Michael Maguire insists football boss Tim Sheens has his back at Wests Tigers
Underfire Tigers coach Michael Maguire insists he’s not a dead-man walking and is adamant he is on the “same page” as football boss Tim Sheens, despite a winless start to the season.
By Peter Badel
Michael Maguire has blasted talk of a rift with Robbie Farah and insists he is not a dead-man walking amid fears a loss to the Titans on Thursday night could trigger his sacking as Wests Tigers coach.
The underfire Maguire opened up to News Corp as he prepares for one of the most critical games of his 10-year coaching career against the Gold Coast at Cbus Super Stadium.
Maguire addressed the Tigers’ winless start to 2022, hit back at claims the joint-venture club is a rabble headed for the wooden spoon and explained his decision to install a controversial five-man captaincy group at Concord.
Maguire withstood enormous political pressure last season and ultimately survived amid rumours a Tigers faction wanted his scalp, but the premiership coach is adamant a fourth-straight loss this week will not finish him.
“Externally, people want to make out we’re a club with all these dramas,” Maguire said. “But as long as everyone internally stays the path, I’m not concerned.”
IN THE FIRING LINE
New season, same narrative. The whispers swirling around Maguire suggests he is on borrowed time at the Tigers, but he claims new head of football Tim Sheens, who delivered the joint venture club’s maiden title in 2005, has his back.
Asked if he will be sacked if the Tigers crash to the Titans this week, Maguire said: “I’m not worried about being sacked, not at all.
“I’ve been here a while now and everyone is after results, which is where the pressure is coming from. But ‘Sheensy’ and I are on the same page.
“The beauty of Tim is that he is experienced and he doesn’t panic. He gets it. He understands where we are at the moment as a club. Sheensy has been around the game a long time and knows the journey we’re on. I’m comfortable.”
THE FARAH FEUD
Maguire is bemused by claims from one of the club’s own fans that he and Farah engaged in a verbal spat over an interchange bungle in last week’s 16-12 loss to the Warriors.
“This stuff with Robbie Farah is bloody embarrassing. It’s simply farcical,” he said. “It’s the most comical rumour I’ve had in my entire career.
“The truth is Robbie was trying to get Zane (Musgrove) off and Stefano (Utoikamanu) on and he used one word which a spectator picked up. Robbie was saying, ‘Who the f*** is going on’ and the next thing it turns into him having a crack at me.
“Robbie was frustrated with the guy that does the (interchange) cards on the sidelines. We were trying to make a sub, but Zane got cited on a play, so he couldn’t come off and Robbie didn’t know that on the sideline because he was getting the message from me to get Zane off.
“In the heat of the moment, we had a few new guys operating things and Robbie got frustrated, and all of a sudden the whole world is blowing up.
“I am so close with Robbie. On the day of the game, we trained together. I love his passion. The gossip and misreporting in the game is ridiculous. If we win, no one says anything, but we lost the game, so then I have to cop this.
“It goes on in every team. Every team has a guy in the blue shirt who has to pull players off. Sometimes there is confusion. Did he use some choice words? Yeah he did, but they weren’t directed at me.”
PLAYER MORALE
Maguire is in his fourth season as Wests Tigers coach. He has won 26 of 70 games for a 37 per cent success rate and is staring at a seventh consecutive loss dating back to the Tigers’ 50-20 drubbing against Cronulla last August.
The former Souths mentor, who broke the Redfern club’s 43-year premiership drought in 2014, rubbished suggestions he has lost the dressing room.
“I can see every day the attitude the players have. There’s no issue in that regard with morale,” he said.
“We’re in a better spot than people think. We have eight first-graders sitting on the sideline and that doesn’t help. The challenging part of coaching in the NRL is getting through the tough periods when your roster has been decimated and you need depth to fight through it.
“Of our 30-man squad, I’ve got 20 players available for selection. I know people say that’s an excuse, but that’s the reality of the situation.
“Stefano is one of our best young props and he’s out for eight weeks. Tommy Talau is gone for the year. Jackson Hastings is suspended. Adam Doueihi won’t be back for a while (due to injury).
“I know where I want to take the team and that’s all I’m focused on. I know how quickly in the NRL teams can turn their fortunes around because I’ve experienced it first hand. We have to stay focused on what we want to achieve here.
“All I want is a team to come out and have a crack every single week. The boys had a crack last week, but we bottled it at the end of the game. It got ugly at times and we lacked a bit of class in the big moments.”
THE SPOON
After three rounds, the Tigers are the only team in the NRL yet to win a game, fuelling the belief they are specials for the wooden spoon.
