2015 season analysis

[Geo]

Wests Tigers 2015 season review

Chris Kennedy Tue 08 Sep, 2015, 3:00pm
By Chris Kennedy‌, National Correspondent, NRL.com
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Wests Tigers 2015 season review
A season that started brightly with two straight wins – and four wins from eight rounds – quickly fell in a hole with nine losses from the next 10 games starting from Round 9\. But more than the on-field woes – which saw the club in contention for the wooden spoon right up until the final fortnight of the season – 2015 for Wests Tigers fans will be remembered as a season where the new administration pushed club captain and fan favourite Robbie Farah out the door while also revealing serious salary cap issues that could take years to recover from.

Where They Excelled: When the Tigers clicked into gear playing attacking football they looked decidedly dangerous. The Round 8 thumping of heavyweights Canterbury looked like it should be getting their season going, rather than precipitating a huge losing run. A 34-6 trouncing of premiers South Sydney in Round 14 minus Origin stars Farah and Aaron Woods turned plenty of heads. A good, old-fashioned Leichhardt ambush of title contenders Melbourne in Round 21 reaffirmed that even towards the end of a horror season, when young stars Luke Brooks, Mitch Moses and James Tedesco get it right they can match anyone on their day. The Tigers finished with the sixth-most points of any club so crossing the stripe wasn't their problem in 2015.

Where They Struggled: They ranked 11th for defence, leaking 23.4 points per game, which even on its own is generally enough to rule a side out of finals contention. But the real issues for the merged club seemed to be less tangible. A new-look administration, a new coach, some young players in key positions, a giant salary cap headache and everyone not seeming to be quite on the same page – these issues hamstrung the Tigers' season more than anything. An inability to win at their spiritual home of Leichhardt until the final attempt frustrated both the players – many of whom are local juniors – and fans.

Missing In Action: The Tigers had a relatively blessed run with injuries and suspensions compared to plenty of teams both above and below them on the ladder. Aside from skipper Robbie Farah missing a total of seven games through Origin duty and a couple of short terms injuries – a broken hand and AC joint injury during the Origin campaign – the rest of their key players all played 20 or more games. In fact from a first-choice 17 only winger David Nofoaluma (10 games after a delayed start to the year) missed significant game time.

Turning Point: Two early losses after having led comfortably tipped the season in the wrong direction. As mentioned the club won four of its first eight games. Two of those losses – against the Bulldogs in Round 4 and Raiders in Round 7 – should have been wins and could have put a very different complexion over the season. In the first they were up 24-6 with around 20 minutes to go and in the latter 22-0 after as many minutes before conceding 30 straight points. Six wins from the first eight rounds would have provided a real platform to build from.

Hold Your Head High: Fullback James Tedesco was the real shining light for the Tigers in 2015\. The once injury-plagued custodian played all 24 games in 2015, broke easily the most tackles of any player in the competition with 167, while making 152 metres per game and scoring 17 tries (equal fourth in the NRL). Young halves Brooks and Moses produced enough good games to show they'll be a force in the future once their consistency catches up to their talent while Aaron Woods was again immense, making 163 metres per game (second-best prop).

2016 Crystal Ball: This must be the cloudiest crystal ball in the competition. Where will Robbie Farah end up? Will he find a home elsewhere in the NRL or overseas? If he stays will Jason Taylor relent and stick with him or make good on a threat to play him in reserve grade, soaking up a huge chunk of the salary cap in the process? If it's the latter, consider the season derailed before it begins. Elsewhere, the budding combination between Brooks, Moses and Tedesco continues to grow and will hopefully lay the foundations of plenty of attacking wins for the club in coming years.

Conclusion: It seemed to be a year with more problems than solutions and grimly, there are few indications an upward trend is immediately around the corner. The biggest asset is a youthful roster that will continue to develop without a significant injection of new talent but unless Jason Taylor can unlock the secret of getting his young stars to play aggressive, attacking football more often than not there could be more dark times ahead.

"It's been a tough year for us, at the start of the season we wanted to improve in the area of being consistent and I don't think we've done that," Taylor said after the Round 26 golden point loss to the Dragons.

