It's time to take the fight back to HBG

balmain boy said:
The club's complete failure to develop any players is one of, if not the biggest, failure from the board. If we could develop players we'd have more success across all grades. If we had more success and had better players moving up through the grades our first grade side would be more successful, attract more sponsors, more members, more profits etc.

So yes, our lack of success under HBG can be directly linked back to a lack of focus on development. We're not a glamour club that can sign superstars, we have to grow them. But yet we've been actively choosing not to. It's madness. There's no guarantees with juniors, but the more talented juniors you have, the better your chances for success is.
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Due to our structure there are two competing and different issues. Our club, unless you are also a Member of Wests Ashfield/HBG is Wests Tigers and they are completely responsible for the pathways programme from players to coaches to talent scouts and so on down the line. However, they have limited funds - especially in comparison to other teams in the NRL. This is why Richo was so keen on fixing the corporate side of the house - so profits generated could be used to benefit "our club".

HBG are the owners and their responsibilities extends well beyond Wests Tigers, although you can mount a very strong argument that the distribution of profits is out of kilter with the objects outlined in the constitution. If you take a literal interpretation HBG exists to do three things:

1. To provide for members and members' guests a social and sporting Club.

2. To assist in the promotion conduct and propagation of Rugby League football in the Rugby League Football District of the Western Suburbs of Sydney, or elsewhere, and to provide or assist in the provision of training and conditioning and teaching facilities for football played in accordance with the rules of the New SouthWales Rugby Football League.

3. To render aid either financial or by other means to clubs or associations in the Rugby League Football District of the Western Suburbs of Sydney, or elsewhere, which clubs or associations are playing or conducting football played in accordance with the Rules of the New South Wales Rugby Football League.

I think these are pretty clear objectives and the intent was for the monies raised by HBG to be shared between supporting patrons and promoting rugby league. However, there is an objective that gives the board some wriggle room:

To establish support or aid in the establishment and support of associations funds, trust and conveniences calculated to benefit the members of the Club or the dependents or connections of such members and to make payments towards insurance for any purpose and to subscribe or guarantee money for charitable or benevolent objects or for any exhibitions for any public general or useful objects.

I expect this is the catch all that HBG uses to fund cricket, soccer, rugby union, the fishing club etc. It is a valid objective; however, in some cases is in direct conflict with objectives 2 and 3 above - promoting direct competition for our junior base from other codes.

Certainly the funds that go to sporting associations other than Wests Tigers are significantly less, but they are significantly less then SFA to start with in the general scheme of things. Especially when you compare us to similar "not for profit" type clubs; e.g. Canberra and Cronulla.

I'm not about to go and dig up the data again as it takes a lot of effort to find - but if we look at the 2024 data I pulled last year:

Canberra: Overall Profit $92M. Contribution to football operations (over and above the cap) $5M (0.54%).
Cronulla: Overall Profit around $20M. Contribution to football operations $5M plus $2.74M the football club made in profits. (20%)
Wests Tigers: Overall Profit $67.8M. Contribution to football operations $1.8M (0.26%)

So when it comes to all the things like pathways and staffing that make one football club a better destination than another (the nice things to have v the essential things) we are $3.2M behind Canberra and $5.94M behind the Sharks. So the nice things to have includes the ability to pay junior contracts that are outside of the cap, pay for coaching and other staff to run the club and its pathways, better hotel accommodation on trips etc.

Now we are closer in structure to Canberra as HBG and the Raiders both have a number of community clubs. It is also difficult to ascertain what funds are going where but I live around the Canberra region and my good wife works for one of the Raiders major sponsors. So I get to attend the odd corporate event. I have had the opportunity to chat with a few key stakeholders in the Raiders organisation about their funding and they are happy with the amount they have and said if they neeeded more for a particular project or for expaasion they expect they would get it. They would simply need to raise a business case and outline how it fits into the constitution, how it benefits the community and the benefits for the club overall (more members, more profit etc).

It simply isn't a level playing field and my understanding is that our football department has been screaming for funds. It was the key issue raised by SM when he held the fan engagement meetings to support his goal of fixing our pathways; the key being to have the club put more $ into the football operations (willingly).

Not hearing this pain from Canberra or Cronulla!

So let's say that all of the other sporting and fishing associations combined received the same $1.8M as Wests Tigers; that leaves $64.2M being invested back into the punters and other philanthropic organisations at HBG's venues after running espenses (95%).

