@avocadoontoast can he go now please
I’m not sure what the delay is. He’s dead weight.
We don't have enough depth in the halves to let him go.
In memory of Geoff Chisholm (1965-2022)
Paul Kent: Luke Brooks-Kyle Flanagan swap deal the latest in Tigers Frankenstein’s monster tale
Wests Tigers are the Frankenstein’s monster of the NRL, a team completely assembled with the live corpses of other teams. Are they about to add another piece, PAUL KENT asks.
The scriptwriters slumped in their seats Thursday night, defeated by improbable reality.
None were able to comprehend how to turn what had just happened before them into something even somewhat believable.
If Thursday night’s ending between Wests and Gold Coast was sent to a Hollywood agent, the second act in the Michael Maguire story, it would be rejected as implausible.
It was already hard enough writing about the hapless Tigers each week, and now this?
The Tigers are the Frankenstein’s monster of the NRL, a team now completely assembled with the live corpses of other teams. And here they were trying to find life where there is none, and yet they nearly found it.
For 79 of the 80 minutes they actually got it right.
They led 6-2 and all they needed was to defend one more tackle when, last play, the Titans steered a kick-it-and-hope bomb towards the post.
First fluke: it hit the upright.
Not to worry, Tigers five-eighth Jock Madden grabbed the ball to save the game.
Second fluke: Madden was hit in a tackle and somehow the tackler hit Madden’s arm — but missed contact with the ball, to avoid a knock-on — and knocked it loose.
Madden attempted to ground the loose ball but missed.
So, of course, the Titans touched down the ball after this, by simply placing a hand on it, to score and win the game.
And Frankenstein’s monster was left lifeless again.
It was a metaphor for their troubled times and nobody who was not a witness could believe it.
All week the narrative has been around Maguire and whether he can survive as Tigers coach.
Maguire has played it smart.
Instead of disappearing, he went on the front foot this week when the noise was greatest.
In every interview he repeated the support pledged to him from within after the arrival of Tim Sheens as the head of football.
It was a smart move from Maguire.
Nobody needs to mention the old “full support of the board” quote to realise the narrative that the coach is being told is often very different to the reality.
Faceless boards are dangerous. By quoting Sheens’s support, though, Maguire has put a face to his immediate future.
Still, behind the scenes much is happening. How much of it is true, how much will change, nobody knows.
It is now considered a mere formality that Luke Brooks will be released before even the midway point of the season, it goes, to join a rival club, although which one of two clubs it is remains to be thumb-wrestled over.
After Brooks twice had requests for a release to Newcastle rejected over the summer – Sheens declaring he was going nowhere – the Bulldogs have emerged as the latest interest.
The Bulldogs move is part of a bigger conspiracy.
It begins with Kyle Flanagan moving to the Tigers in a swap for Brooks, with a side deal done to square up the money.
Flanagan must have stolen somebody’s lunch money at Belmore. He has not got close to making a start with the NRL team, to the point he is yet to spend any time even at training working with new recruit Matt Burton in the halves.
The Bulldogs would happily swap him for Brooks.
The right bower, however, is that Flanagan will land at Leichhardt as part of a package deal that includes his father Shane.
Keen readers will scoff that this has been mooted before but, just lately, it has gained some fresh heat. Some insist the deal is done and all that is left for Flanagan to take over as head coach is to wait for Maguire to be sacked.
The whispers gathered momentum last week but went quiet again this week, which is not always a positive for Maguire. It is always quietest just before the execution.
The narrative was going to be the familiar one.
Poor start to the season, the coach had lost the dressing room, then a fallout with coaching staff followed by players wanting out.
It is a common spin designed to make it look like the poor old board had no other choice but most fans, and certainly voting members, seem to fall for it each time.
If this truly was the case then it was all going to plan until the Tigers put in an effort Thursday night that suggested there might be a pulse left in Frankenstein yet.
Certainly, with the game dumbed down, which is the only way to describe what was a bludger of a game, they were able to push their energy into a physical effort rather than the mental effort required to think through a game plan and, with that, they nearly got away with it.
