speaker 1: That manly forward pack and went, we got this, and
Speaker 1: they went out there with that attitude, which of course.
Speaker 2: Leads into arrogance.
Speaker 1: There is I don't know, there does seem to be
Speaker 1: a little bit of arrogant sometimes. I have, of course,
Speaker 1: got physicality and collision. You can't win if you don't
Speaker 1: win the collision momentum as well. We just struggle to
Speaker 1: get any momentum in games. But my number one word
Speaker 1: for the week is natives. And it may not be
Speaker 1: the most politically correct term to use, but the natives
Speaker 1: are restless. I haven't seen the West Tigers fan base
Speaker 1: so upset in a while, and it seems to me, Eddie, I'll.
Speaker 2: Flick it back to you first.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that the talented Silver situation seems
Speaker 1: to be the tipping point. It just seems to have
Speaker 1: pushed you know, the Galvin stuff. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of things we didn't.
Speaker 2: Know, but people are really unhappy at the.
Speaker 5: Moment, all rightly. So, I mean I went on for
Speaker 5: about twenty minutes last week pushing back not necessarily on
Speaker 5: Gary's points, but just asking a lot of questions around
Speaker 5: this talent of Silver thing and whether you rate him
Speaker 5: as a better player Appy or not. Is I think
Speaker 5: it's a separate discussion. It's the wider discussion of we're
Speaker 5: just giving up on another season. You know, we let
Speaker 5: our other elite junior go eight weeks ago in Lackland Galvin.
Speaker 5: So like, if you're get to run dual narratives Benji
Speaker 5: and Richo, just be careful because you know, Benji even
Speaker 5: said in his press conference, we're still in the top
Speaker 5: eight race. No we're not. We're not because we're giving
Speaker 5: up good players halfway through a season and we're getting
Speaker 5: nothing in return. Or maybe we're getting a small transfer fee.
Speaker 5: But you know what, Richo, fans don't give a stuff
Speaker 5: about winning a little bit of money on the side.
Speaker 5: They want to win games.
Speaker 3: We want to.
Speaker 5: You know, we thought this season was going to be
Speaker 5: at least competitive for the top eight until the end.
Speaker 5: But we've we've just thrown a white flag on this.
Speaker 5: And I know Happy, I understand them backing Happy over talent.
Speaker 5: I do not understand at all him letting him go
Speaker 5: to Paramounta this week and lo and behold. You know
Speaker 5: I spoke about on Wednesday in the midwek pot I said, well,
Speaker 5: what's their grand plan if Appy gets injured? Well they
Speaker 5: got their just deserts and Happy got eleven days for
Speaker 5: a concussion. I hope he's okay, but Reserve Greater will
Speaker 5: start this week. So well done everyone.
Speaker 3: No, I can't disagree with any of that, Eddie. For me,
Speaker 3: I've got no problem with the club deciding to let
Speaker 3: telln leave. I've got no issue with that whatsoever. But
Speaker 3: that happens in November. That doesn't happen now. And and
Speaker 3: we're at the point again, we're three quarters the way
Speaker 3: through the season and the end of this season's going
Speaker 3: to be horrible. Now. I'm not going to sit here
Speaker 3: and say we're going to get the wooden spoon, but
Speaker 3: it's not going to be a fun end of the season.
Speaker 3: We're going to have some awful losses next weekend with
Speaker 3: the side that we're going to have to field next weekend.
Speaker 3: And I gave Eddie a hard time for saying this
Speaker 3: when we played Melbourne. What's the point like the side
Speaker 3: we're going to field next week is not reserve grade
Speaker 3: standard and we're just lucky that Laurie Daily is a
Speaker 3: fool because if he had have taken Terrell May into
Speaker 3: that New South Wales so I'd like he should have
Speaker 3: done tonight, would be in an even worse position. Right,
Speaker 3: I'm okay with the club deciding telling the Silver is
Speaker 3: not the future. I'm not okay with letting him go tomorrow,
Speaker 3: especially after what happened on Friday night, especially with what
Speaker 3: we've got coming up next weekend, because Eddie's right, it's
Speaker 3: giving up on the season. It's saying we don't I
Speaker 3: think we can do anything in this season now, So
Speaker 3: we're going to give up a player who can contribute
Speaker 3: to us between now and the end of the season.
Speaker 3: And it's not like we're under salary cap pressure. It's
Speaker 3: not like we need the money, it's not like we
Speaker 3: need the roster spot. We've let three players go during
Speaker 3: this season and had no players coming in. That's three
Speaker 3: players in David Klemmer in, a Lucky Galvin and now
Speaker 3: Talent to Silver. We've let go and it's just waking
Speaker 3: to askuad to the point where I think we've got
Speaker 3: about nineteen players we can choose from the next weekend.
Speaker 4: I think the question has to be asked, when does
Speaker 4: the line get joining the sand? You know, love, We
Speaker 4: get asked to stay positive, we get asked to be
Speaker 4: in the crocodile role, We get told that, you know,
Speaker 4: true supporters don't walk away. True supporters support the club
Speaker 4: and support every player, and I think the vast majority
Speaker 4: of us try to do that as much as we
Speaker 4: possibly can. But I'm going to tell you you've Any
Speaker 4: and Garry, you've both mentioned that the season's over, and
Speaker 4: I agree the season is now now over. We've lost
Speaker 4: two of the best Jews. I remember having a conversation
Speaker 4: or we all had a conversation with Tim Sheen's a
Speaker 4: couple of years ago where he was talking about telling
Speaker 4: the Silver you know, being the next greatest could become
Speaker 4: the greatest player in the game. We had these juniors
Speaker 4: coming through. Two of them are now gone, two of
Speaker 4: the brightest stars are gone and for the fourth n
Speaker 4: a row, I think where hit June and the season
Speaker 4: is dead. Now. I don't know about you guys, but
Speaker 4: I've paid for my membership right through to the end
Speaker 4: of the season and there's still I don't know half
Speaker 4: a dozen home games that I'm going to attend and
Speaker 4: cheer for a team because I want to see a
Speaker 4: team succeed and win, and I want to see a
Speaker 4: team make the eight. And quite frankly, I'm fed up.
Speaker 4: We've been told to wait to a next season. We're
Speaker 4: getting halfway through US season and saying it's going to
Speaker 4: happen next season, because I got news for you, It
Speaker 4: doesn't bloody happen. But we got told next season is
Speaker 4: the one, and then next season comes around and come
Speaker 4: June we piss it up against the wall again again,
Speaker 4: and now we're going to wait for next year. What
Speaker 4: will the excuse be next year? And will with an
Speaker 4: ex bloke to walk out the door because he doesn't
Speaker 4: want to be part of the rebuild or the crocodile
Speaker 4: roll or whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 3: And Steve, sorry, mate, keep going now, you're right in
Speaker 3: saying we get that message at true supporter support the club.
Speaker 3: We are true supporters and we support the club. We're
Speaker 3: still supporting the club. Now, we're all giving up our
Speaker 3: Sunday night to sit here and have this conversation. There's
Speaker 3: going to be many people who give up part of
Speaker 3: their day tomorrow to listen to this podcast. Despite what
Speaker 3: the side dished up on Friday night. These people are
Speaker 3: all true supporters of the club. But it's time the
Speaker 3: club supports us. It's time the club supports the fan
Speaker 3: base and gives them a side that's going to compete
Speaker 3: throughout the entire season, not get to this point in
Speaker 3: the season and just meekly surrender. Because that's what we're doing.
Speaker 3: We're meekly surrendering. And I think that's a really valid,
Speaker 3: valid point about membership Steve. We've got the lowest memberships
Speaker 3: in the competition. How do you sell memberships when year
Speaker 3: after year you get to this point of the season
Speaker 3: and the club makes a decision to pretty much tank
Speaker 3: the rest of the season to create some mythical war
Speaker 3: chests for next season. Now, I am still positive. I
Speaker 3: still think we're going in the right direction. I still
Speaker 3: think as a club, next year is going to be
Speaker 3: better than this season, but they're still like, what is
Speaker 3: it ten rounds to go this season? Give us this
Speaker 3: season first.
Speaker 1: I think the club's to a degree loss control the
Speaker 1: narrative as well. You know, as I said, the natives
Speaker 1: are restless, and I think the club has lost control
Speaker 1: of the narrative, which means that the damage and the
Speaker 1: scar tissue that's under the surface is never too far
Speaker 1: from the surface. With the fan base, but I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people that are really disillusioned, including
Speaker 1: by the look of it NBWT on X and NBWT
Speaker 1: nothing but West Tigers. Of course, they often have really
Speaker 1: really good information from the club that most of us
Speaker 1: don't have, Like they normally gazumpus on a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: but on X they posted My favorite part of the
Speaker 1: silver stuff is Appy hasn't actually even signed an extension yet.
Speaker 1: Not getting a single player back, even just for the
Speaker 1: rest of this year for two juniors under contract is
Speaker 1: as bad as any football decision the club has made.
Speaker 1: The other thing i'd say of Frodi Gary, but the
Speaker 1: Knights are on fourteen points as well. I don't see
Speaker 1: them handing over Ky Paul, even though Kay peers Paul
Speaker 1: is signed with us for next year. Like I don't understand,
Speaker 1: I'm struggling to find the logic of letting players go
Speaker 1: without getting anything in return. I just can't see what
Speaker 1: the upside is.
Speaker 3: On that Appy thing. There's no doubt that Appy signed,
Speaker 3: there's no doubt that well, there shouldn't be any doubt
Speaker 3: that they're not doing this if Appy is still unsigned
Speaker 3: on the Kypeers, Paul one, the Knights should be the
Speaker 3: club who is releasing someone because they're on a salary
Speaker 3: cap pressure. They've got a guy coming in next season
Speaker 3: who's on one point three million dollars that they couldn't
Speaker 3: really afford. And if anyone was going to be releasing players,
Speaker 3: it would be the Knights. And it's not the Knights,
Speaker 3: it's us, who apparently have a war chess and apparently
Speaker 3: have lots of roster's fades left, and we're the ones
Speaker 3: releasing players.
