WT Ownership, The Board & Senior Management - MEGA Thread

[cochise]

Would it even be worth having the likes KPMG, PWC, Deloitte et al, to look at professional sporting organisations? I mean yeah they can comb the books and say here's where you're going wrong but if we're in a strong financial position other than looking at our on field results and saying "yeah you need to do better," without a fundamental understand of professional Rugby League would they even be able to make the appropriate ajudication outside of the rudimentary recommendations that some of the fan base can make?

Honestly, I probably don't know the right people to do that part. I believe the biggest issue at the club are around the governance structure and accountability. This is an area that KPMG does deal with and they apparently have experience with sporting organisations.

Workforce Transformation

Enable transformation and drive organisational value through strategic workforce planning, future-focused HR operating models and change management.

kpmg.com

Industries

KPMG can provide an informed perspective on issues faced by the global business community.

kpmg.com

Ultimately I don't know if they are the right people for this role but is the type of direction I would be looking.

 

[liltiger]

Yeh I'm not sure either.

In the media you hear a Gould or Brian Smith type doing reviews.

I think parra were forced into a similar exercise by the government and worked out well for them when they were forced to apply a standard criteria for roles.

Brian Smith has already conducted a review at the Tigers instigated by Grant Mayer in 2013 / 14 it resulted in us letting potter go and hiring Taylor. Anyone but him. I'd ask Ben Ikin to put his head under the hood and get some feedback. No doubt Sheens would resist it though but that's tough luck.

 

[cochise]

At this point I am just spit balling some ideas, this is not something I would want to do by myself so would have to incorporate the ideas of others.

I am probably a little ahead of myself as I have said this weekend is the starting point for me.

 

[cochise]

Brian Smith has already conducted a review at the Tigers instigated by Grant Mayer in 2013 / 14 it resulted in us letting potter go and hiring Taylor. Anyone but him. I'd ask Ben Ikin to put his head under the hood and get some feedback. No doubt Sheens would resist it though but that's tough luck.

That's the issue, I think it needs to go much further than that and take a look at the corporate governance of the club.

 

[liltiger]

Honestly, I probably don't know the right people to do that part. I believe the biggest issue at the club are around the governance structure and accountability. This is an area that KPMG does deal with and they apparently have experience with sporting organisations.

Workforce Transformation

Enable transformation and drive organisational value through strategic workforce planning, future-focused HR operating models and change management.

kpmg.com

Industries

KPMG can provide an informed perspective on issues faced by the global business community.

kpmg.com

Ultimately I don't know if they are the right people for this role but is the type of direction I would be looking.

Problem Cochise is they're great at numbers, we need to find out why all the money poured into the football programme isn't translating to onfield or recruitment success.
The first thing to fix the mess is so simple it's been overlooked 100 times.
Anytime a player refuses to sign for the Tigers, ask them why. In a very short time we will have a consensus and our first issue to rectify. Noone knows what's wrong with us better than the marquee players refusing to sign for us. Ask them why they're not signing and begin working from those issues on. It may be a perception thing or it maybe something we are not aware of that is happening behind the scenes that they're managers are warning them about. Keep it confidential of course.

 

[The Ladies Man]

And if all else fails, strike a match

 

[liltiger]

And if all else fails, strike a match

The club would stuff that up atm

 

[Cultured_Bogan]

Honestly, I probably don't know the right people to do that part. I believe the biggest issue at the club are around the governance structure and accountability. This is an area that KPMG does deal with and they apparently have experience with sporting organisations.

Workforce Transformation

Enable transformation and drive organisational value through strategic workforce planning, future-focused HR operating models and change management.

kpmg.com

Industries

KPMG can provide an informed perspective on issues faced by the global business community.

kpmg.com

Ultimately I don't know if they are the right people for this role but is the type of direction I would be looking.

Yeah fair enough, I know that these places do other things aside from accounting but yeah wasn't sure whether they had the expertise to instruct Rugby League clubs on encouraging on field success anything beyond remedial advice which any long term League fan could probably do for free.

HBG aren't going to do anything that endangers the structure, debentured board members won't want to give up their spots I gather, so they will probably be pissing money up the wall. Gotta look like you're doing something though.