It might have revealed the secret that is the only way this team can be coached. Without talent, they need to excel in the effort areas.
Whether all this speculation is fair to Maguire or not seems to be irrelevant given the size of the push to remove him.
It has got to a point that some calling for Maguire’s removal are also defending him, even as they gently nudge him out the door.
They have gone to lengths to suggest it is no criticism of his coaching, and prove their point by making the curious observation that if he were coaching a good roster like Melbourne, where he was an assistant coach, or another like he inherited at Souths, then they have no doubt he would again find success.
The irony is that if Maguire was good enough to coach the Storm, but not the Tigers, could that suggest the Tigers might not have the right players, but do have the right coach?
Ah, but he can’t recruit, they’ll say.
This suggests the troubles at the Tigers could go deeper than Maguire, and to the club’s inability to recruit and develop.
Contributing to that is the weak salary cap policing combined with a distorted third-party system which provides significant benefit for some clubs over others.
Somehow, all 16 teams have the same money to spend on players yet year after year the top half-dozen clubs remain basically the same, even after some go through generational change in players and even coaches and football staff.
Maguire is fighting all that, against the backdrop of a push to oust him as coach because he somehow remains the obstacle between the club, its players, and success.
It’s enough to make you slump in defeat at the keyboard.
And it might remain the greatest fiction of all, yet nobody can find the words to say it.
Paul Kent: Luke Brooks-Kyle Flanagan swap deal the latest in Tigers Frankenstein’s monster tale
Wests Tigers are the Frankenstein’s monster of the NRL, a team completely assembled with the live corpses of other teams. Are they about to add another piece, PAUL KENT asks.
The scriptwriters slumped in their seats Thursday night, defeated by improbable reality.
None were able to comprehend how to turn what had just happened before them into something even somewhat believable.
If Thursday night’s ending between Wests and Gold Coast was sent to a Hollywood agent, the second act in the Michael Maguire story, it would be rejected as implausible.
It was already hard enough writing about the hapless Tigers each week, and now this?
The Tigers are the Frankenstein’s monster of the NRL, a team now completely assembled with the live corpses of other teams. And here they were trying to find life where there is none, and yet they nearly found it.
For 79 of the 80 minutes they actually got it right.
They led 6-2 and all they needed was to defend one more tackle when, last play, the Titans steered a kick-it-and-hope bomb towards the post.
First fluke: it hit the upright.
Not to worry, Tigers five-eighth Jock Madden grabbed the ball to save the game.
Second fluke: Madden was hit in a tackle and somehow the tackler hit Madden’s arm — but missed contact with the ball, to avoid a knock-on — and knocked it loose.
Madden attempted to ground the loose ball but missed.
So, of course, the Titans touched down the ball after this, by simply placing a hand on it, to score and win the game.
And Frankenstein’s monster was left lifeless again.
It was a metaphor for their troubled times and nobody who was not a witness could believe it.
All week the narrative has been around Maguire and whether he can survive as Tigers coach.
Maguire has played it smart.
Instead of disappearing, he went on the front foot this week when the noise was greatest.
In every interview he repeated the support pledged to him from within after the arrival of Tim Sheens as the head of football.
It was a smart move from Maguire.
Nobody needs to mention the old “full support of the board” quote to realise the narrative that the coach is being told is often very different to the reality.
Faceless boards are dangerous. By quoting Sheens’s support, though, Maguire has put a face to his immediate future.
Still, behind the scenes much is happening. How much of it is true, how much will change, nobody knows.
It is now considered a mere formality that Luke Brooks will be released before even the midway point of the season, it goes, to join a rival club, although which one of two clubs it is remains to be thumb-wrestled over.
After Brooks twice had requests for a release to Newcastle rejected over the summer – Sheens declaring he was going nowhere – the Bulldogs have emerged as the latest interest.
The Bulldogs move is part of a bigger conspiracy.
It begins with Kyle Flanagan moving to the Tigers in a swap for Brooks, with a side deal done to square up the money.