Read the constitution and if you still think that the way HBG are running the joint is in line with the intent of the organsiation when it was established please explain it to me in simple english - because I don't get it!
 
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Mccarry said:
Does anyone have access to HBG constitution?
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Yes.

HBG Constitution.

Section 1:

1.1: Do as little as possible for the Wests Tigers;

1.2: If it looks as though the club is about to turn a corner, perform a range of board and/or club sackings to destabilise operations and set the club back another 3 years;

1.3: Dennis Burgess and the roadkill woven onto his head are to inexplicably hold power above his ability.

I think that just about covers it.
 
Cultured_Bogan said:
Yes.

HBG Constitution.

Section 1:

1.1: Do as little as possible for the Wests Tigers;

1.2: If it looks as though the club is about to turn a corner, perform a range of board and/or club sackings to destabilise operations and set the club back another 3 years;

1.3: Dennis Burgess and the roadkill woven onto his head are to inexplicably hold power above his ability.

I think that just about covers it.
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You missed one item

1.4: At all times retain control of the gravy train and slush funds and dispose of anyone who tries to hold HBG to account by using fabrications and leaking them to the media and our online friends.
 
Tim Sheens should have been retained after his last coaching stint in a Football manager or operations role very similar to Gus at the Panthers. Even after it was cut short, HBG should have convinced Tim to stay, you can say what you like about him but this is an area he knows. Look at the players he's developed over his career. I could have seen him and Richo working together. But no it's just another chapter in the HBG Greatest Hit's.

The Richo sacking was also another classic Hit from the HBG Greatest Hits. Richo was had proven success at other clubs, but let's find a reason to punt him.

It's a pattern with the HBG they don't want people that are strong or competent running the place.
 
tigers_alive_05 said:
Tim Sheens should have been retained after his last coaching stint in a Football manager or operations role very similar to Gus at the Panthers. Even after it was cut short, HBG should have convinced Tim to stay, you can say what you like about him but this is an area he knows. Look at the players he's developed over his career. I could have seen him and Richo working together. But no it's just another chapter in the HBG Greatest Hit's.

The Richo sacking was also another classic Hit from the HBG Greatest Hits. Richo was had proven success at other clubs, but let's find a reason to punt him.

It's a pattern with the HBG they don't want people that are strong or competent running the place.
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we have had 2 coaches that won 6 premierships between them, one at a club before us and after us and they could not move the dial at our club. One ran and the other got punted.
 
balmain boy said:
You're talking about revenue generated by the NRL sides.

I'm talking about expenditure. Wests Ashfield has the revenue to cover increased spending on football. In fact it's supposed to be at the very centre of their existence.

Yet year after year they choose not to spend on footy. Reinvesting profits into shinier poker machines. Their reason for existing is not to serve the community but to exploit them.

If you look at Jolls post on the signings thread you'll see a 67 million revenue translates into 1.5 million spent on football. They have the money, they're just only interested in getting richer
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Yea the pokies are a damn blight.
I know too many who live Pokie to paycheck and faark you have to be pretty damn bored to go near those machines.

The clubs seem hellbent on being Megaclubs and gigantic places for people to goto. Crazy spend on facilities... Which looking at Wests Ashfield I kinda get where they are coming from:
Invest 10m in Wests Tigers or invest 10m on a new carpark level.

The car park will be there next year, and the year after. Upping the football spend and it's gone that year.


Which totally SUCKS for us Wests Tigers fans. We need a real revenue source for our club.
 
crazycat said:
Yea the pokies are a damn blight.
I know too many who live Pokie to paycheck and faark you have to be pretty damn bored to go near those machines.

The clubs seem hellbent on being Megaclubs and gigantic places for people to goto. Crazy spend on facilities... Which looking at Wests Ashfield I kinda get where they are coming from:
Invest 10m in Wests Tigers or invest 10m on a new carpark level.

The car park will be there next year, and the year after. Upping the football spend and it's gone that year.


Which totally SUCKS for us Wests Tigers fans. We need a real revenue source for our club.
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More than just another floor in the carpark

www.theurbandeveloper.com

Wests Gears Up for Long-Awaited $95m Hotel Scheme

Plans for the 135-key hotel at the Ashfield clubhouse were filed in 2011—the last time the Tigers made the NRL top eight…
www.theurbandeveloper.com www.theurbandeveloper.com
 
balmain boy said:
Which players have we produced in the last decade that are talented?