Speaker 4: So, Gary, you mentioned then that we're going in the
Speaker 4: right direction, and I agree with that, and I think
Speaker 4: most people, when they're in a reasonable frame of mind,
Speaker 4: would agree with that. But I just have pulled some
Speaker 4: stats out for that, and I'd like to say, when
Speaker 4: I did all the research myself, but I didn't. I
Speaker 4: actually saw it online. So last year at this stage
Speaker 4: we'd won four lost eleven. This year we're five and ten.
Speaker 4: We were seventeenth last year, we're fourteenth. This year. We've
Speaker 4: got a differential of minus one hundred and thirty nine.
Speaker 4: Last year we got a differential minus eighty four. This year,
Speaker 4: so we are making progress. But for me, it feels
Speaker 4: like we take three steps forward and then we take
Speaker 4: two point nine steps back. Right, the growth is just
Speaker 4: so slow, and is this incumbent by I think decisions
Speaker 4: that have b like have been made today and it's
Speaker 4: just not happening fast enough. The other thing I just
Speaker 4: want to mention too, that really disappointed me about this
Speaker 4: weekend's game, and that was the press conference by Benji.
Speaker 4: And I like Benji, and I still think Benji's the
Speaker 4: guy for the job. I don't necessarily think he's got
Speaker 4: the right people around him, but I think he's the
Speaker 4: guy to take the team forward. But he came out
Speaker 4: and he praised Manly's efforts in the press conference. I
Speaker 4: can't remember his exactly.
Speaker 3: But he praised Dows as well.
Speaker 4: But he said they were tough for him, said, you know,
Speaker 4: they were gritty, or something like that. Now, look, mate,
Speaker 4: Manly were horrible. Manly were horrendous. The only thing is
Speaker 4: we were ten percent worse than horrendous. Right now, just
Speaker 4: compare that to Craig Bellamy and I know we're not Melbourne,
Speaker 4: but surely that's what we aspire to be. Isn't that
Speaker 4: what we're aspiring to get to. He demands excellence, he
Speaker 4: demands perfection. They win games and he's as the dirts
Speaker 4: and he can't say a positive thing about their performance
Speaker 4: when they get the two points. We get beaten in
Speaker 4: a rabble of a game that we should have won
Speaker 4: by twenty points. And I know we had I know,
Speaker 4: you know we had little open out and all that
Speaker 4: sort of stuff, but that's just an excuse, right next
Speaker 4: man up and Benji was proud of the effort and
Speaker 4: was saying that we competed well against a team that
Speaker 4: was tough. Mainly weren't tough. Anyone would have beaten man
Speaker 4: last night, anyone, Joel.
Speaker 5: I've got a game. We won't play it now and
Speaker 5: I'm not the host, but I've got a game for
Speaker 5: you later. I only take a few minutes. It's about
Speaker 5: Shane Richarton. But firstly, I will say now he is
Speaker 5: a very intelligent, experienced operator, and I think I don't
Speaker 5: want to speak for all the boys, but I think
Speaker 5: we all think he's been one of the best things
Speaker 5: to happen to this club and I hope sincerely that
Speaker 5: he is here for the next few years. But like
Speaker 5: the sad thing, all I can think of, I don't
Speaker 5: know what's going through his head. Is the sad thing
Speaker 5: is that he feels with Galvin and the Silver that
Speaker 5: we don't have maybe a good enough environment to control this.
Speaker 5: Whereas you mentioned Ky Peers Paul at Newcastle, he's not
Speaker 5: going anywhere in the middle of the season. You know,
Speaker 5: Rusters have had players leaving next year and they're not
Speaker 5: giving up two or three players in the middle of
Speaker 5: the season. So I just think that's a sad indictment,
Speaker 5: the fact that when there's potentially two local juniors want
Speaker 5: to move on in eighteen months or one definitely wanted
Speaker 5: to move on, that Richardson feels like as a club
Speaker 5: we're not strong enough to withstand that noise and we're
Speaker 5: just going to give them up straight away, like it
Speaker 5: just doesn't happen elsewhere.
Speaker 3: I can understand giving up tell under Silver at the
Speaker 3: end of the year, he's on five hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 3: plus next year. I can understand them move to letting
Speaker 3: go the next season. You can't do it now. There's
Speaker 3: no way you can make that decision now, And that,
Speaker 3: for me is the issue.
Speaker 5: Gary, Just why do you think. I know we can't
Speaker 5: get inside his head, but there must be a logical
Speaker 5: reason why he's doing it. Besides, you know, you just
Speaker 5: think it's a money thing.
Speaker 3: Well, like you and I had a conversation earlier about
Speaker 3: our club being a doormat, and I don't think it's
Speaker 3: our club being a doormat. I think there must be
Speaker 3: a reason why they've made that decision there, and I'm
Speaker 3: guessing it's got to do around culture. But we need
Speaker 3: this guy. We need this guy at least for the
Speaker 3: remainder of this season. Appy's had not These things can
Speaker 3: stretch out past eleven days. He could be out for
Speaker 3: the next two to three weeks. We knew that Lui
Speaker 3: was likely to be playing Origin, so we wouldn't have
Speaker 3: him next weekend. You and I actually discussed this and
Speaker 3: I wasn't as against releasing him at this point of
Speaker 3: the season. On Wednesday night, when we discussed the Eddie,
Speaker 3: but how Friday night went that changes your decision on it.
Speaker 3: And I don't care if you've made arrangements with paramatter
Speaker 3: for him to go now that wasn't signed off on
Speaker 3: because he played for us on Friday night. There's no
Speaker 3: way he plays for us on Friday night if it's
Speaker 3: signed off on. What happened on Friday night makes a
Speaker 3: big difference to me in the thinking around that. And
Speaker 3: I don't know why the club has still going through
Speaker 3: with it. I wouldn't have still gone through with.
Speaker 4: It Eddie to give you applausible explanation to your question
Speaker 4: about you know, why is it happening? I think we're
Speaker 4: just paying for the sins of the past, I really do,
Speaker 4: you know. I think, as I've already said, we are
Speaker 4: heading in the right direction, but it's not having quick enough.
Speaker 4: And these guys want instant success. They want to be
Speaker 4: holding the trophy this year or next year. It's as
Speaker 4: simple as that. He can't see himself getting enough first
Speaker 4: grade time at the club and so he doesn't think
Speaker 4: the club is worth hanging around for him. Look at
Speaker 4: young Wisha down up Melbourne, absolutely outstanding football who sits
Speaker 4: behind Munster, you know, and he's happy to play at
Speaker 4: fourteen and play his role at Melbourne. He's quite happy
Speaker 4: because he knows he's going to get success, or he
Speaker 4: believes he's going to get success and develop his game
Speaker 4: at that club. These guys obviously still don't think that.
Speaker 4: Despite the fact that we are improving, despite the fact
Speaker 4: that we've made positive steps, these guys obviously do not
Speaker 4: think it's going to happen quick enough or well enough
Speaker 4: to be worth staying as part of our club. I
Speaker 4: said this last year, guys on the pot, I said
Speaker 4: my biggest fear, right, my biggest fear was that all
Speaker 4: this was going to blow up in our face because
Speaker 4: these young guys coming through weren't going to stay and
Speaker 4: weren't going to want to be part of the club.
Speaker 4: And if you add Stefano to the mix, that's three
Speaker 4: of them that have walked out the door since we
Speaker 4: talked about that last year. And it continues for me
Speaker 4: to be a major concern despite the improvements that seemingly
Speaker 4: have been made.
Speaker 1: I'm not overly fussed on lou Galvin. I'm not only
Speaker 1: fussed on losing Stefano. You know, plays like books like
Speaker 1: Tarzan plays like Jane if you watch him every week,
Speaker 1: it's yeah, I'm not not that fast about that, and
Speaker 1: I'm not that fast about TDS. What I'm fussed about
Speaker 1: the only thing that annoys me is the way that
Speaker 1: the club is handling this. The way that the club
Speaker 1: has again lost the narrative, has allowed the fan base
Speaker 1: to get this upset and this angry without explaining what's
Speaker 1: going on and taking us for the ride and doing
Speaker 1: it in a sensible adult kind of way, which is
Speaker 1: sort of like, Okay, well, Talent's going to not be
Speaker 1: here next year, but that's okay, because you know, we
Speaker 1: need him this year. We want to be part of him,
Speaker 1: to be part of the team, and we you know,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about it at the end of the year.
Speaker 1: But it just seems that if you kick up enough stink,
Speaker 1: we just roll over and get nothing in return. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not, as I say, I'm not, I'm not really
Speaker 1: that fussed about losing any player. I mean, there's some
Speaker 1: generational players like Tedesco, which which will always hurt, But
Speaker 1: it's more the way that the club appears to be
Speaker 1: managed again that is sticking in my crawl.
Speaker 2: Gary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and what I'm going to say next isn't about
Speaker 3: excusing the club either, But the NRL needs to fix
Speaker 3: the system as well, because the system is broken when
Speaker 3: you've got players. These players are agitating now because they're
Speaker 3: allowed to negotiate in November for twenty twenty seven. That
Speaker 3: system needs to be fixed. What it allows for is
Speaker 3: for the poorer performing teams, the lower end teams be
Speaker 3: pillaged and have players ripped out of them constantly because
Speaker 3: players are looking to shore things up almost two years
Speaker 3: before they're due to move clubs. That needs to be fixed.
Speaker 3: That's not the excuse anything the club's done today. There's
Speaker 3: no way they should have made that decision regardless of
Speaker 3: the system in place. But that system needs to be
Speaker 3: fixed as well.
Speaker 1: I do not want to have a discussion about private ownership.