Flanagan must have stolen somebody’s lunch money at Belmore. He has not got close to making a start with the NRL team, to the point he is yet to spend any time even at training working with new recruit Matt Burton in the halves.
The Bulldogs would happily swap him for Brooks.
The right bower, however, is that Flanagan will land at Leichhardt as part of a package deal that includes his father Shane.
Keen readers will scoff that this has been mooted before but, just lately, it has gained some fresh heat. Some insist the deal is done and all that is left for Flanagan to take over as head coach is to wait for Maguire to be sacked.
The whispers gathered momentum last week but went quiet again this week, which is not always a positive for Maguire. It is always quietest just before the execution.
The narrative was going to be the familiar one.
Poor start to the season, the coach had lost the dressing room, then a fallout with coaching staff followed by players wanting out.
It is a common spin designed to make it look like the poor old board had no other choice but most fans, and certainly voting members, seem to fall for it each time.
If this truly was the case then it was all going to plan until the Tigers put in an effort Thursday night that suggested there might be a pulse left in Frankenstein yet.
Certainly, with the game dumbed down, which is the only way to describe what was a bludger of a game, they were able to push their energy into a physical effort rather than the mental effort required to think through a game plan and, with that, they nearly got away with it.
It might have revealed the secret that is the only way this team can be coached. Without talent, they need to excel in the effort areas.
Whether all this speculation is fair to Maguire or not seems to be irrelevant given the size of the push to remove him.
It has got to a point that some calling for Maguire’s removal are also defending him, even as they gently nudge him out the door.
They have gone to lengths to suggest it is no criticism of his coaching, and prove their point by making the curious observation that if he were coaching a good roster like Melbourne, where he was an assistant coach, or another like he inherited at Souths, then they have no doubt he would again find success.
The irony is that if Maguire was good enough to coach the Storm, but not the Tigers, could that suggest the Tigers might not have the right players, but do have the right coach?
Ah, but he can’t recruit, they’ll say.
This suggests the troubles at the Tigers could go deeper than Maguire, and to the club’s inability to recruit and develop.
Contributing to that is the weak salary cap policing combined with a distorted third-party system which provides significant benefit for some clubs over others.
Somehow, all 16 teams have the same money to spend on players yet year after year the top half-dozen clubs remain basically the same, even after some go through generational change in players and even coaches and football staff.
Maguire is fighting all that, against the backdrop of a push to oust him as coach because he somehow remains the obstacle between the club, its players, and success.
It’s enough to make you slump in defeat at the keyboard.
And it might remain the greatest fiction of all, yet nobody can find the words to say it.
Nope nope nope
In memory of Geoff Chisholm (1965-2022)
@avocadoontoast in what world is Paul Kent suggesting we got the first 79 minutes right 😂 he should quit 360 and become a Hollywood screen writer himself because he sure has taken some liberties watching last nights game to make his point.
Paul Kent: Luke Brooks-Kyle Flanagan swap deal the latest in Tigers Frankenstein’s monster tale
Wests Tigers are the Frankenstein’s monster of the NRL, a team completely assembled with the live corpses of other teams. Are they about to add another piece, PAUL KENT asks.
The scriptwriters slumped in their seats Thursday night, defeated by improbable reality.
None were able to comprehend how to turn what had just happened before them into something even somewhat believable.
If Thursday night’s ending between Wests and Gold Coast was sent to a Hollywood agent, the second act in the Michael Maguire story, it would be rejected as implausible.
It was already hard enough writing about the hapless Tigers each week, and now this?
The Tigers are the Frankenstein’s monster of the NRL, a team now completely assembled with the live corpses of other teams. And here they were trying to find life where there is none, and yet they nearly found it.
For 79 of the 80 minutes they actually got it right.
They led 6-2 and all they needed was to defend one more tackle when, last play, the Titans steered a kick-it-and-hope bomb towards the post.
First fluke: it hit the upright.
Not to worry, Tigers five-eighth Jock Madden grabbed the ball to save the game.
Second fluke: Madden was hit in a tackle and somehow the tackler hit Madden’s arm — but missed contact with the ball, to avoid a knock-on — and knocked it loose.