Development of players does indeed come down to coaching, but not the NRL coach. They only take the near finished product and try take them to the elite level. It's the coaches and assistant coaches at Matt's, ball, Daley, Johns, flegg and Cup that develop players. They're working with the players in their developmental years where the players are honing their skills. These are the coaches that we simply do not have.

We have had one such coach, Sultana, who almost made the finals with a weak Balmain side and has been doing very well with Flegg for the past 12 months. Imagine if we had another 5-6 coaches like Sultana. We might actually have developed a team of talented players by now.

And your last point is extremely incorrect. The club's complete failure to develop any players is one of, if not the biggest, failure from the board. If we could develop players we'd have more success across all grades. If we had more success and had better players moving up through the grades our first grade side would be more successful, attract more sponsors, more members, more profits etc.

So yes, our lack of success under HBG can be directly linked back to a lack of focus on development. We're not a glamour club that can sign superstars, we have to grow them. But yet we've been actively choosing not to. It's madness. There's no guarantees with juniors, but the more talented juniors you have, the better your chances for success is.
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Which players have we produced in the last decade that are talented?


Talented, brought through our system?

Not even looking outside of the current squad- Tavana, Makasini, Bula, Mason, Sukkar, Madden, Latu (to a degree), Samuela (see Latu), Sione (see the previous Fainu's), Kit & Luke Lualili'i, Saukuru, Craig, Seyfarth, Pole, Heyward, Taupau-Moors, Godinet, Lanyon, Duncombe, Logan Brookes...

Glassie Glassie looks super talented too.

Others that we developed?

Galvin, Large, Willett, Simpkin, Blore (to a degree), Mikaele, Kautoga, Da Silva, Garner, Suli, Liddle, Tatola (from memory), Talau, Tupou, Fitzgibbon...

There's probably a bunch of others, but that's guys contributing to other football clubs Top 30's.

Maybe I'm wrong- maybe these guys have no talent at all.

But it seems to me that producing talent through the clubs pathways isn't the issue.
 
The Chad said:
Which players have we produced in the last decade that are talented?


Talented, brought through our system?

Not even looking outside of the current squad- Tavana, Makasini, Bula, Mason, Sukkar, Madden, Latu (to a degree), Samuela (see Latu), Sione (see the previous Fainu's), Kit & Luke Lualili'i, Saukuru, Craig, Seyfarth, Pole, Heyward, Taupau-Moors, Godinet, Lanyon, Duncombe, Logan Brookes...

Glassie Glassie looks super talented too.

Others that we developed?

Galvin, Large, Willett, Simpkin, Blore (to a degree), Mikaele, Kautoga, Da Silva, Garner, Suli, Liddle, Tatola (from memory), Talau, Tupou, Fitzgibbon...

There's probably a bunch of others, but that's guys contributing to other football clubs Top 30's.

Maybe I'm wrong- maybe these guys have no talent at all.

But it seems to me that producing talent through the clubs pathways isn't the issue.
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I'm talking about proven outstanding talents in the NRL. If all the players you listed there's maybe 1 that was produced by us, Tatola. And the club told him they weren't interested.

Most of the players you listed she either Jersey flegg players (way too early to judge their talent) or weren't event produced by the club (Bula).

Yes, to play NRL you need to be talented. But we're not talking about players who are fringe NRL options, we're talking fair dinkum talent.
 
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balmain boy said:
I'm talking about proven outstanding talents in the NRL. If all the faves you listed there's maybe 1 that was produced by us, Tatola. And the club told him they weren't interested.

Most of the players you listed she either Jersey flegg players (way too early to judge their talent) or weren't event produced by the club (Bula).

Yes, to play NRL you need to be talented. But we're not talking about players who are fringe NRL options, we're talking fair dinkum talent.
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I'm going to assume you are comparing us to a club like Penrith- which is ideally where most supporters would like to see us achieve to that level.

But remember- 10 years ago, Penrith where not that much different to what the Tigers are currently now. ("Not that much different" does not equal 'the same'). They were bottom dwellers on a regular basis.

And 10 years ago, the Tigers were coming to the end of a generation of players, produced by the club, that had our club in the conversation for competition 'heavy weights' (to a degree) for a number of years- all produced through a pathways program built by Tim Sheens.

We are currently seeing the results of a pathways system built by...Tim Sheens....starting to produce talent.

10-15 years ago (longer- go back to 2003), were HBG supplying significantly more funds to pathways development? Or was it just better structured, by people that knew what they were doing? Have HGB started supplying less money to pathways? Or have the people responsible for setting up the systems been worse at what they are doing?