Speaker 1: Please let's I go into a discussion about private ownership.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to share this post from Gareth Sales
Speaker 1: on the West Tigers Fans for Life Facebook post page
Speaker 1: because I think it just sort of sums up a
Speaker 1: lot of how we're feeling. Gareth says, I've been a
Speaker 1: fan since ninety two and honestly, this is as disheartening
Speaker 1: as it's ever been in over thirty years, we've seen
Speaker 1: less than ten finals games and I don't see that
Speaker 1: changing under the current ownership model. The joint venture has failed.
Speaker 1: There's no accountability, no clear football vision, and no sustained
Speaker 1: planned for success. Other clubs have rebuilt. We just keep
Speaker 1: repeating the same mistakes. It's not just about losses. It's
Speaker 1: the culture, the leadership, and the complete lack of professionalism
Speaker 1: in every area. We're constantly chasing our tail while other
Speaker 1: clubs rise again. Now, Gareth does say the only way
Speaker 1: forward is to find a serious investor. I don't really
Speaker 1: want to go down that path, but he says until
Speaker 1: it happens, it feels like we're doomed to keep suffering
Speaker 1: year after year. Wooden Spoon after Wooden Spoon and Eddie.
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you, two new clubs coming in,
Speaker 1: at what point does it become untenable?
Speaker 2: At what point does it.
Speaker 1: The challenge become too big to turn this club around?
Speaker 1: I mean we are most likely going to now be
Speaker 1: finishing last or somewhere around the bottom of the table.
Speaker 2: Again, the amount of damage.
Speaker 1: That the brand has sustained for a long time, but
Speaker 1: especially in the last five or six years, it just
Speaker 1: seems like the mountain doesn't get smaller, it seems to
Speaker 1: get bigger.
Speaker 5: I agree with the boys. There's been a lot. There's
Speaker 5: been a lot of improvements this year, but it can
Speaker 5: all spectacularly combust. That's the problem. I think that's we
Speaker 5: see or we fear that, you know, Benji could gat
Speaker 5: sack ben Liu. I activate this course and then it
Speaker 5: just completely combusts and you're at the bottom for another
Speaker 5: ten years. Like that's Murry and Ah. Like you mentioned,
Speaker 5: he mentioned a lack of professionalism in every area. I
Speaker 5: think we've said it a few times on the pod
Speaker 5: this year that I think that it's getting to a point.
Speaker 5: And Shane Richardson will never admit this because he's a
Speaker 5: chess beater and he knows what he's doing and he's
Speaker 5: a very successful operator. But I think this job is
Speaker 5: a lot harder than he thought it was and him
Speaker 5: and Benji Marshall are not enough manpower to turn this
Speaker 5: club around. I've read various forums the past two days
Speaker 5: and a lot of fans venting and just like us,
Speaker 5: but you read things like other clubs have you know,
Speaker 5: four or five people on their recruitment staff or whatever,
Speaker 5: and you know, we've got Richo at the moment. He's
Speaker 5: doing here, there and everywhere at the moment. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I know it's a very easy podcast for us to
Speaker 5: come on and vent, but I think the points we're
Speaker 5: making are pretty salient. It is painful progress. I'm still
Speaker 5: hopeful we can avoid that wooden spoon, which is what
Speaker 5: I said at the start of Yeah. I set very
Speaker 5: pretty low expectations. Combet some of you guys. I said,
Speaker 5: if Benji can avoid the wooden spoon and finish fourteenth
Speaker 5: and get eight or nine wins, it'll be okay. That's
Speaker 5: still up for grabs. I know that's probably setting the
Speaker 5: bar extremely low and people will say, oh, that's just mediocrity.
Speaker 5: But the worry I think for all of us is
Speaker 5: we can see it all combusting. You know, when these
Speaker 5: things just lead to snowballing and snowballing down the road
Speaker 5: and then the losses pile up. It's another season with
Speaker 5: an eight game losing street coming up like that. That's
Speaker 5: just really hard to swallow.
Speaker 1: Steve, on that same sort of path, What's something I'd
Speaker 1: like to sort of talk about for a moment, and
Speaker 1: that is it's something that we've often spoken about, and.
Speaker 2: That is attention to detail.
Speaker 1: That it does harken back to what you're talking about
Speaker 1: in regards to the Melbourne Storm, and everybody, every West
Speaker 1: Tiger's fan should go back and watch the replay of
Speaker 1: the game against Manly and count how many times passes
Speaker 1: did not hit the mark, how many times passes were
Speaker 1: up above someone's head or down around their knees, And
Speaker 1: it just seems to be that close enough is good enough.
Speaker 1: That just always seems to be the mentality, and it
Speaker 1: does make a difference. There's a couple of opportunities in
Speaker 1: that game, and we'll talk more about the game more specifically,
Speaker 1: but there's a couple of times in that game where
Speaker 1: if the ball hits the right guy at the right time,
Speaker 1: maybe the result of that piece of play turns out differently.
Speaker 1: So attention to detail, I mean, as you said, like
Speaker 1: Bellamy drives those standards, who is driving these standards because
Speaker 1: I'm not seeing it.
Speaker 4: I'll just say, firstly, Joel, you're right, because it did
Speaker 4: happen in the game. When do we hit that pass
Speaker 4: to see far through, run through the gap and scored untouched? Right?
Speaker 4: So when it works, it works, and we've seen that
Speaker 4: we've seen that when we get it right, we are
Speaker 4: capable of getting it very right. Look, I've been saying
Speaker 4: it for a long time, Joel, I don't know. That's
Speaker 4: probably why you threw to me this attention to detail thing.
Speaker 4: It gets under my skin. And what goes alongside that
Speaker 4: is the acceptance of mediocrity and no stands of excellence.
Speaker 4: And look, it's just to put it out there. It's
Speaker 4: not just something that I come up with a makeup, right,
Speaker 4: It's what I've done in my career for the last
Speaker 4: twenty years, right, And so it's very dear to my heart.
Speaker 4: That's something that I suppose I think I know a
Speaker 4: little bit about. I don't know much about much, but
Speaker 4: that's something I reckon I do know a little bit about,
Speaker 4: and I just see it. I just see it so
Speaker 4: plainly that we don't do the work necessary to operate
Speaker 4: at an excellent level, whether that be on the field
Speaker 4: or off the field. And I've seen that for a
Speaker 4: long time. And I don't want to be negative about
Speaker 4: what's happening, because I do think it's getting better and
Speaker 4: I do think it's been addressed. I'll bee it very slowly,
Speaker 4: and I can't comment about training methods and what happens
Speaker 4: on the training pradic because I've I've never played at
Speaker 4: that level. I've never been involved in sport at that level.
Speaker 4: But it just appears to me, as someone who has
Speaker 4: spent a lifetime looking at improvement processes, structures and strategies,
Speaker 4: that we do not put the effort in where we
Speaker 4: need to put the effort in to get to excellence.
Speaker 4: And that's what you're talking about, Joe. That's the example,
Speaker 4: is you just gave the pass, it goes behind the shoulder,
Speaker 4: around the ankles. The clunkiness in the attack, the fact
Speaker 4: that our like hen we tri scored down our edges
Speaker 4: left and right the other night. That's been happening for years.
Speaker 4: Why hasn't it been addressed? Why is it still a
Speaker 4: perennial problem? We got another try scored office where someone
Speaker 4: came through and took the ball in the air office
Speaker 4: and we didn't compete for the ball. How long has
Speaker 4: that been happening for? I don't profess to know, It's
Speaker 4: just what I think from what I see that we
Speaker 4: just do not have a culture of excellence and no
Speaker 4: one drives those stands. Maybe we just don't know how
Speaker 4: we don't know what it looks like, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, Gary, you'd say that this level of the NRL
Speaker 1: is elite, this is the elite level, this is where
Speaker 1: this is the pinnacle. And I don't see an organization
Speaker 1: that is an elite organization. I don't see an organization
Speaker 1: that consistently hits elite. Not everybody can, not all of
Speaker 1: the time. But I feel like, you know, watching the
Speaker 1: other games this weekend, I feel like we're in so
Speaker 1: many areas of our play in so many areas, and
Speaker 1: albeit it's not just this game, it's right throughout this season.
Speaker 1: It's scar tissue from the last few years, but we're
Speaker 1: still a couple of runs down in so many ways.
Speaker 1: We hope you're enjoying this edition of the West Tigers Podcast.
Speaker 1: Don't forget if you agree or disagree. We'd love to
Speaker 1: hear your comments and thoughts on the West Tigers Podcast Forum.
Speaker 1: It's free to join and you can contribute directly to
Speaker 1: the podcast on the forum. Just head to West Tigers
Speaker 1: podcast dot com dot au slash forum. We hope to
Speaker 1: see you there soon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're talking about the club, and I think
Speaker 3: that professional side of the club is improving. I think
Speaker 3: Richo's doing a really good job there improving that. For me,
Speaker 3: I've spoken about all season on the field that it
Speaker 3: looks to me that a lot of our sort of
Speaker 3: shape and block plays and set pieces that we just
Speaker 3: haven't practiced them enough. We haven't had that attention to dotel,
Speaker 3: We haven't had that level of excellence where you're just
Speaker 3: repeating it training during the off season over and over
Speaker 3: and over again until it becomes natural and players are
Speaker 3: in the right spot. And not only that, once you
Speaker 3: get to that level where you can run that play
Speaker 3: over and over and over again on the field, variations
Speaker 3: come to it as well, where you see something else
Speaker 3: in the defense and everyone's able to adjust to that
Speaker 3: and you can modify what you're doing based on what
Speaker 3: you're seeing in front of you. We don't appear to
Speaker 3: be able to do any of that. When we do
Speaker 3: run shape, it looks like we're running plays exactly how
Speaker 3: we've run them, and we aren't able to adjust to
Speaker 3: what we're seeing in front of us and implement changes
Speaker 3: on the run because we don't have the foundation of
Speaker 3: that bass play down far and embedded enough. And that
Speaker 3: seems to be an issue on the field since the
Speaker 3: start of the season that I think at times has
Speaker 3: improved through the season, But as soon as we lost
Speaker 3: a couple of players leading into that game on Friday night,
Speaker 3: the execution of those sort of players was back to
Speaker 3: what we're seeing at the start of the season, and
Speaker 3: it just wasn't good enough on Friday night.