Madden attempted to ground the loose ball but missed.
So, of course, the Titans touched down the ball after this, by simply placing a hand on it, to score and win the game.
And Frankenstein’s monster was left lifeless again.
It was a metaphor for their troubled times and nobody who was not a witness could believe it.
All week the narrative has been around Maguire and whether he can survive as Tigers coach.
Maguire has played it smart.
Instead of disappearing, he went on the front foot this week when the noise was greatest.
In every interview he repeated the support pledged to him from within after the arrival of Tim Sheens as the head of football.
It was a smart move from Maguire.
Nobody needs to mention the old “full support of the board” quote to realise the narrative that the coach is being told is often very different to the reality.
Faceless boards are dangerous. By quoting Sheens’s support, though, Maguire has put a face to his immediate future.
Still, behind the scenes much is happening. How much of it is true, how much will change, nobody knows.
It is now considered a mere formality that Luke Brooks will be released before even the midway point of the season, it goes, to join a rival club, although which one of two clubs it is remains to be thumb-wrestled over.
After Brooks twice had requests for a release to Newcastle rejected over the summer – Sheens declaring he was going nowhere – the Bulldogs have emerged as the latest interest.
The Bulldogs move is part of a bigger conspiracy.
It begins with Kyle Flanagan moving to the Tigers in a swap for Brooks, with a side deal done to square up the money.
Flanagan must have stolen somebody’s lunch money at Belmore. He has not got close to making a start with the NRL team, to the point he is yet to spend any time even at training working with new recruit Matt Burton in the halves.
The Bulldogs would happily swap him for Brooks.
The right bower, however, is that Flanagan will land at Leichhardt as part of a package deal that includes his father Shane.
Keen readers will scoff that this has been mooted before but, just lately, it has gained some fresh heat. Some insist the deal is done and all that is left for Flanagan to take over as head coach is to wait for Maguire to be sacked.
The whispers gathered momentum last week but went quiet again this week, which is not always a positive for Maguire. It is always quietest just before the execution.
The narrative was going to be the familiar one.
Poor start to the season, the coach had lost the dressing room, then a fallout with coaching staff followed by players wanting out.
It is a common spin designed to make it look like the poor old board had no other choice but most fans, and certainly voting members, seem to fall for it each time.
If this truly was the case then it was all going to plan until the Tigers put in an effort Thursday night that suggested there might be a pulse left in Frankenstein yet.
Certainly, with the game dumbed down, which is the only way to describe what was a bludger of a game, they were able to push their energy into a physical effort rather than the mental effort required to think through a game plan and, with that, they nearly got away with it.
It might have revealed the secret that is the only way this team can be coached. Without talent, they need to excel in the effort areas.
Whether all this speculation is fair to Maguire or not seems to be irrelevant given the size of the push to remove him.
It has got to a point that some calling for Maguire’s removal are also defending him, even as they gently nudge him out the door.
They have gone to lengths to suggest it is no criticism of his coaching, and prove their point by making the curious observation that if he were coaching a good roster like Melbourne, where he was an assistant coach, or another like he inherited at Souths, then they have no doubt he would again find success.
The irony is that if Maguire was good enough to coach the Storm, but not the Tigers, could that suggest the Tigers might not have the right players, but do have the right coach?
Ah, but he can’t recruit, they’ll say.
This suggests the troubles at the Tigers could go deeper than Maguire, and to the club’s inability to recruit and develop.
Contributing to that is the weak salary cap policing combined with a distorted third-party system which provides significant benefit for some clubs over others.
Somehow, all 16 teams have the same money to spend on players yet year after year the top half-dozen clubs remain basically the same, even after some go through generational change in players and even coaches and football staff.
Maguire is fighting all that, against the backdrop of a push to oust him as coach because he somehow remains the obstacle between the club, its players, and success.
It’s enough to make you slump in defeat at the keyboard.
And it might remain the greatest fiction of all, yet nobody can find the words to say it.
A Shane and Kyle Flanagan dream team…..Jesus wept.