Or, did the Panthers club go from poor investment to significant investment with immediate effect? Or did that funding grow over time?

I'm not discounting what you're saying. It's just that you're comparing a structured, long term pathways system at the Panthers (for example) that is proving successful, to one that is being rebuilt (or has been rebuilt) only recently. They are not the same thing.

You don't just drop a $10m dollar bag at something & see success. You build it, over time. The money that the Tigers put into pathways (and none of us KNOW the dollar value- we speculate based on reports & hearsay) is producing players that populate a majority of our club squad. And our junior squads are proving to be at least competitive.

The Bulldogs are throwing a large wad of cash at Pathways now (supposedly). How's that working out? They had to overspend on 2 halves through other club's pathways. And they sit lower on the NRL ladder.

Feels like people just want to be angry & need a villain.
 
The Chad said:
And 10 years ago, the Tigers were coming to the end of a generation of players, produced by the club, that had our club in the conversation for competition 'heavy weights' (to a degree) for a number of years- all produced through a pathways program built by Tim Sheens.

We are currently seeing the results of a pathways system built by...Tim Sheens....starting to produce talent.
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Sheens was here for a New York minute the second time around … and he spent a lot of that time trying to mentor Benji on coaching…and not setting up pathways

Interested in what emerging talent are you referring to ? The numbers coming off the production line are not huge in my understanding , and some of them have been tried this year and seemingly to me have a long ways to go… a few others are still just plying their trade a few levels down

the problem IMO has not been about “producing “ the talent ,,it’s about turning that 17-18 yr old talented kid into an NRL level player and then getting him to want to remain here ..that’s where they have been found wanting
 
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Its not about funding to me. I'd still have an independent talented board on the smell of an oily rag than what we have now. I really believe our laziness in games like last week has to do with the average characters at the top. Why would the players bust a gut when our board members dont even brush their hair.

But completely agree on the funding. How we are the lowest, with a massive catchment and 2 club pathways, boggles the mind. The sharks don't have near the geography we do as far as I know.
 
The results don't lie and there has been one common denominator.
The "success" - not to be confused with the existence - of the NRL team is not a priority and if you still can't see it you don't want to.
We are expected to be grateful for their efforts to keep the club in existence under the control of a protective debenture system, and all it brings us is grief on the back of loyalty.
The only thing that is giving this club any credibility is Benji - talented admired individual by plenty - but realistically is pushing sh$# uphill like all those before him. He will get more leeway than some from fans/ media but the strike rate of scapegoats is the one thing that the club has mastered well.
 
Telltails said:
The results don't lie and there has been one common denominator.
The "success" - not to be confused with the existence - of the NRL team is not a priority and if you still can't see it you don't want to.
We are expected to be grateful for their efforts to keep the club in existence under the control of a protective debenture system, and all it brings us is grief on the back of loyalty.
The only thing that is giving this club any credibility is Benji - talented admired individual by plenty - but realistically is pushing sh$# uphill like all those before him. He will get more leeway than some from fans/ media but the strike rate of scapegoats is the one thing that the club has mastered well.
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You touched on something that can be used as the model we are looking for.

Benji - for all the criticism about his lack of experience etc. He has done some things that I am really impressed with.

1. Recruited players that provide some value in return for the salary. Whether it be cultural or on game day, most players are adding some value to the club/team. You will always have a few that you need to churn, so no point focusing on the 10% or so that don't work out...he already knows who they are and he moves them on quickly.

2. Culture - building a strong culture and identity led by him.

3. A playing style - we saw that before injuries hit. If that is the DNA we are building, I like where it's going.

Now that is just the NRL team. If you can replicate this model from the juniors up and we start working as a club rather than 2 teams that have merged, we may be able to build something here.
 
weststigers said:
You touched on something that can be used as the model we are looking for.

Benji - for all the criticism about his lack of experience etc. He has done some things that I am really impressed with.

1. Recruited players that provide some value in return for the salary. Whether it be cultural or on game day, most players are adding some value to the club/team. You will always have a few that you need to churn, so no point focusing on the 10% or so that don't work out...he already knows who they are and he moves them on quickly.

2. Culture - building a strong culture and identity led by him.

3. A playing style - we saw that before injuries hit. If that is the DNA we are building, I like where it's going.

Now that is just the NRL team. If you can replicate this model from the juniors up and we start working as a club rather than 2 teams that have merged, we may be able to build something here.
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^^^^^^^^^

Well said champion @weststigers
 
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