Speaker 2: Now, just not good enough.
Speaker 1: You know, we started the season thin in some areas
Speaker 1: and we've let players go. We've lost players and we
Speaker 1: haven't replaced them, and that seems to be negligent to me.
Speaker 1: I think it's negligent to see a season and off
Speaker 1: season that so much work was put in to let
Speaker 1: it slip away the way that it has. Professionalism. Yes, however,
Speaker 1: I was getting the members email every Tuesday with the
Speaker 1: team lineup, and it's stopped. And no, it's not in
Speaker 1: my spam, it's not anywhere to be found. I'm not
Speaker 1: getting any members emails anymore.
Speaker 2: So anyway, be that as it may.
Speaker 1: Let's have a look at the one words from the
Speaker 1: West Tigers podcast forum, and obviously most of these in
Speaker 1: relation to the game against Manly.
Speaker 2: Mike's word was depressing. The Richo meter was bad.
Speaker 1: Now technically on the rich O Meter Mike Bad doesn't exist,
Speaker 1: so I'm substituting it and saying paor so saying poor Cambra.
Speaker 1: Tiger's word was clueless the whole club, from top to bottom.
Speaker 2: I've written.
Speaker 1: I don't think too long after the game, but probably
Speaker 1: a lot of us that agree in a lot of ways. Tiger'sman,
Speaker 1: Sheen's ball, everybody's out of position, and we still lose.
Speaker 1: Tigertown SFS had a few regression spoon we're playing like
Speaker 1: a spoon team. And roster terrible roster and also eace.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting one word, but it was not the
Speaker 1: opponent for this weekend. It's give our license to the
Speaker 1: East Tigers LFC. Tiger's word was shambles both on and
Speaker 1: off the field. Davey Farrell broken the club and Benji
Speaker 1: they're both broken. Benji must walk. Our lack of attack
Speaker 1: was embarrassing, Tiger tragic fifty six confused. That's our selections,
Speaker 1: our attack and our defense. Osmo seven is new to
Speaker 1: the West Tigers podcast forum. Welcome, first time commenter, longtime sufferer,
Speaker 1: and Osmo's seven's word was lackluster, terrible performance, no energy,
Speaker 1: no direction. Wagga Tiger's word was done. The club has
Speaker 1: to be done with the way it operates, from team
Speaker 1: selections to the development of junior's Everything the club is
Speaker 1: doing needs to change. Plunder Monkey's one word was thin
Speaker 1: margins with the team, squad depth, tactical insight, capacity to
Speaker 1: overcome adversity.
Speaker 2: All thin one word submissions continue on. We've got quite a.
Speaker 1: Lot this week. Kiwi Tiger concerned. Maybe there's no way
Speaker 1: of turning this club around. Are we a lost cause?
Speaker 1: Chuk's word was twenty You can't win with three starting
Speaker 1: spine players being twenty years of age. Mercy Rules word
Speaker 1: was spoon bowl that'll be against the Titans in round
Speaker 1: twenty seven or should it be spoon bowl two point zero?
Speaker 1: Barrow's word is help. We the fans, the players, and
Speaker 1: definitely Benji. We all need help. Tedys Groundhog Day Nat
Speaker 1: Max seventy eight's word was lost. We look completely lost
Speaker 1: with the ball. We lost the game. I'm lost for
Speaker 1: words After that game, Peter Ray went for malajoitness, sums
Speaker 1: up our team's performance. Of course, malajoitness meaning clumsy, awkward,
Speaker 1: lacking skill. You look that up, John, I did. Katar
Speaker 1: Tiger via the website send in a note to say, shocking, dumb, dumb, negative,
Speaker 1: worst effort of the year. But at least Melbourne are
Speaker 1: a good team. So there's all the one word subisions
Speaker 1: from the West Tigers podcast forum. Let's have a quick
Speaker 1: look at the game. I don't really want to go
Speaker 1: back and remember it too much. What I will say is,
Speaker 1: don't ever say I'm not a dedicated West Tigers fan.
Speaker 1: I was out on Friday evening. I was actually working,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't able to see the game, and it
Speaker 1: was about eight point thirty and I went to NRL
Speaker 1: dot com to see what the score was.
Speaker 2: I wasn't looking at the.
Speaker 1: I didn't have an opportunity to look at the group
Speaker 1: chat or any look anywhere else. So I thought I'll
Speaker 1: go and have a look at what the score was,
Speaker 1: and I went, ah, twenty eight ten.
Speaker 2: Bugger, I'm going.
Speaker 1: To have to watch it because we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about it on Sunday night. So I had to sit
Speaker 1: there this morning, Sunday morning and start my Sunday watching
Speaker 1: a replay of a loss, which is a really stupid
Speaker 1: thing to do. But when you talk about it, you
Speaker 1: got to you got to watch it. What I will
Speaker 1: say gentlemen, I'll throw to you first, Eddie Is. I believe,
Speaker 1: really sincerely that if you take Takiajo and Lodge and
Speaker 1: put their eight their eight and they're ten in our team,
Speaker 1: and the way that they played, especially in that first
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, with their line speed, with the way that
Speaker 1: they were winning the collision, then the result would have
Speaker 1: been different. I think our problem. I know that I
Speaker 1: go on and on about physicality and winning the collision,
Speaker 1: but I still maintain that our biggest problem is upfront.
Speaker 5: Well, it's hard to argue based on what we saw
Speaker 5: Friday night, Joel, and that was clearly the biggest disappointment
Speaker 5: of the game, because I wasn't expecting to win with
Speaker 5: Bullet and Leu eye out and the fact we've got
Speaker 5: a very thin squad, but I wasn't expecting to average
Speaker 5: thirty one meters a set. That's dreadful and like that's
Speaker 5: against a manly pack. I went through it eight seventeen,
Speaker 5: which I rated the worst in the RL. They're the
Speaker 5: worst in the NRL. Sadly I got that wrong because
Speaker 5: we're the worst because we were completely out. I don't
Speaker 5: know if it was out in thirsd or outplayed or
Speaker 5: out line speed or just everything by a pretty no
Speaker 5: name manly Pack, and you Takyaho and you mentioned Lodge.
Speaker 5: I think it was Bullymore Bullymore around for one hundred
Speaker 5: and fifty meters, so Takiyaho. Our forwards was so disappointing
Speaker 5: in that game. And whether it's a wider thing of
Speaker 5: you know, not being motivated or for god god knows
Speaker 5: what reason any this side could be complacent, but that
Speaker 5: was that was pretty galling getting outplayed by that Manly Pack.
Speaker 1: Well, what I've got here is if you go back
Speaker 1: and watch it, Gary, often their play the ball was
Speaker 1: before our line was set, like there play the ball
Speaker 1: early on. It was obviously their strategy was so fast
Speaker 1: that often the West Tigers line defensive line was not set,
Speaker 1: so they had the momentum from the very beginning. And
Speaker 1: we just seemed so slow and so sluggish, and we
Speaker 1: don't ever seem to have anyone really running hard onto
Speaker 1: the ball, at least we've spoken a lot about it.
Speaker 1: In that first twenty minute period, we just seemed to
Speaker 1: be lacking impact. I don't know, I can't describe it
Speaker 1: other than we just look like, you know, two yards
Speaker 1: off the pace all of the time.
Speaker 2: With energy from the forwards, with execution from the forwards.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really difficult one because I think for
Speaker 3: most of the season, outside the Melbourne game, we've shown
Speaker 3: up to play football. We didn't show up the play
Speaker 3: football on Friday night. There was just no energy in
Speaker 3: anything we did. Shifting the ball was slow and clunky.
Speaker 3: As ed he said, our forwards got dominated against the pack.
Speaker 3: That like, I wouldn't take Lodge and the manly forwards
Speaker 3: because then we'd have to play with them next week.
Speaker 3: We've got a much better forward pack than them. But
Speaker 3: our Ford pack didn't show up. Our entire side did
Speaker 3: not show up on Friday night, and I said to
Speaker 3: stave it over the weekend. If if we base that
Speaker 3: performance law is worth two million dollars to our side,
Speaker 3: because I do think a lot of that, the fact
Speaker 3: that we have shown up for most of this season.
Speaker 3: I think it's his presence for a big part of it,
Speaker 3: and him being missing on Friday night. I think we
Speaker 3: really lacked his presence out on the field because I
Speaker 3: don't think he lets players get away with what happened
Speaker 3: on Friday night. And I'm not using that him being
Speaker 3: out as being an excused. The personal ownership should have
Speaker 3: been there for those players, but I think we haven't
Speaker 3: seen as much of that this year because we've got
Speaker 3: Jerome Louai on our side, and look, I don't know
Speaker 3: what's going to happen on Sunday when we play the
Speaker 3: Roosters because he's not there again, and it's just it's
Speaker 3: terrifying to see. And for me, it wasn't that the
Speaker 3: Manly pack is better than ours. It wasn't that man
Speaker 3: We've got a better team than ours. I think even
Speaker 3: that rubbish squad we put out was better than what
Speaker 3: Manly has on Friday night because they didn't show up,
Speaker 3: and Manly gave us plenty of opportunities in that opening
Speaker 3: half to put points on them, and we were just
Speaker 3: unable to do so through paul play and lack of enthusiasm.
