@avocadoontoast no mate just think better options on the horizon for the club in 2024 than a failed fullback turned 6 now centre in Douhie and a failed 7 turned 6 in Brooks
Brooks is not the answer at 6 long term either in my opinion
@avocadoontoast no mate just think better options on the horizon for the club in 2024 than a failed fullback turned 6 now centre in Douhie and a failed 7 turned 6 in Brooks
Brooks is not the answer at 6 long term either in my opinion
We’ve given Brooks 185 games. I think we can give AD the rest of this season and all of next season to see if he’s the right option.
I read the other day brooks was on 600k when he debuted for the club, apparently all the big 4 were paid big dollars as 18-20yr olds. We have poured several million dollars into this guy. Please leave, you are not the answer. Go play for Newcastle or the titans and become anonymous.
I read the other day brooks was on 600k when he debuted for the club, apparently all the big 4 were paid big dollars as 18-20yr olds. We have poured several million dollars into this guy. Please leave, you are not the answer. Go play for Newcastle or the titans and become anonymous.
I dont think that is correct. When 3 of the big 4 left, Brooks next Contract was $550K so Im assuming the previous one was less.
@avocadoontoast no mate just think better options on the horizon for the club in 2024 than a failed fullback turned 6 now centre in Douhie and a failed 7 turned 6 in Brooks
Brooks is not the answer at 6 long term either in my opinion
We’ve given Brooks 185 games. I think we can give AD the rest of this season and all of next season to see if he’s the right option.
Yep 👍
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I’ll say one thing for Brooks, good on him for having a crack publicly about the leakers. Ballsy and justified.
I’ll say one thing for Brooks, good on him for having a crack publicly about the leakers. Ballsy and justified.
Probably knows his cards are marked
This whole farce is a direct result of the clubs inability to deal with the Luke Brooks issue over several seasons.
Hard truth is he’s been playing below the required standard of an NRL half for six of his seven seasons in first grade and in all that time all those around him have blamed everyone but him leading to the point where he actually believes now that none of it is his fault.
He’s correct about leaks from the club and he’s correct about AD being best at five eighth but he also talks about making decisions in the past which didn’t benefit himself and wanting to leave to win a premiership.
Clearly he still believes he has no accountability for the rubbish he’s being serving up for a long time and that’s the fault of those who have refused to make him accountable.
5 from 9 for him at centre (56%)
5 from 17 at fullback (29%)
5 from 14 at five-eight (36%)
0 from 2 off the bench
https://twitter.com/foxsportsnews/status/1544563487501721600?s=21&t=IgGDXflH1md6s0_5W1CgaA
Oh please let it be true, be gone already.
https://twitter.com/foxsportsnews/status/1544563487501721600?s=21&t=IgGDXflH1md6s0_5W1CgaA
Oh please let it be true, be gone already.
Hasn’t put himself first? Isn’t the club paying him $1m?
https://twitter.com/foxsportsnews/status/1544563487501721600?s=21&t=IgGDXflH1md6s0_5W1CgaA
Oh please let it be true, be gone already.
Hasn’t put himself first? Isn’t the club paying him $1m?
Yip it was an act of pure selflessness from Brooks, signing that multi million dollar contract while being an average (at best) player. So nice of him to take one for the team.
The lack of self awareness is actually breathtaking.
It can be hard to stick with your team in the tough times, even if that's what makes the good times so good when they eventually come around. Every day it's hard is one day closer to when it's easy, and you can't know how good winning can feel until you've lost a few times.
That's what we all tell ourselves anyway, but when your team has a bad game that turns into a bad month that turns into a bad season, it does test the faith.
It has to happen that way sometimes, otherwise what we feel wouldn't be faith at all, but for the Wests Tigers, those bad seasons have turned into a bad decade and then some.
The times have been tough for so long the Tigers fans in your life are probably beginning to question if it'll ever turn the other way again. Even the true believers have a breaking point, and once it's been passed there's no turning back.
Luke Brooks, who this week mentioned he may explore leaving the Tigers after nine years with the club, was once the truest of those believers. In fact, few players have ever believed in the possibility of the Tigers and that a brighter future was just around the corner more than Brooks, even against long odds.
It was never just words from Brooks either. Back in December 2018, when he signed the rich, five-year deal that has since become an albatross around the neck of player and club, he didn't have to do it – or at least, he didn't have to do it with Wests Tigers.
The other members of the club's big four — James Tedesco, Mitchell Moses and Aaron Woods — were all long gone. Brooks was the last man standing, the sole survivor of the golden era that never arrived, and he could have followed them out the door to just about any team he wanted.
Back then, Brooks was looking a lot like the player he was promised to be as a junior, when he was saddled with Andrew Johns comparisons that did nothing but apply a crushing expectation he could never match.
That sort of hyperbole can destroy careers before they even begin, but Brooks had managed to weather the storm and play some terrific football under then-coach Ivan Cleary, winning halfback of the year and finishing third in the overall Dally M count.
He could have just about picked his spot after a season like that, especially given the premium that's always on top halfbacks. But Brooks stayed because, he said, he wanted to be there when the club finally ended their finals drought. The rugby league world was at his feet, but he didn't want the world — he wanted the Tigers.
He was a local boy, a Tiger to the bone, and he wanted to be a part of it when the Tigers were flying and the hills at Leichhardt and Campbelltown were heaving again, because he believed in his club and they, in return, believed in him.