 

[TrueTiger]

Problem Cochise is they're great at numbers, we need to find out why all the money poured into the football programme isn't translating to onfield or recruitment success.
The first thing to fix the mess is so simple it's been overlooked 100 times.
Anytime a player refuses to sign for the Tigers, ask them why. In a very short time we will have a consensus and our first issue to rectify. Noone knows what's wrong with us better than the marquee players refusing to sign for us. Ask them why they're not signing and begin working from those issues on. It may be a perception thing or it maybe something we are not aware of that is happening behind the scenes that they're managers are warning them about. Keep it confidential of course.

In my opinion the first big issue to address is the nepotism that keeps on flowing through the WTs doors year after year...Look at the coaching experiment,Sheens,Benji and Farah,no doubt all capable in various areas of their careers,Sheens many years ago was a reasonable good coach but hasnt coached in NRL for over a decade,Farah and Benji were fantastic players,BUT have not had one iota of coaching experience at any level...
I know we are all giving it hope that it works,time will tell,having said that I think that what I have mentioned is what is building this pronounced culture within the club and player managers and players are shying away from us so as not to be caught up in the drama,rather just get on with the job...
If the club would be much more professional in what they do within then maybe things change,taking a completely new direction like getting a coach in with no ties to the club,support staff that know the game inside and out would probably be a good start...these are just my opinion and others may have different thoughts....

 

[Cultured_Bogan]

And if all else fails, strike a match

Send in the donkey.

 

[jirskyr]

Problem Cochise is they're great at numbers, we need to find out why all the money poured into the football programme isn't translating to onfield or recruitment success.
The first thing to fix the mess is so simple it's been overlooked 100 times.
Anytime a player refuses to sign for the Tigers, ask them why. In a very short time we will have a consensus and our first issue to rectify. Noone knows what's wrong with us better than the marquee players refusing to sign for us. Ask them why they're not signing and begin working from those issues on. It may be a perception thing or it maybe something we are not aware of that is happening behind the scenes that they're managers are warning them about. Keep it confidential of course.

They already do that (collect data on failed signings). Contrary to what people think, the senior folks at Tigers are not complete morons.

But also players and managers will lie about their reasons, as they do in public, so I expect it would be very hard to collate 100% genuine data.

Finally, what specifically do you do about "perceptions"? That's a very broad, very foggy sphere of consideration.

For example there was a perception that Tigers had dilapidated facilities, even the players joked about it at the 10 Year Member deal last week. Fundamentally, 10 kg is 10 kg no matter how fancy the weights plate is, and you can run and do push-ups anywhere. But if that was a known perception of the club, well that's been fixed with the CoE. Brandon Wakeham said to our group that Bulldogs had nothing like it. OK... but Bulldogs are currently performing better than Tigers, so maybe the quality of the facilities doesn't have that much to do with winning, after all? Or maybe it takes many years with top-class facilities to eventually turn a change, considering the CoE isn't even a year old. Most probably - you might as well develop the best facilities you can and go from there.

But let's be honest - what would be the most obvious reason not to join Tigers? A long history of failure, an untried incoming head coach, plenty of competition within Sydney. Those are mostly things you can't change overnight or cannot change my clear and obvious means. It becomes circular - if nobody wants to sign for you because you don't win enough, how do you win more? And once you win more, do you actually need everyone to sign with you?

 

[old_man_tiger]

@balmain boy and @cochise good luck to you both. I think it reads like your paths will converge at some point

 

[liltiger]

They already do that (collect data on failed signings). Contrary to what people think, the senior folks at Tigers are not complete morons.

But also players and managers will lie about their reasons, as they do in public, so I expect it would be very hard to collate 100% genuine data.

Finally, what specifically do you do about "perceptions"? That's a very broad, very foggy sphere of consideration.

For example there was a perception that Tigers had dilapidated facilities, even the players joked about it at the 10 Year Member deal last week. Fundamentally, 10 kg is 10 kg no matter how fancy the weights plate is, and you can run and do push-ups anywhere. But if that was a known perception of the club, well that's been fixed with the CoE. Brandon Wakeham said to our group that Bulldogs had nothing like it. OK... but Bulldogs are currently performing better than Tigers, so maybe the quality of the facilities doesn't have that much to do with winning, after all? Or maybe it takes many years with top-class facilities to eventually turn a change, considering the CoE isn't even a year old. Most probably - you might as well develop the best facilities you can and go from there.