Speaker 4: I think the problems for us started at the ruck
Speaker 4: with talon the Silver. I just don't think our tight forwards,
Speaker 4: our eight, ten and thirteen ran off to Silver as
Speaker 4: well as they run off Appy. Now, whether that's just
Speaker 4: because the Silver didn't have his head in it, I
Speaker 4: don't know, or whether it's just because he's a little
Speaker 4: bit different to the way Appy plays, but that's where
Speaker 4: our problems started. And moving Happy out to halfback didn't
Speaker 4: work either. That running run off the first receiver we
Speaker 4: found difficult as well.
Speaker 3: I see Steve Happy, he's the best hooker in the
Speaker 3: game at the moment to run off and it has
Speaker 3: been for the last five years. The way he gets
Speaker 3: his forwards on the ball, that there's no one better
Speaker 3: than him. So that was a huge, huge thing we're
Speaker 3: missing on Friday.
Speaker 4: And it just and you know, even though Tallon has
Speaker 4: been coming on and playing significant minutes for us, the
Speaker 4: timing was just all wrong and we weren't able to
Speaker 4: get any momentum through the middle, and then we didn't
Speaker 4: have anyone who was able to arrest that as and
Speaker 4: Manly then grew in confidence and they did exactly what
Speaker 4: you said, Joel. They just ran straight through us and
Speaker 4: they you know, what you're talking about a lot of, Joel,
Speaker 4: is that when when we get to the defensive line,
Speaker 4: we just stopped dead, stopped dead in our tracks. There's
Speaker 4: nothing post contact, Manly, We're getting post contact through enthusiasm.
Speaker 4: They grew an extra arm, they grew a bit of confidence.
Speaker 4: They haven't been playing well and all of a sudden
Speaker 4: they saw a win, you know, down the end of
Speaker 4: the road, and they went for it. If we out
Speaker 4: of hit them and dropped them at the line and
Speaker 4: they won't get any post contact then, And had we
Speaker 4: had better time out of the ruck and got a
Speaker 4: little bit of momentum out of that could have been
Speaker 4: a very different game.
Speaker 3: That forward pack we had on Friday night, though Steve
Speaker 3: has no high impact forwards in it, and that's an
Speaker 3: issue for us. And that's where I agree with Joel
Speaker 3: in the fact that we do have issues still up front.
Speaker 3: We are still lacking a high impact middle forward. As
Speaker 3: a starter, I actually think it was a mistake to
Speaker 3: move the only back to the bench and start Pola.
Speaker 3: I thought was really good and provided a bit of
Speaker 3: impact early in the game against the Raiders, and that
Speaker 3: was severely missing on Friday night. So I think that
Speaker 3: was a selection error in starting Polo. I think Paula
Speaker 3: is much better coming off the bench, and that's where
Speaker 3: he should be for at least the next couple of years,
Speaker 3: I think, and we ever get someone in to take that,
Speaker 3: which I think we need to do, or at this
Speaker 3: point in the season, I'm running Sioni in that role
Speaker 3: because he much better starter than Paul Is in my book, and.
Speaker 1: Probably both starting props are better off off the bench.
Speaker 1: They are the two guys you want to bring on
Speaker 1: after twenty minutes.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, No, I'm happy May definitely has to
Speaker 3: start for us. His impact actually improves throughout the game.
Speaker 3: I'm not taking minutes away from he's playing at least
Speaker 3: sixty minutes, and he's playing that from the start. For me,
Speaker 3: it's just that you need someone to support him in
Speaker 3: that role because he does not have that impact in
Speaker 3: that first twenty minutes that you kind of need.
Speaker 4: We haven't got the front rower at the starting front rower.
Speaker 4: That's one hundred percent correct, I believe, But we do
Speaker 4: have the impact played off the bench. The blood just
Speaker 4: hasn't been playing well. And apparently he did on the weekend, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I went out to the game yesterday and he
Speaker 3: was actually fantastic. Yes, they played about thirty minutes. I
Speaker 3: only ran for about eighty five minutes, but the high
Speaker 3: impact minutes he started off the bench. He lob scored
Speaker 3: three tries yesterday of all people playing at fullback, and
Speaker 3: one of those was off a beautiful offload from from
Speaker 3: Royce Hunt, so I would have him coming back onto
Speaker 3: my bench next week if I was selecting the team.
Speaker 5: That's good to hear about Royce Hunt. But Joel, I
Speaker 5: wouldn't necessarily put these players through your shredder because I
Speaker 5: think that means you know, they're basically dead, never to
Speaker 5: be seen again. But you know, Jack Bird's not a
Speaker 5: starting n RL player anymore, unfortunately, like he just got
Speaker 5: completely dominated. I don't know where his position is, the
Speaker 5: way his body is. I don't think he's quick enough
Speaker 5: for the backs. He's certainly not strong enough for the forwards.
Speaker 5: He can add some impact off the bench, as he
Speaker 5: has at times this year. And then Alex, you.
Speaker 3: Don't have a lot of options when your other options.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but Alex, I say, probably one of our best
Speaker 5: players on the night.
Speaker 3: So was Adam doing?
Speaker 5: Who was the other one? I was going to mention
Speaker 5: geld Alex Twile. I just again when Gary talked about
Speaker 5: low impact sort of forwards. Every forward packs ideally going
Speaker 5: to have a mix of workmen and impact guys, and
Speaker 5: perhaps our mix is wrong, but yeah, twil and burn
Speaker 5: I've got nominated in that game.
Speaker 1: I thought, I can't disagree. Craig Ives on Facebook just
Speaker 1: joined the forum the West Tiger's podcast for him.
Speaker 2: He says, I can't find where to put the one
Speaker 2: word for the week.
Speaker 1: You put it in the live game day threads and
Speaker 1: looking forward to seeing your contributions there, Craig. But Craig's
Speaker 1: word was cattle. We just don't have it, and we're
Speaker 1: still a long way off. Obviously too massive pull out
Speaker 1: some Friday's game showed our lack of depth. But everyone's
Speaker 1: still calling for Benji's head. What can we do with
Speaker 1: the cattle that we have? Was anyone calling for Bennett's
Speaker 1: head after the Bunnies were flogged last night? I think
Speaker 1: that's a little bit of different, different scenario though, given
Speaker 1: the amount of success that South I've had in recent times.
Speaker 3: Gary talking about Benji Marshall, I think we're tied to
Speaker 3: Benji Marshall for at least next year. The number of
Speaker 3: players that are either in our club already or who
Speaker 3: are coming to our club, or players we don't want
Speaker 3: to lose is just too high. I think there's many
Speaker 3: things he needs to do better, but I think we
Speaker 3: are tied to him for the next twelve months at least.
Speaker 1: Craig goes on to say in my opinion, another couple
Speaker 1: of forwards who are willing to have a real crack
Speaker 1: in another center is needed. Blokes like Twile and Sayfarth
Speaker 1: should be coming off the bench and not starting.
Speaker 2: I've got in by notes here.
Speaker 1: It took twenty three minutes for us to really have
Speaker 1: a strong, physically dominant set in defense. Three times in
Speaker 1: a set we were able to drive them back and
Speaker 1: mainly only made twenty meters or about twenty meters in
Speaker 1: that set, which was really pleasing, but just not enough
Speaker 1: of it. Eddie Clunky is the word when it comes
Speaker 1: to our red zone attack. It's been that way even
Speaker 1: with our best team. We're just struggling once again in
Speaker 1: that red zone. And obviously Buller, who provides that extra
Speaker 1: that extra point of offense, was sorely missing as well.
Speaker 5: Always going to be very difficult without Leui and Buller.
Speaker 5: I probably didn't expect it to look that bad, but did.
Speaker 5: But the point I was laboring might have been last week.
Speaker 5: Opposition coaches or players often label outside unorthodox or unconventional,
Speaker 5: and my paraphrase for that is they're disorganized, and when
Speaker 5: they get sixteen kneel down, they go, oh, we've got
Speaker 5: some talent here, we're just going to start throwing the
Speaker 5: ball around, and this has happened a lot in the
Speaker 5: last four or five games. We're pretty conservative, we're clunky,
Speaker 5: We've got passes going over their head and then we
Speaker 5: get sixteen there it will bound. So some of the
Speaker 5: better players on the side like happy. So I've got
Speaker 5: to just do something myself here, or we're going to
Speaker 5: start playing offload football. And that's happened too many times
Speaker 5: for my liking. And I don't want to hammer the
Speaker 5: coach because I've given him a few raps the last
Speaker 5: couple of weeks and I've don't take that back. But Joel,
Speaker 5: I think it's getting to the point where he has
Speaker 5: to be told at the end of the season that
Speaker 5: you know you're staying, but I would keep him, but
Speaker 5: you're not getting to say in all your assistant coaches,
Speaker 5: or we're bringing in a coach for attack specifically because
Speaker 5: he like I don't want to bag him for sitting
Speaker 5: on the sideline, because you know, Ricky Stewart sits on
Speaker 5: the sideline every week and the top of the table,
Speaker 5: but you can't see what's going on at ground level.
Speaker 5: You've got no idea what's going on. All you could
Speaker 5: do is talk to your troops, and that's a way
Speaker 5: of engaging, and that's a motivating way. But you've got
Speaker 5: to have someone up on the box that knows what
Speaker 5: the hell is happening out there. Because he threw his
Speaker 5: plan out after fifteen minutes, which was probably fair enough
Speaker 5: because Steve mentioned that De Silva was really struggling and
Speaker 5: you had to get Appy back to nine. But someone said,
Speaker 5: I don't know if it's true, and I know there
Speaker 5: were a couple of hias and whatnot, that there were
Speaker 5: seven Spye changes throughout the game. Yeah, like that to
Speaker 5: me just smacks of a Jersey flag open trial in
Speaker 5: November and a scrimmage. And you go, right, oh, boys
Speaker 5: have twenty minutes at full back, have fifteen minutes at hooker, Gary,
Speaker 5: you can have ten minutes at half back. I might
Speaker 5: as well. Let's just see how we go. So Benji,
Speaker 5: I think he's got a lot of attributes that are
Speaker 5: you know, gives me hope that he can make it
Speaker 5: as a coach, and he has certainly improved the roster
Speaker 5: more than I thought he could in a couple of
Speaker 5: years by getting big fish like Louai and May and
Speaker 5: Tarriuvera guys that are playing well, but his ex'es and O's.