“When people say we will win the spoon, it doesn’t annoy me, it motivates me more than anything to prove people wrong,” Maguire said.
“I don’t believe we will finish last, but we need to learn from experiences like the Storm game in round one and last week’s game and learn how to close out matches.
“I won’t be giving up. I believe in the players at this club. I believe I have systems here that can work and we showed in the Melbourne game our systems can work.
“We could easily be 2-1, but the reality is we are 0-3. We’ve made modifications to our attack and any coach will tell you how important continuity of selection is at this level.
“If Daine Laurie (fullback) scores last week, we win that game and people are talking about some other team. I know the talent is there to make this club competitive.”
THE BROOKS DILEMMA
There is a view Luke Brooks has gone stale at the Tigers and both he and the club should consider an amicable divorce.
The 27-year-old, in his 10th season at the Tigers, plays his 176th game this week and has shown no sign of taking the Tigers to a second premiership.
But Maguire believes Brooks is an easy target for the club’s wider collective problems.
“If you look at his workrate in games, Luke is putting in,” he said. “But people do focus on the big moments, which is understandable because Luke is our halfback.
“As a team, we need to do our jobs at a higher level so he can just concentrate on what he needs to do. That plays a part. Against Melbourne, Luke led us around the park well, but any team on the back foot will put pressure on their halfback.
“We need to help Luke a bit more.”
CAPTAINCY CHAOS
Maguire has been hammered for naming five captains in James Tamou, Doueihi, Brooks, Ken Maumalo and Tyrone Peachey, the former Titan who hadn’t played a single game for the club.
“I wanted to strengthen the levels of expectation around leadership at our club,” he said.
“As a front-rower, James Tamou is only on the field for a period of time, so I had some discussions with Jimmy about how we can develop more leaders in the team. He was supportive of having other guys involved.
“The funny thing is I had more than one captain at Wigan and it was the best thing I ever did. It put more accountability on the group, rather than making one player carry the load.
“I did the same thing at Souths and we won a premiership. Other teams have done it in the past, so it’s not new. A lot of teams have co-captains. Melbourne and the Cowboys have two captains this year. If I had two captains, would people blow up?
But because we are under the spotlight, everything becomes an issue.
“Ultimately, if the guys keep putting in the way they are, I know we will come out the other side.”
It looks like Madge is going to die on this particular hill.
It looks like Madge is going to die on this particular hill.
Let's hope it's a quick death.
As Tamou said “just trust the process”…the process that has us going backwards 😆
Wests Tigers Podcast - Talking everything Wests Tigers!
As Tamou said “just trust the process”…the process that has us going backwards 😆
Trust the process is a stolen slogan from the 76s in the NBA, the difference is the 76s fanbase knew what the process was and it was a rallying call.
In memory of Geoff Chisholm (1965-2022)
NRL legend urges Tigers to ‘cut’ Madge loose and install Sheens
by Mark St John - FOX
Corey Parker has called on the Tigers to consider cutting ties with Michael Maguire immediately and appointing Tim Sheens as caretaker coach for the rest of the season.
As the pressure grows on Maguire and his 0-3 Tigers, Parker believes the time might be right to bring a new voice into the team, especially one as respected and with as much experience behind it as Sheens.
“Cut him now and Tim Sheens goes in as caretaker and then assess it at the end of the year,” Parker said on The Fox League podcast.
“That has been discussed around the game,” James Hooper said.
“But whether it is going to happen it is too early to say.”
Parker believes changing the voice the players hear every day and replacing it with one of the greatest thinkers in rugby league history could be the circuit breaker the Tigers need to turn their fortunes around.
“Initially there will be an initial change straight away,” Parker said.
“If Tim Sheens was to take over there would be an initial change straight away from the players’ perspective. From the coach. From the sponsors. From the fans. All this there is change.
“So there has been a directive and things aren’t working for whatever reason. It is nothing personal with Madge Maguire.
“He is a terrific guy. I know him personally. He is a terrific coach. It is just not working.
“Let’s remove him out of that. Tim Sheens the figurehead. He is like Wayne Bennett at the Broncos.
“So immediately the playing group have a different outlook when they go to training.
“I’m sure Tim being the thinker . . . he is the best thinker I have ever come across in the game. I’m sure he is still that.
“They turn up to training with a different mindset. There would only be a few different things here and there.”
While Sheens turns 72 in October, Parker believes he still has what it takes to be a full-time NRL coach and he may relish the chance to coach into next season as well.
“You just don’t know what is going to come off the back of that. Give him six to eight weeks. By the end of it you know what, I reckon he would go around another year.