But let's be honest - what would be the most obvious reason not to join Tigers? A long history of failure, an untried incoming head coach, plenty of competition within Sydney. Those are mostly things you can't change overnight or cannot change my clear and obvious means. It becomes circular - if nobody wants to sign for you because you don't win enough, how do you win more? And once you win more, do you actually need everyone to sign with you?

Atm IMHO if I was a player the main reason stopping me from signing is coaching instability. We have a notoriously flakey board who punt coaches and begin half arsed rebuilds. As a player I would be worried of joining only to end up with a new coach in 18 months who has different plans, like what happened to Anasta signing under Sheens and arriving two weeks after Potter.

 

[jirskyr]

Atm IMHO if I was a player the main reason stopping me from signing is coaching instability. We have a notoriously flakey board who punt coaches and begin half arsed rebuilds. As a player I would be worried of joining only to end up with a new coach in 18 months who has different plans, like what happened to Anasta signing under Sheens and arriving two weeks after Potter.

Really? I would have thought coaching instability would now be the lowest possible concern for Wests Tigers.

With Sheens installed for 2 years and Benji contracted to lead in 2025, at worst Benji might come in early, but no way Benji isn't the coach for at least 3 seasons, no earlier than 2024 - they simply won't cut Benji any earlier unless he does something illegal or monumentally stupid.

You probably couldn't get a better guarantee of the long-term coaching situation from any other club.

 

[Needaname]

If I was a player. I would be making the decision in parallel to how a decision is made on a player by a recruiting club.
Character and attitude.
The tigers to me for as long as I can remember possess a soft attitude and frankly lack any character.
Whilst backed by a strong history of two battling clubs coming together they haven’t got a symbolic identity, where on the field and off it you just know what you expect.
So if I was choosing, I would look to a club that knows what they want, what they stand for and has a clear goal to achieve it. After all that is why they would be interested in recruiting me. Shouldn’t the player have confidence that they know what to expect from the club just as much as the club knows what to expect from the player?

 

[liltiger]

Really? I would have thought coaching instability would now be the lowest possible concern for Wests Tigers.

With Sheens installed for 2 years and Benji contracted to lead in 2025, at worst Benji might come in early, but no way Benji isn't the coach for at least 3 seasons, no earlier than 2024 - they simply won't cut Benji any earlier unless he does something illegal or monumentally stupid.

You probably couldn't get a better guarantee of the long-term coaching situation from any other club.

I understand the clubs position in terms of the Sheens, Benji coaching appointments, as a prospective player I'd struggle to commit because if hypothetically there's no improvement, if next year we can't jag any halves and the team earns it's 3rd wooden spoon in a row. My first concern is how soon will the board get cold feet and start wielding the axe on the coaches. As a player I'd struggle to commit to a coach with virtually no experience in Benji.
It will go one of two ways, it'll be a master-stroke by Sheens and the club or its going to be a disaster.

 

[BZN]

Really? I would have thought coaching instability would now be the lowest possible concern for Wests Tigers.

With Sheens installed for 2 years and Benji contracted to lead in 2025, at worst Benji might come in early, but no way Benji isn't the coach for at least 3 seasons, no earlier than 2024 - they simply won't cut Benji any earlier unless he does something illegal or monumentally stupid.

You probably couldn't get a better guarantee of the long-term coaching situation from any other club.

Imo You've just shot Yourself in the foot using the analogy and connection of Our current tri-fecta of coaches being here guaranteed long term, when a big % of fans/people are laughing at us because of that.

 

[tigermate]

@cochise I sent you a private message about this if you’re interested

 

[jirskyr]

Imo You've just shot Yourself in the foot using the analogy and connection of Our current tri-fecta of coaches being here guaranteed long term, when a big % of fans/people are laughing at us because of that.

I don't quite understand. I am not saying it's the best decision, I am saying however it does grant great certainty about the long-term coach. It was a response to a post about "coaching instability".

 

[Needaname]

Here’s a long shot. Why doesn’t the club approach Des Hasler to do a review of the football operations and someone like Shane Richardson to do a review of the club operations?