Tyrone Peachey made a point of standing up and apologising to his Wests Tigers teammates after he was sin-binned against Newcastle back in round two.
But after earning himself another unwanted ten-minute timeout against the Gold Coast Titans last Thursday, Peachey sat down with coach Michael Maguire to get to the bottom of his disciplinary issues.
It has been an unhappy first month at his new club for Peachey, who has also conceded three penalties, but he has vowed to clean up his act with the help of Maguire.
“It’s tough, the game is so fast now, I need to be better,” Peachey told the Herald. “Madge and I have looked over things, we’ve gone over the send-offs, where I can be better and what I can work on.
“There are little lapses of concentration. It’s in my game now, I know refs do video like us ... they see who try to milk things too long and do silly things, so I need to be better.
“Me and big [Jared] Waerea-Hargreaves are always up the top there [for most penalties conceded] at the end of the year.
“Last Thursday it was an accumulation of things where there were a few penalties blown before I went on to the field. I tackled [Titans winger] Greg Marzhew for too long, and I happened to be that player at that time.”
Peachey has been used in several positions during the winless start, and the constant changing was another issue the former Panther and Titans utility had raised with Maguire.
For the record, Peachey is meant to come on at lock forward or dummy-half, depending on what is happening in a game.
“I’ve told Madge it’s tricky because I’m still learning how to play with other players, and they’re learning how to play with me,” he said.
“It usually takes a while because I’m an off-the-cuff footballer. I’m starting to get there. It’s only round four. Our defence has been good bar Newcastle, we just need to work on some things in attack, so hopefully it starts clicking.”
Halfback Jock Madden has one last game to impress in the halves on Sunday against Cronulla before the return of the suspended Jackson Hastings, and he spoke about his teammates and Maguire making sure he quickly forgot about the dropped ball that led to the Titans’ last-gasp winner.
“It was shattering for it to come down to that moment, I watched the game again on Friday, but I’ve moved on from it and don’t want to let it affect my performance leading into this week,” Madden said.
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Really looking forward to seeing how both these guys go. More so madden than Peachey though
I know refs do video like us .
No doubt that Peach needs to improve his discipline. But this is more evidence of the unconscious bias that the refs have against weaker teams.
Ah! Peachy another one of these players that had the talent to be a potential star but just didn’t apply himself or put in the hard yards to make it come to fruition.
Hence the number of clubs he has been at and never been able to hold down a position.
Fingers crossed he doesn’t turn out to be one of our worst signings.
Peachy is a clever, crafty footballer. He will be good for us once he settles in. He’ll still have a few errors in him but that’s his way.