“Once you are a coach you are always a coach.
“Wayne Bennett is 72 years old and he is about to take a franchise club. Tim Sheens is in the same boat.”
However, Parker concedes you do need a playing group that has the leadership to inspire the change that Sheens could bring in on the field.
“It happened to us once at the Broncos,” Parker said of a coach being replaced.
“You need a good strong leadership group to be fair to help you get through that.
“You need to have the players all on side because that’s out of their control.
“Go back to the things you can control. They can’t control what administrative decisions are being done.
“But they can control how they are going to turn up and if Tim Sheens was to come on board well things will change because it is a different face you are looking at and a different voice you are listening to and it is different ideas and it’s Tim Sheens.”
Parker played under Sheens at international level for the Kangaroos and believes he is just the sort of innovative thinker the Tigers need to get themselves out of their funk.
“I played under him for Australia and he was terrific,” Parker said.
“A real innovative thinker about the game. There are so many ways you can skin a cat from a coach’s perspective.
“I got stuck with him one night at dinner sitting next to him and it was just complete football.
“The way he thinks about the game and the way he tries to articulate moving defensive lines to make middle forwards tire and to accentuate the attack of some of the stars.
“He actually really thinks about the game where as someone like a Wayne Bennett understands getting the best out of the individual and you have just got natural ability and that will come to the forefront. But it won’t unless you understand yourself.
“But I know that Tim Sheens if he would want to be the figurehead and lead that team. You look at the risk. What is the risk if he does? There is none is there? Where can they go? They can only go up.
“And it can happen quite quickly. They can win one game and get this feeling within the group. A new voice and it could happen really quickly.”
Honestly, who would be a professional coach? With very few exceptions, there are only two kinds.
Those who have been sacked, and those who will be sacked. Whichever way you cut it, Tigers coach Michael Maguire is about to transition from the former to the latter.
Yes, he has been unlucky in a couple of matches so far this season which could have gone his way. But the coming sacking is not about a couple of matches.
He is now in his fourth season, and has registered just 26 wins from 72 games, weighing in at 36 per cent.
Jason Taylor was sacked from the same position when he had won 20 of 51 at 39 per cent. Alan Jones, if you remember his shocking stint coaching the Tigers, had 24 wins from 66 games at a similar 36 per cent before he was shown the door. (Though from memory, with Jones I think it was dressed up to look like anything but an actual sacking).
With Maguire, it is fair to note that despite 0-4 start to the season, there have been sicker dogs that have got well. But not many!
And as the Tigers have gone backwards before our very eyes during the past three years, and haven’t made the finals since 2011, who can see the tiniest sign that the team has it within them, or even the interest, to turn it around.
Obviously, Maguire can coach. Souths in 2014 proves it. But he is a coach of such intensity that there is no way known the players can’t be completely mentally exhausted by him.
Wests Tigers Podcast - Talking everything Wests Tigers!
But he is a coach of such intensity that there is no way known the players can’t be completely mentally exhausted by him.
What and Bellamy at the Storm isn’t? Toughen up boys.
But he is a coach of such intensity that there is no way known the players can’t be completely mentally exhausted by him.
What and Bellamy at the Storm isn’t? Toughen up boys.
I think the squad are now mostly players who respond to madge - possibly except Brooks and liddle.
The expectations in the club have been raised - you can no longer just turn up, get paid, go home If you are cold and think you are doing a good job.
Bellamy and Stuart are just as intense. But I think you'll find with all three - they are actually less intense than their reputation.
Top 8 2023
Dragons now looking to sack Griffin
They sacked their coach and put griffin in at the start of last year.
Top 8 2023
as the article said I think Hastings at lock and Tim Sheens giving the riding instructions on that one, irrelevant what Madge thinks barring injury or suspension
After watching Madge in the post game presser ...I think I have worked out what he is missing
He needs some of those political nodders ...those people behind the Premiers and PM and Ministers that nod after they make a comment ....
After watching Madge in the post game presser ...I think I have worked out what he is missing
He needs some of those political nodders ...those people behind the Premiers and PM and Ministers that nod after they make a comment ....
Why do you think Tamou is there? I thought his head was going to come off nodding at what Madge was saying, before he said it.
After watching Madge in the post game presser ...I think I have worked out what he is missing
He needs some of those political nodders ...those people behind the Premiers and PM and Ministers that nod after they make a comment ....
Why do you think Tamou is there? I thought his head was going to come off nodding at what Madge was saying, before he said it.
His head is so big it nods by itself ....
I’ve always thought he looks like Guy smiley