Speaker 5: I know there's a lack of cattle. And Friday is
Speaker 5: not the best example to hammer him with because that
Speaker 5: was a poor side that we ran out on Friday night.
Speaker 5: But man, we need someone to organize this team because
Speaker 5: they look like they don't know what the hell they're
Speaker 5: doing at times.
Speaker 3: Mate, there were seven changes to the spine on Friday night,
Speaker 3: but none of them worked. I would have been changing
Speaker 3: them too.
Speaker 5: He was like play Like God, we.
Speaker 3: Stuck with that one at the end. So I can
Speaker 3: understand the changes because no matter what he did, nothing
Speaker 3: was working.
Speaker 6: At talk about structure, right, So just just on that point,
Speaker 6: why wouldn't like we bought out Our next most destructive
Speaker 6: back all season has been Staff and Tower?
Speaker 4: Now what on earth have we not put some structures
Speaker 4: together and some plays together that have our back rower
Speaker 4: on the right side running through and sometimes you give
Speaker 4: it to him, and sometimes you pass it behind him
Speaker 4: and give the ball to Tower in space, get quick
Speaker 4: ball out to him, two passes, cut across behind your
Speaker 4: back rower and get give the ball to Staff. A
Speaker 4: Tower who at the very least will then have a
Speaker 4: bit of space and time to try to do something
Speaker 4: because he's one bloke who can break a tackle and
Speaker 4: can beat a man. But he didn't see them. He
Speaker 4: didn't see the football. Now again, I know Eddie're right,
Speaker 4: we didn't have We got thrown a curveball late with Leui,
Speaker 4: but it didn't even look like that had been thought
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 5: You mentioned, sorry, Gary, He mentioned the press conference that
Speaker 5: Leui like threw us into chaos, and it was like
Speaker 5: Louis pulled out in the warm up. He pulled out
Speaker 5: pretty much the night before, so obviously mister captain's run.
Speaker 5: But it looked like he pulled out two minutes before
Speaker 5: the game. That's what it appeared like in the field,
Speaker 5: and they were just like, oh, you go here, you
Speaker 5: go there, let's let's go everywhere. That's that's where Benji's
Speaker 5: really learning on the run.
Speaker 3: I think, well, I take your point about Tower, Steve,
Speaker 3: but you look at the guys he had playing inside
Speaker 3: him all night like happy he started on that right edge.
Speaker 3: He's not a half up with Heath Mason there who
Speaker 3: can't pass. And then Adam Dewey moved into the five
Speaker 3: eight role at some point and who I thought played
Speaker 3: really well but isn't a known ballplayer either, and there
Speaker 3: was absolutely no structure.
Speaker 4: That's my point. That's my point, Gary, that's the point, like,
Speaker 4: even though, if you've got two blokes inside that aren't
Speaker 4: great first, that aren't stars, but you run some drills
Speaker 4: of train to get them passing the ball.
Speaker 3: Uck quick passing training though.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, well you're telling me you can't put two
Speaker 4: blokes in there to throw a quick ball from the
Speaker 4: ruck to first receiver of the second receiver to tower
Speaker 4: and at least give him the ball with a bit
Speaker 4: of time.
Speaker 3: None of those players playing that position have shown that
Speaker 3: yet in their career. So yeah, I'm not surprised that
Speaker 3: it was like that. You're right, it's it's probably something
Speaker 3: we needed to have. But they've been getting in pretty
Speaker 3: decent ball all season. He has been getting that early ball.
Speaker 3: That's why he's having such a good season. But the
Speaker 3: player he had running lines inside him was was Greg Byrd.
Speaker 3: Jack Bird keep saying Greg Byrd, I don't know why,
Speaker 3: Jack Bird. He's not going to drumal defenses like the
Speaker 3: way he played the other night. It's just the cattle
Speaker 3: was really bad on Friday night, but we we just
Speaker 3: weren't good enough. That we didn't execute well enough. We
Speaker 3: didn't play with enough enthusiasm. I think if we had
Speaker 3: played with a little bit of intensity, we win that
Speaker 3: game fairly easier, even against that manly side, because they
Speaker 3: were diabolical in that first half. They were horrible, like
Speaker 3: that was one of the worst hards of football I've
Speaker 3: ever seen, and they kept giving us the ball in
Speaker 3: good field position, and the lack of intensity, the lack
Speaker 3: of enthusiasm, we just did nothing with it.
Speaker 4: Well, that's what I'm saying, mate. That's like, you can't
Speaker 4: tell me that it's training. They can't put whoever he
Speaker 4: is needed in those positions for the play for that play,
Speaker 4: right you can say, yeah, well you got you got
Speaker 4: X one and Z on the right edge. But for
Speaker 4: that play where we are going to get staff at
Speaker 4: the ball early and quickly, you bring someone into that
Speaker 4: position to run that play, and you train it all
Speaker 4: bloody weak, you train it hard.
Speaker 7: And we knew we were down, okay, we knew. We
Speaker 7: didn't know we weren't going to have LUAI. We knew
Speaker 7: we were down on attacking weapons. So staff had told
Speaker 7: the players should have been to get him the ball,
Speaker 7: and it didn't look like there was anything put in
Speaker 7: place to get him the ball. I take your point,
Speaker 7: but I still maintain you've got to train to your strengths,
Speaker 7: and it doesn't look like to me they are.
Speaker 1: And he just just something that just sparked my memory.
Speaker 1: I think we were talking about coaches and how great
Speaker 1: players don't necessarily make great coaches, and I was just
Speaker 1: thinking that through as I was listening to you guys,
Speaker 1: and I was thinking back about some players. Bellamy's a
Speaker 1: good example, Shane Flanagan much too, Gary's chagrin. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that he's a great coach, but he's a premiership
Speaker 1: winning coach. But guys like that was sort of scrappers
Speaker 1: in that they had to work really really hard and
Speaker 1: had to work with what they had.
Speaker 2: To achieve first grade.
Speaker 1: Maybe not a lot of first grade, but they achieved
Speaker 1: their goal of playing first grade. And I remember some
Speaker 1: talk about I can't remember who the coach was. It
Speaker 1: may have been when Junior took over at Balmain, where
Speaker 1: there was that concern that he was going to get
Speaker 1: frustrated with the players who weren't willing to do the
Speaker 1: extras like he always was, But I wonder if Benji,
Speaker 1: because it came so naturally for Benji, was so naturally gifted,
Speaker 1: that he just doesn't.
Speaker 2: Know how to connect with players.
Speaker 1: That don't have that natural gift, and he just sort
Speaker 1: of thinks that it's going to happen naturally for them,
Speaker 1: and because that's how it happened for.
Speaker 5: Him, it's interesting. I think we spoke about it last week,
Speaker 5: like it's a discussing across the broader sports. A lot
Speaker 5: of great ex players make great coaches, and I made
Speaker 5: the point last week that teams tend to play in
Speaker 5: the personality of their coach, and he's got some great
Speaker 5: personality traits. I think he's dealt with media really well.
Speaker 5: He's kept the team relatively harmonious calm, But his career
Speaker 5: JOL was never consistent. Like even in his great housey
Speaker 5: in days, you know there'd be three triassists and four
Speaker 5: balls going out of the sidelines. So I just think
Speaker 5: he's a young coach and I think he needs to
Speaker 5: not select all his mates as assistant coach. I think
Speaker 5: he needs a little bit of experience or some wiser guys,
Speaker 5: perhaps with ex's and o's that could help him purely
Speaker 5: really focus in on his strengths.
Speaker 1: Maybe people that are not afraid to say no to
Speaker 1: him or to disagree.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe yeah, Joel, about your point about great players
Speaker 3: not making great coaches. I spent half my life as
Speaker 3: a teacher, and what I found is sometimes the most
Speaker 3: intelligent person wasn't the best teacher because a lot of
Speaker 3: things that came naturally to them, especially in things like mathematics,
Speaker 3: they would skip a step in their head and they
Speaker 3: just knew that automatically. And what happens is, then how
Speaker 3: do you teach that step that you're missing if you
Speaker 3: don't know it? And I find that with a lot
Speaker 3: of coaches as well. My theory would be that things
Speaker 3: that they could just do naturally, they just knew how
Speaker 3: to do. How do you then break that down in
Speaker 3: the steps to teach it to someone? How do you
Speaker 3: break down that game plan of where you're meant to
Speaker 3: be if you instinctively knew where to be there? How
Speaker 3: do you identify like some halves who Cooper Krank would
Speaker 3: have been a guy who did this. He would identify
Speaker 3: things like tells in the defense about what the defense
Speaker 3: was doing. Now, a guy like Benji probably was looking
Speaker 3: for those tells. He just automatically reacted to them. So
Speaker 3: how do you then teach those tells to a player
Speaker 3: if you weren't looking for them when you played, you
Speaker 3: were just reacting to what you saw subconsciously. And I
Speaker 3: think that is a pretty good example of what you're
Speaker 3: talking about and why sometimes really good coaches really good
Speaker 3: players don't translate to really good coaches. But look, I
Speaker 3: think exactly right, Eddie. I think Benji is doing a
Speaker 3: really good job of well for the most part, apart
Speaker 3: from the players. Leaving of managing the players, I think
Speaker 3: most of the players have really good buy into what
Speaker 3: he's trying to do. But I think he needs help
Speaker 3: with some of the game planning side of it, and
Speaker 3: that to me looks like what's lacking at the moment.
