GWS has membership/match day revenue double ours
Anyone who thinks our lack of funds outside the NRL handout doesn’t affect football operations/results has rocks in their head.
Wests Tigers Podcast - Talking everything Wests Tigers!
@helmesy I think the HBG have no intentions of supplying the Tigers with the money they require to succeed in certain areas of the footy dept . Burgess was dragged kicking and screaming to the table to even advance the club to where it is ! There is no interest here IMO , it will be very difficult for the club to move forward and compete with the rest of the league . Unfortunately when you have an owner that basically wants nothing to do with the club that it owns and sees it’s priority as supporting an extinct club that draws 150 supporters on a good day the Weststigers have no hope !
@helmesy I think the HBG have no intentions of supplying the Tigers with the money they require to succeed in certain areas of the footy dept . Burgess was dragged kicking and screaming to the table to even advance the club to where it is ! There is no interest here IMO , it will be very difficult for the club to move forward and compete with the rest of the league . Unfortunately when you have an owner that basically wants nothing to do with the club that it owns and sees it’s priority as supporting an extinct club that draws 150 supporters on a good day the Weststigers have no hope !
I couldn’t agree more. And, total failure of WT is a potential road back to the magpies.
Wests Tigers Podcast - Talking everything Wests Tigers!
So the immediate future prosects of WT are as dire as they've ever been, it seems. Despite the fine work of those who lead here on helping get rid of Pascoe and Lee (totally warranted and supported by many, including me!) the mob who replaced them seem just as self-centred and disinterested in what NRL success looks like.
While ever those pokies are doing their magic and generating huge profits for Wests Ashfield and Wests Campbelltown, and misery for punters, they'll be meeting their KPIs. Having an NRL franchise to manage is just an inconvenience.
How else can the "work" and influence of Richardson and Marshall, thus far, be explained? Results don't matter. Fans and members who invest in the hope of their best juniors leading to a better future doesn't matter; they can just be let go for ........ well nothing, it seems, in return.
Maybe we are gutting the team because we just can't afford to pay any of our good juniors on potential, got rid of a few big dollar players like ice, bateman and klemmer and have not replaced them...have shit depth and cant compete in NSW cup. We are all blaming Richo and Benji, perhaps HBG threw their toys out of the cot when they were punted and we got an independent board. As petty retribution they have turned off the $$ tap.....it all starts to make sense.
With respect, @lorenzo, I don't think HBG can just choose to deny cash to a franchise as a form of retribution, when that franchise operates in a competitive sporting competition where gambling on match outcomes is legal.
If that was the case, smarter people than you and me at NRL HQ, would be aware and intervening. As for the independent board members, who are they and what clout do they actually have?
GWS has membership/match day revenue double ours
Anyone who thinks our lack of funds outside the NRL handout doesn’t affect football operations/results has rocks in their head.
And it's another reason that Richo has his hands tied in some regards and our staffing levels (eg coach assistants) are below par.
With respect, @lorenzo, I don't think HBG can just choose to deny cash to a franchise as a form of retribution, when that franchise operates in a competitive sporting competition where gambling on match outcomes is legal.
If that was the case, smarter people than you and me at NRL HQ, would be aware and intervening. As for the independent board members, who are they and what clout do they actually have?
This is the board mate, Board of Directors | Wests Tigers
With respect, @lorenzo, I don't think HBG can just choose to deny cash to a franchise as a form of retribution, when that franchise operates in a competitive sporting competition where gambling on match outcomes is legal.
If that was the case, smarter people than you and me at NRL HQ, would be aware and intervening. As for the independent board members, who are they and what clout do they actually have?
This is the board mate, Board of Directors | Wests Tigers
Montgomery is no longer on the board.
In memory of Geoff Chisholm (1965-2022)
@mercy-rule Good points. Just to be clear I'm not saying the HBG have turned the tap off completely, what I'm saying is they were underinvesting to start with and are probably not happy that they were exposed by the fans through the whole petition incident so potentially a hostile environment for Richo to seek more investment. Hence the penny pinching, the corporate $ focus, the shedding of high paid players, letting juniors leave early for transfer $ etc...
I was thinking about the culture of Wests Tigers, and I think the overhaul of it will take longer than we all thought. By now all the power brokers at the club have left so we can't blame Lee Hagipantellis or Justin Pascoe anymore. We also can't blame Tim Sheens, Michael Maguire, Jason Taylor or any of their assistants. Also, let's stop blaming Luke Brooks, Russell Packer etc.
With such an overhaul, why does our loser culture still persist? We can probably all agree that 2025 has been some improvement (particularly with Luai) but there's something very Wests Tigers about how the team opted not to win on Friday night. Manly were appalling but our team seemed to think it not part of their job description to ... win. This is a cultural issue, not a technical one.