Interesting 🧐
Wests Tigers Podcast - Talking everything Wests Tigers!
The question is would we prefer
a) Madge and Brooks or
b) Flano Sr and Jr
im probably going option b to be honest, simply because we know option a doesn’t work
The question is would we prefer
a) Madge and Brooks or
b) Flano Sr and Jr
im probably going option b to be honest, simply because we know option a doesn’t work
Same. Put a fit Doueihi and Hastings in the team and it’s B for me if I had the choice.
Wests Tigers Podcast - Talking everything Wests Tigers!
The question is would we prefer
a) Madge and Brooks or
b) Flano Sr and Jr
im probably going option b to be honest, simply because we know option a doesn’t work
1000 time a. Lol
In memory of Geoff Chisholm (1965-2022)
Thanks for sharing the Kent article.
If madge won the support of the board at have end of last year, I can't see them changing their decision now. Particularly while Madge has the team playing with effort - even if we aren't winning.
Also, if Farah is still supporting Madge, then I'll trust his judgement. He cares for the Tigers more than anyone else and is closer to the team and sees madge in action than any of us.
It's important to remember the context. Madge inherited a completely out of whack roster, with all of Clearys bad signings and the oldest team in the comp. Madge only just got rid of those players last year and now has the youngest team in the comp.
Because of this transition, and some bad squad and pathway management, the team atm is a bottom 4 team.
I personally hope madge can hold on to the team to middle of the year. Then we can show what we look like with Hastings and AD together. Then move into next year with a better roster - api, Papali'i and hopefully some more to come.
I'm no Brooks hater, have a big soft spot for him. But we need to move him on. I can put an argument that the lack of ability to close our the game has cost us 3 out of 4 wins this year.
Swap Brooks for Thompson at Bulldogs or that Leo Thimpson at the Kinights. We desperately need some punch in the forward pack.
Play Hastings 7 Madden 6 until AD gets back
Top 8 2023
Thanks for sharing the Kent article.
If madge won the support of the board at have end of last year, I can't see them changing their decision now. Particularly while Madge has the team playing with effort - even if we aren't winning.
Also, if Farah is still supporting Madge, then I'll trust his judgement. He cares for the Tigers more than anyone else and is closer to the team and sees madge in action than any of us.
It's important to remember the context. Madge inherited a completely out of whack roster, with all of Clearys bad signings and the oldest team in the comp. Madge only just got rid of those players last year and now has the youngest team in the comp.
Because of this transition, and some bad squad and pathway management, the team atm is a bottom 4 team.
I personally hope madge can hold on to the team to middle of the year. Then we can show what we look like with Hastings and AD together. Then move into next year with a better roster - api, Papali'i and hopefully some more to come.
I'm no Brooks hater, have a big soft spot for him. But we need to move him on. I can put an argument that the lack of ability to close our the game has cost us 3 out of 4 wins this year.
Swap Brooks for Thompson at Bulldogs or that Leo Thimpson at the Kinights. We desperately need some punch in the forward pack.
Play Hastings 7 Madden 6 until AD gets back
With all due respect, if we’re 0 and 10 or something like that there’s no way Maguire can stay on. If we backed him in that position we truly would be a joke.
Wests Tigers Podcast - Talking everything Wests Tigers!
I dont want Shane Flanagan as coach because I think he is a dud bloke, but I also think he is yesterdays man.
He built a premiership on building a tough, gritty, no compromise team. Remind you of anyone? Flanagan will be Madge 2.0. Watching Cronulla tonight, reinforced that the game has changed beyond that tough dour style of play. It is all about fast mobile players with sharp ball movement. WT dont have any of that, Ive seen no evidence ever that Madge can coach that ro Flanagan for that matter.
@helmesy 100%. We’ve lost our last 7, surely the end is near. Also, Kent isn’t a rumour monger like a lot of the other journos..
id rather much franklin Pele then Nikora, much younger and much more upside!! please in these trying times gives us some good news please Tigers
Nikora was awesome tonight. Would love to have him.