Speaker 4: I think you've just hit on something, Gary. I think
Speaker 4: Cooper Kronk, or a Cooper Kronk clone is the exact
Speaker 4: type of personality we need to come in and sit
Speaker 4: behind Benji. Cooper Kronk is a guy who has well
Speaker 4: the way he talks right, the way he talks now
Speaker 4: that he's commentating, has absolute attention to detail, talks about
Speaker 4: repetition and doing it until it hurts to get it right,
Speaker 4: and as that mindset of just becoming perfect in your
Speaker 4: execution and that type of mentality teamed up with Benji
Speaker 4: and the way Benji thinks and the way Benji, as
Speaker 4: Gary just said, managers players, I think would be a
Speaker 4: perfect combination. I'm not saying Cooper Kronk, I'm saying that personality.
Speaker 5: It's into interesting Joel. I was sitting with Adele on
Speaker 5: Thursday night from The Westlife Tiger's podcast, and he made
Speaker 5: a point about the Penrith Cannery game and he said,
Speaker 5: these two teams are basically at the top of the competition.
Speaker 5: They're they're the most attention to detail in terms of
Speaker 5: structure in attack. Funny, it was a great game, but
Speaker 5: it was almost like they canceled each other out because
Speaker 5: they knew what each other were doing. But I just
Speaker 5: think we've got so many steps to go. I think
Speaker 5: our talent's improved, but in terms of being that detailed
Speaker 5: of structured attack, which knows there's a couple of players
Speaker 5: out players could play the system, we look a long
Speaker 5: way from that.
Speaker 1: I can't help but think that that missing out on
Speaker 1: Sereraldo has been another sliding doors moment.
Speaker 2: For the club, like it's easy in hindsight, but I
Speaker 2: think it could be. It could be a sliding doors moment.
Speaker 3: Garry, I would desroudo lasted his first year at the
Speaker 3: Bulldogs a similar year at our club. We probably suckum
Speaker 3: at the end of that year. So they were really
Speaker 3: poor in that first year, and he was obviously putting
Speaker 3: the stuff in place to move that club forward, because
Speaker 3: they've moved forward since then. But we may not have
Speaker 3: had that patience with him.
Speaker 2: We'll never know.
Speaker 1: I want to just quickly just be a little bit negative,
Speaker 1: and then I've got a positive, and then I've got
Speaker 1: a question.
Speaker 5: For you also, and then I've got my game Joel, Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you game?
Speaker 1: Medi Okay, Well, well I'll just have a look, you know,
Speaker 1: like if you West Tigers, if you were to know
Speaker 1: I've said it before on the pod, if you were
Speaker 1: to encapsulate ten minutes of the West Tigers, it's the
Speaker 1: two minutes before halftime in the game against Manley, and
Speaker 1: it's the minutes after halftime, so with a minute to go,
Speaker 1: Manly scored that try. Of course, Skelton was sort of
Speaker 1: out of position, burned for pace. They get in there
Speaker 1: in the corner. They go into halftime leading by six nil.
Speaker 1: Not the end of the world, you know, we were
Speaker 1: still in it, but the first minute of the second half.
Speaker 1: So they've come out really, really enthusiastic. Their line speed
Speaker 1: keeps us to thirty minutes. We turn them all over
Speaker 1: to them. Our defense is flat footed, nowhere near the
Speaker 1: same level of intensity.
Speaker 2: They make more meters, they make their way.
Speaker 1: Downfield, they get a penalty because we're offside by the
Speaker 1: third tackle. They're attacking our line. They spread it to
Speaker 1: their left, really simple play, and they score, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden.
Speaker 2: It's twelve mil. And it's like, how to lose a game?
Speaker 1: Or ten mili it might have been, but how to
Speaker 1: lose a game in ten quick minutes just from two
Speaker 1: passages of play, which is substandard. The positive before I
Speaker 1: throw to you for your game, Metie, you can host them.
Speaker 1: I've got one more question the positives. I've got to
Speaker 1: say the feinners, All three of the feinners were a positive.
Speaker 2: I thought Samuela played well.
Speaker 1: I thought so only did his usual you know, he's
Speaker 1: turning out to be a very consistent, very reliable prop
Speaker 1: And I thought Latsu had some really classy.
Speaker 2: Moments which gave me hope.
Speaker 1: Probably for me, those three stood out above anybody else.
Speaker 1: Did anybody else have any thoughts on the Feinners performance
Speaker 1: the three of them.
Speaker 3: I thought it was Seem's best performance of the season
Speaker 3: so far. I thought he was actually damaging in his runs,
Speaker 3: which we haven't seen for a little bit. I think
Speaker 3: he must have been carrying an injury earlier in the year,
Speaker 3: and I think he's starting to get over that now.
Speaker 3: So I'm really looking forward to seeing him him back
Speaker 3: when Lui comes back into the side in what is
Speaker 3: it now, two weeks time, because I think that combination
Speaker 3: is really going to start to build. So the only
Speaker 3: I agree, as I said earlier, I'd be starting him
Speaker 3: LAT two. I thought, really, lu I've been there. I
Speaker 3: think he still a young guy, still very inexperience. I
Speaker 3: don't put a lot of the loss unto him despite
Speaker 3: our troubles kind of in the attacking red zone. I
Speaker 3: just think he needs a little bit of help and
Speaker 3: just have that help he needed on Friday night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but if you if you're looking at it, if
Speaker 1: you're looking at that, at that game from an unbiased perspective,
Speaker 1: he was the guy that looked have the most class,
Speaker 1: the most.
Speaker 3: The most I'm very happy to see what he does
Speaker 3: over the next couple of months, especially once alas in.
Speaker 3: I think they will be very telling and and part
Speaker 3: of the reason why I think we're going to like
Speaker 3: despite everything that happened today with Talon to Silver, despite
Speaker 3: the game on Friday night, Lar too fainting, is one
Speaker 3: of the reasons I think we're going to be in
Speaker 3: a much better position next season.
Speaker 2: Edie's got a game?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 2: The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Speaker 5: I've given I've given Shane Richson quite a few raps
Speaker 5: tonight because I ran him very, very highly, and I'd
Speaker 5: love him to come on this podcast one day and
Speaker 5: he could just tell me that I'm a deluded, you know,
Speaker 5: gibbering fan, which is exactly what I am.
Speaker 2: But that's what we all think.
Speaker 5: Yeah, fu my game, goal, my game, jol I might
Speaker 5: direct it to you because Stephen Gary, why might this
Speaker 5: game it's called Shane Richardson or Shane Pasco. You have
Speaker 5: to answer these questions because you know, Richo is a
Speaker 5: very bullish man, and he's in the crocodile role. I'm
Speaker 5: just worried this crocodiles. Dont to get on top of
Speaker 5: him at the moment, because if you would ask the question,
Speaker 5: you know, when Richo signed in twenty twenty five, Joel
Speaker 5: in July, let's call it July. Who would have the
Speaker 5: club playing back at five grounds? Would it be Shane
Speaker 5: Richson or Shane Pasco?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Point?
Speaker 5: Taking my second one, you know, who would go on
Speaker 5: a podcast in round seven and declare, in a few
Speaker 5: weeks we'll have two or three signings Shane Richardson or
Speaker 5: Shane Pasco. This one's maybe a bit below the belt,
Speaker 5: but who would sign two mediocre players managed by his
Speaker 5: son who are possibly not good enough to be in
Speaker 5: the top thirty. Imagine his name was Shane Pasco. He'd
Speaker 5: certainly be compying some flak for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And who would release a press release on a Friday,
Speaker 5: you know, saying that our percentage sales at Kombank Stadium
Speaker 5: and I sarcastically said, well, you know, hat sales are
Speaker 5: up three percent and scarf sales are up four percent.
Speaker 4: But like, really, rich out, do you really have to
Speaker 4: put a.
Speaker 5: Press release out for that? Because you know, I'm sure
Speaker 5: you're right, and you know what you're doing money wise.
Speaker 5: But okay, if those merchandise and membership is up at
Speaker 5: Coombank Stadium. You know what's not up. Wins. Wins are
Speaker 5: not up. And those two wins we could have had
Speaker 5: potentially a like ard over against Paramatta and Penrith, they're
Speaker 5: out the window and rich. So we're not in the
Speaker 5: race for the top eight, mate, we're in the race
Speaker 5: for the spoon again.
Speaker 1: And you know what most importantly is not up is
Speaker 1: the goodwill of the fan base. That's what has got
Speaker 1: me worried is the good will is diminishing and diminishing,
Speaker 1: and it's really really hard back, Steve.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just on that fan base. I think that's a
Speaker 4: recent thing. I think the fans have been pretty good
Speaker 4: with the club most of the year. I think it's
Speaker 4: just in this last forty eight hours really it's really taken.
Speaker 2: It got rocky a couple of weeks ago and it's yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, but I think you have been a little
Speaker 4: bit tough with that one. And I know you said
Speaker 4: of half a little tongue in cheek, yeah yeah, it
Speaker 4: is a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 4: I think what you said earlier is probably the most
Speaker 4: pertinent point when you said you don't think that rich
Speaker 4: I understood how hard it was going to be to
Speaker 4: turn this club around. It because he has mentioned that
Speaker 4: there's a journey to go on. That's that Richard Media, right,
Speaker 4: We've got to go from bad to port of mediocre whatever.
Speaker 4: But I think getting out of bad or getting out
Speaker 4: of poor, he's taking a lot longer than he he
Speaker 4: originally thought. And maybe he's going to take all he's yes,
Speaker 4: but for me, he's not. He's not Pasco Richo, He's
Speaker 4: Obi one. He's ob one, And because honestly, I believe
Speaker 4: he's our only hope. We've got to stay behind this guy,
Speaker 4: and we've got to trust him what he's doing and
Speaker 4: support him because we've got no one else in the
Speaker 4: club with the experience that he's got, and we just
Speaker 4: have to trust that whatever he does works.