What if the cultural problem is not coming from the upper echelons of the organization but from the lower ones? Imagine for example a junior or lower grade player comes into the WT system and at match or training session they see something that lacks excellence (as Steve might say) but because they're new, they don't call it out, they look around at the others. They see someone else glance in their direction with a half-smile. Another person rolls their eyes. It could be a trainer, a manager, a player or anyone but no-one calls it out. Instead, the new person realizes that this is how we handle our failures at WT. We laugh about it. The new player knows he won't ever get much of a shot at first grade but because the whole salary cap has to be spent every year, he knows there will be enough money sloshing around to look after his needs.
It's better in many ways to be a mediocre player in a terrible club because you will always get picked in the 17 (because the players after you are even worse) so you'll soak up the same sort of salary as someone at a better club. When our talented juniors come through (Stefano, Galvin, Tallin) they know they have a bright career ahead, so they get out as soon as possible. We think we can compete on salaries but essentially the salary cap has made all salaries the same across the NRL, the difference is between clubs who want to win and clubs who are happy to lose.
Given that players can spend years going through the lower grades and coaches and managers can spend a long time there, it could be many years before all those who embody this culture have left. Since we struggle to attract players at the top who can change the culture, maybe we need to attract people at the bottom who have a better attitude? The kind of person we want is someone who calls out a bad attitude, who'll send an underperformer back to park footy if they aren't taking training seriously. The kind of people we want are perhaps those who are not destined for the topflight and they know it but who can tell a losing attitude from a winning attitude. These kind of lower grade coaches, managers and captains needs to be empowered and treated as an integral part of the club even while they never get seen on tv.
@earlwood-tiger That's a really interesting take on where WT find themselves at the moment, but it is based on an "imagine, for example ...." assumption that what you write about actually exists. I've had enough of imagining and wishing and hoping for a competitive WT NRL franchise. I'm more confident in pointing to previous and current Board, CEO, and current NRL coaches (i.e. those at the upper echelons of the franchise) as being responsible for the dire situation WT are in, yet again.
I was thinking about the culture of Wests Tigers, and I think the overhaul of it will take longer than we all thought. By now all the power brokers at the club have left so we can't blame Lee Hagipantellis or Justin Pascoe anymore. We also can't blame Tim Sheens, Michael Maguire, Jason Taylor or any of their assistants. Also, let's stop blaming Luke Brooks, Russell Packer etc.
With such an overhaul, why does our loser culture still persist? We can probably all agree that 2025 has been some improvement (particularly with Luai) but there's something very Wests Tigers about how the team opted not to win on Friday night. Manly were appalling but our team seemed to think it not part of their job description to ... win. This is a cultural issue, not a technical one.
What if the cultural problem is not coming from the upper echelons of the organization but from the lower ones? Imagine for example a junior or lower grade player comes into the WT system and at match or training session they see something that lacks excellence (as Steve might say) but because they're new, they don't call it out, they look around at the others. They see someone else glance in their direction with a half-smile. Another person rolls their eyes. It could be a trainer, a manager, a player or anyone but no-one calls it out. Instead, the new person realizes that this is how we handle our failures at WT. We laugh about it. The new player knows he won't ever get much of a shot at first grade but because the whole salary cap has to be spent every year, he knows there will be enough money sloshing around to look after his needs.
It's better in many ways to be a mediocre player in a terrible club because you will always get picked in the 17 (because the players after you are even worse) so you'll soak up the same sort of salary as someone at a better club. When our talented juniors come through (Stefano, Galvin, Tallin) they know they have a bright career ahead, so they get out as soon as possible. We think we can compete on salaries but essentially the salary cap has made all salaries the same across the NRL, the difference is between clubs who want to win and clubs who are happy to lose.
Given that players can spend years going through the lower grades and coaches and managers can spend a long time there, it could be many years before all those who embody this culture have left. Since we struggle to attract players at the top who can change the culture, maybe we need to attract people at the bottom who have a better attitude? The kind of person we want is someone who calls out a bad attitude, who'll send an underperformer back to park footy if they aren't taking training seriously. The kind of people we want are perhaps those who are not destined for the topflight and they know it but who can tell a losing attitude from a winning attitude. These kind of lower grade coaches, managers and captains needs to be empowered and treated as an integral part of the club even while they never get seen on tv.
it’s pretty clear that “Jobs for the boys” benji coaching crew has been a mistake.
also I find it bizarre that Richo is in the press today saying he let TDS go because he’s a good bloke and he wanted to keep his word. What the hell? He hasn’t even signed Api yet???? What on earth is going on
I think if he was a "Good Bloke" he would have seen out his contract and not asked for a release.
But only my opinion.