Four years later, that belief has become a prison, for both Brooks and the Tigers, one they seemingly cannot escape.
That return to the finals never came as the club lurched from rebuild to rebuild as if cursed to start all over again every time they made the smallest progress.
Brooks has never stopped believing in the Tigers. The cynics might say that's because of the size of his contract and the fact he couldn't get another like it anywhere else, but other players have gotten out of deals like that before and still walked away with minimal dollars lost.
Even as the coaches changed, even as the Tigers struggled to put talent around him, even as other clubs came knocking when he could have agitated for a release, Brooks was sure the Tigers were his team, that this was his place.
The Tigers never stopped believing in Brooks, even as he struggled to get near that 2018 form again, even as his play more than once warranted a stint in reserve grade, even as other clubs came knocking and they could have cut bait with yet another fresh start. They were sure he was their man, and that this was the rock on which so much could be built.
In the end, it feels like both parties backed the wrong horse. There was a time when Brooks could have been one of the best halfbacks in the world. It happened for a while, we saw it right in front of us, and the Tigers believed in what they saw, which was proof there was a hell of a player inside of Luke Brooks.
So it must be hard for Brooks to think about playing against the Mitchell Moses-led Parramatta Eels at Leichhardt on Saturday night without wondering, even just for a second, what might have happened for him if he'd left the Tigers at some point along the way.
Moses did, and became a State of Origin halfback who made several trips to the finals. Tedesco did, and he won multiple premierships while blossoming into arguably the finest player of his generation. Even Woods, who seemed to see the air come out of his tyres the second he departed the Tigers, played in multiple finals series and Test matches since leaving.
Could that have been Brooks? Could those things have happened to him? He will never know. Neither will we.
Likewise, the Tigers must hold at least a moment of regret at not jettisoning Brooks when they had the opportunity. Even if they'd moved him on to Newcastle, who were keen on securing Brooks over the summer, the club would be in a very different place just by the virtue of making a clean break to the era that came before and towards something different. It doesn't even need to be better, it just has to be different.
There will be a time when it gets better and the Tigers become successful again because even the longest winter cannot last forever. There are some solid pieces in place, like Doueihi and Jackson Hastings and incoming pair Isaiah Papali'i and Api Koroisau.
And while most players are what they are at 27 with almost 200 NRL games to their name, maybe Brooks can show glimpses of his old form again. A turnaround can happen faster than you think and who knows what the future can bring.
There were reports last week that Brooks would be dropped to reserve grade for the first time in his career which turned out to be unfounded, but if they were true it wouldn't have been a slight on Brooks, but a touch of mercy.
It could have begun the journey towards what Brooks and the Tigers both really need — a change, a fresh start, and a chance to begin anew.
And therein lies the real heartbreak of the Luke Brooks story at the Wests Tigers. It isn't that Brooks didn't fulfil the ludicrous expectations of his youth, or that he's never hit the heights of 2018 since, or even that the Tigers weren't able to get the best out of the only one of their star quartet who chose them.
It's that, in all likelihood, Brooks will not be around when the Tigers are contenders again. He has served through so many of the hard times, but will not get the good times that make those hard times worthwhile. They gave each other everything, but it wasn't enough.
Barring the kind of miracle that has always eluded them both, the player's faith in the club, like the club's faith in the player, will not ever be rewarded. Not everyone makes it to the promised land. Sometimes, people are left behind on the long journey. You can believe that.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-08/luke-brooks-wests-tigers-and-the-prison-of-belief/101219132
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Therein lies one of the problems with the club. They are unable to make the right decisions and move on players that just are not working. Brooks should have been tapped on the shoulder two years ago, if not earlier. It was clear then that Wests Tigers were never going to make the finals with Luke at halfback. He was not the type of halfback to get us on the front foot when they were struggling, regardless of the amount of money he is getting. Square peg in round hole to steal the analogy. Good player, wrong club. Yet the club still persist. That’s 2 bad marks against Sheens return, hanging on to Brooks and sacking a coach mid season without a replacement signed. It’s a long cold hard winter ahead with no end in sight.
The club just needs to be better and that lies with management. This is where the change needs to start. We need fresh people with new ideas (not back to the future with the past aka Sheens), else we are just going to be fodder for the NRL and the other clubs for the foreseeable future.
@helmesy Interesting ABC article thanks for sharing.
I was watching the Storm Sharks game last night and noted how hard their forwards were running on to the ball. Blokes like Tui K and Braden Hamlin-Uele. Guys that take it forward and make a dent in the defence. They make 10m+ in their carries and crowds applaud the power with their run. In the past 10 years I just don't feel like we've ever had a pack of forwards with an ability to cart it up. There were a few games last year where Blore and Stefano got me up on my feet and applauding. But often their hard runs were negated by a Seyfarth or a Twal hitup which came next (those players are always gang tackled and pushed back).
Brooks is not working at our club
He does not read the game well
He does not have a kicking game that anyone has ever described as high quality
but in 10 years he's never had forwards to give him front foot ball and that is a huge thing.
Even when he won Dally M halfback of the year in 2018 WT were 13th for metres gained per team and 14th for post contact metres.
If he does go on to another club with a pack of forwards that consistently make metres I predict he will go on to play finals at the very least.