Speaker 3: There's a very important period coming up for us over
Speaker 3: the next two months, and it's about setting us up
Speaker 3: for next year, and it goes pretty much from the
Speaker 3: end of them from now pretty much until around first
Speaker 3: in November, and it's about improving this roster. I think
Speaker 3: it's really crucial time and I know who I'd rather
Speaker 3: have in control of that at the moment. Over over
Speaker 3: Pasco or Richardson this next couple of months to set
Speaker 3: us up for next season. We need to pick up
Speaker 3: a few quality players like we did last season, and
Speaker 3: I think that improves us a lot. It's really important
Speaker 3: couple of months coming up.
Speaker 1: I haven't been on a pod since this news broke,
Speaker 1: but I didn't want to let this one go past.
Speaker 1: It was last week. I think it came out last
Speaker 1: Friday morning. Lee Hadjapentalas saying he regrets taking the job.
Speaker 2: As chairman of the West Tigers. We regret it too, Yeah, Lee,
Speaker 2: I'd just like to say so to we.
Speaker 1: The feeling is more than mutual. Last one, guys, the
Speaker 1: question that I've got is crystal Ball. Does the team's
Speaker 1: heads drop from here like it was that it was
Speaker 1: that our Grand final? Or is there still some fight
Speaker 1: in this team? What is your gut feeling, Eduardo?
Speaker 5: This week will be horrible. They'll get absolutely flogged. If
Speaker 5: you can get the Ruses minus twelve and a half,
Speaker 5: which you can at the moment, that'll be about eighteen
Speaker 5: in a few days. Because the sidewik in the name
Speaker 5: is like Gary said, we've probably got eighteen players available
Speaker 5: or something there. They'll get absolutely torched. But there are
Speaker 5: there are about four grand finals for us coming up
Speaker 5: before the end of the season. Doel two against the
Speaker 5: Gold Coast, one against Many at our fifth home ground,
Speaker 5: Sydney Football Stadium, and one against the Cowboys at like
Speaker 5: Ard Oval. And if we can win three of those
Speaker 5: four games, we won't get the spoon and we might
Speaker 5: finish fourteenth, which is what I predicted the start of
Speaker 5: the year. So I'm hoping it's going to be two
Speaker 5: weeks where it really bottoms out here. Not hoping it
Speaker 5: bottoms out, but it will. We'll lose to the Rouses
Speaker 5: and we'll lose to the Warriors, but then Loui back,
Speaker 5: buller back, Let's have a really good last six weeks,
Speaker 5: win three or four of the last six, come fourteenth
Speaker 5: and heading to next season with a bit of momentum.
Speaker 5: But we are in it a crocodile race for the
Speaker 5: Wooden Spoon, sadly, and I think the Gold Coase potentially
Speaker 5: Paramatta our only other challenges for Yeah.
Speaker 3: I agree with you, Eddie. I think the next two
Speaker 3: weeks is going to be really tough. Missing missing Happy
Speaker 3: next weekend, that's just I don't even want to think
Speaker 3: about that. Game right now, it's going to be a
Speaker 3: really tough game. I think there'll be a little bit
Speaker 3: of a dip in confidence after that. But what I
Speaker 3: want to see over the remainder of the season is
Speaker 3: those leaders we have at our club, Happy Dream and Jerome.
Speaker 3: I think that's time for them to build these guys
Speaker 3: back up, and I want to see us fighting to
Speaker 3: the end of the year. It's really crucial that we
Speaker 3: don't turn up our tails for the next month and
Speaker 3: a half two months. It's really crucial that this club
Speaker 3: comes out and continues to swing. It's really important in recruitment.
Speaker 3: It's really important and confidence, and it's really important when
Speaker 3: we see how quickly our fan base, including us, like
Speaker 3: turn at the moment, it's a really fragile fan base,
Speaker 3: and it's really important that we see something between now
Speaker 3: and the end of the season.
Speaker 1: I think it's really important for the sake Steve, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you want to add to this that
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of hard work that's been put
Speaker 1: in and if the wheels do do fall off and
Speaker 1: roll down the road and we do end up God
Speaker 1: forbid last or maybe a second last, I mean, how
Speaker 1: do you not lose hope, given a lot of hard
Speaker 1: work has been put into getting in this in a
Speaker 1: better position, and then after twelve months of slogging it away,
Speaker 1: you're in exactly the same spot.
Speaker 4: Well, I think we had a similar pub this time
Speaker 4: last year where we said the exact same words, where
Speaker 4: the next few months is really important blah blah blah
Speaker 4: set us up in the next season. So if we
Speaker 4: finished last it is going to be exceptionally difficult because
Speaker 4: there has been a lot of work, there has been
Speaker 4: a lot of hope, and if it all comes to nothing,
Speaker 4: which is what last year is, it's going to be
Speaker 4: a monumental shift to turn that around. I don't think
Speaker 4: that will happen. But I do think this team has
Speaker 4: got more to it than that. I agree with what
Speaker 4: the guy said. I've actually got nothing really to add
Speaker 4: to that. I think the next two weeks are going
Speaker 4: to be a killer, but I reckon we can win
Speaker 4: two or three games after that, and I think we'll
Speaker 4: once we get Appian Lua back, we will be competitive
Speaker 4: and putting it in one hundred percent on the field
Speaker 4: till the end of the season, which has not been
Speaker 4: the case in previous seasons. That's what I want to see,
Speaker 4: you know, and hopefully we can win three and finish
Speaker 4: somewhere away from seven eighth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree. So I think we've got the leaders
Speaker 3: to get us to that point this year.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember Richo talking about the Penrith fans that didn't
Speaker 1: give up when the hit rock bottom, and then he
Speaker 1: saw them at the finals, you know, and it was
Speaker 1: it was great for them. But I think if the
Speaker 1: West Tigers ever played finals football again, I think that
Speaker 1: we should all be chaffeur driven out to the game
Speaker 1: and put in the most salubrious corporate box because I mean, honestly, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm hanging by a thread.
Speaker 3: I am.
Speaker 2: I am so weary and so tired of these lows.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, that's a really important point, Joel. I
Speaker 4: really think, yes, you are hanging by a thread. But
Speaker 4: you know what, I know you well, and you'll hang
Speaker 4: in there. You will hang in there, and we all do.
Speaker 4: We all get really frustrated. And I think this is
Speaker 4: what the club need to recognize and need to communicate
Speaker 4: to their fan base, to their members in particular. And
Speaker 4: so yet we understand you guys get emotional, We understand
Speaker 4: you get frustrated. We understand that you're at the end
Speaker 4: of your tether, and we empathize with that. I think
Speaker 4: the club have to recognize that because it's been a
Speaker 4: long time, but the supporters of this club keep turning around,
Speaker 4: turning around, turning around, getting behind the club every single time.
Speaker 4: Every time there's a disaster, every time there's sixty points
Speaker 4: put on us, every time a player walks out of
Speaker 4: the club, every time we lose a close match by
Speaker 4: dropping a ball over line when we should have won
Speaker 4: a game. Every single time the fan base gets back
Speaker 4: on board and supports this club and our club, the
Speaker 4: people that are responsible and have a voice in our club.
Speaker 4: I really need to recognize that and thank the membership
Speaker 4: for doing that, because it would be so easy for
Speaker 4: this club to have no one's supporting it at the
Speaker 4: moment after what's happened in the last decade. But that's
Speaker 4: not the case. So yeah, it's an important.
Speaker 3: Point, and it's really I'm not going to say it's
Speaker 3: really easy, but it is really easy for Rito and
Speaker 3: the staff. They've been dealing with this for two years.
Speaker 3: Maybe some staff have been there five years. We're up
Speaker 3: to fourteen years this season without finals football. That's fourteen
Speaker 3: years without being in the top half of the competition.
Speaker 3: Three wooden spoons in a row. I'm not going to
Speaker 3: predict that that we're getting the wooden spoon this year.
Speaker 3: But you've been doing it for two years, We've been
Speaker 3: doing it for fourteen.
Speaker 1: There's also, I mean, not to talk shop, but if
Speaker 1: you look at relationships, relationships often come to an end
Speaker 1: where relationships very rarely end in fire. They often end
Speaker 1: in eyes. And I'm beyond beyond the motion, st just
Speaker 1: sort of.
Speaker 3: Cold about it.
Speaker 2: So that's that's where I'm at with it.
Speaker 1: And I still love the club and I still see
Speaker 1: the enormous potential, but in terms of my relationship and
Speaker 1: my my care, you know, for my own well being,
Speaker 1: I have to take that step away and not and
Speaker 1: not ride the waves so much because I've got to
Speaker 1: try and find the energy because we want to keep
Speaker 1: doing the pot for example.
Speaker 2: But anyway, Anie, I.
Speaker 5: Just was going back to the one word submission. Was
Speaker 5: there one from a guy called Katar Tiger?
Speaker 3: Yes, I heard that as well. Was that Steve?
Speaker 5: Was that you because you're our new war correspondent on
Speaker 5: the podcast? Is that you Tiger?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: Maybe it was someone having a bit of a laugh.
Speaker 4: I don't know, but no, it's not.
Speaker 5: Maybe we should move to Qatar next year.
Speaker 4: Maybe he's maybe he's going to throw a few bombs.
Speaker 5: I thought that was your job, Steve, to go over
Speaker 5: there and get some investors where we could move the team.
Speaker 4: I tried Mane and I showed the highlights real and
Speaker 4: they turned around and walk the way.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, why would you? Yeah yeah, that's a hard cell.
Speaker 1: But I think clearly we've worked out that Steve is
Speaker 1: in fact a c I a operative over there on Intel.
Speaker 1: So gathering intel, that's my that's my conspiracy theory.
Speaker 4: The gigs, the gigs are.
Speaker 8: Exactly Thank you guys, thank you
Speaker 5: Box, Specie Box, Speciosis