"That's the most disappointing thing, we've learnt a lot and we've developed a lot and today's another example of it.

"We get some good performances then we have a game like today where we showed we're good enough to win it but we just weren't there at the start."

SEASON STATISTICS
Wins: 6
Losses: 16
Position: 15th
Home Record: 4-8
Away Record: 4-8
Longest Winning Streak: 2 (Round 1-2, Round 21-22)
Longest Losing Streak: 5 (Round 15-20)
Players Used: 25
Tries Scored: 87
Tries conceded: 99

http://www.nrl.com/wests-tigers-2015-season-review/tabid/10874/newsid/89624/default.aspx

 

[stevetiger]

The biggest asset is a youthful roster that will continue to develop without a significant injection of new talent but unless Jason Taylor can unlock the secret of getting his young stars to play aggressive, attacking football more often than not there could be more dark times ahead.

Interesting. The problem as has been previously stated numerous times is that JT has been a dud of a coach who for some reason hasn't coached the team to play attacking positive footy. Good to see some recognition of where the problem lies.

 

[jirskyr]

The biggest asset is a youthful roster that will continue to develop without a significant injection of new talent but unless Jason Taylor can unlock the secret of getting his young stars to play aggressive, attacking football more often than not there could be more dark times ahead.

Interesting. The problem as has been previously stated numerous times is that JT has been a dud of a coach who for some reason hasn't coached the team to play attacking positive footy. Good to see some recognition of where the problem lies.

The article contradicts itself:

The Tigers finished with the sixth-most points of any club so crossing the stripe wasn't their problem in 2015.

 

[Cosimo_Zaretti]

I think the 2015 season has been our most dissapointing so far given the troops we had on the park most matches. I hope that in the future we'll be able to look at it as a development year for our young spine and new coach.

In previous years it seemed as simple as finding the right spine and keeping it on the park. In 2005 Prince and Marshall stayed intact, we won a comp. 2006 Benji spend most of the season in rehab, we failed to make the 8\. 2007-2009 we swapped through various halves pairings as we failed to cover the departure of Scott Prince before settling on Lui at the end of 09\. 2010-2011 with Lui and Marshall we had two top four finishes, then at the end of 2011 Robert Lui demolished his house using his missus as a hammer and we were once again without a halfback. 2012-2014 was more chopping and changing, injuries, different spine ever week, same old Tigers. By the time we played the Cowboys in 2014 you could make a decent first grade team out of the Tigers injured list.

In every year it's been "if Teddy hadn't been injured" or If Benji hadn't busted his shoulder" or "if Sheenius would just admit that Ayshford, Farah, Lawrence, Fulton or Morris shouldn't be in the halves". So what happened this year?

Tedesco, Moses, Brooks, Farah. That was supposed to be the spine. All our problems in previous years were down to not getting it together for one reason or another, and now we had them all good to go. Our two halves are supposed to be the best out of our system in years, so much so that we let Te Maire Martin and Blake Austin go so the Tigers could focus on them. We had the 238 game veteran and incumbent Blues hooker Robbie Farah and possibly the best young fullback in the game in James Tedesco.

And at the end of 2015 we have to admit that most weeks we put close to our best team on the park and won 8/24\. Only F/A saved us from the spoon. Maybe that was Taylor's plan all along, concentrate on defence to avoid last place.

Do we have a dud halves pairing or do they just need more first grade experience? Does the team need more time under Taylor's system or is the system itself the problem? Has the Tigers salary cap situation prevented them from building the right squad around their spine, and if so will dumping Robbie Farah in any way alleviate the problem?

It's all out of my hands as a supporter, but I'll be yelling at the team like they can hear me in 2016 and crossing my fingers we've got this one right.

 

[jirskyr]

Tedesco, Moses, Brooks, Farah. That was supposed to be the spine. All our problems in previous years were down to not getting it together for one reason or another, and now we had them all good to go. Our two halves are supposed to be the best out of our system in years, so much so that we let Te Maire Martin and Blake Austin go so the Tigers could focus on them. We had the 238 game veteran and incumbent Blues hooker Robbie Farah and possibly the best young fullback in the game in James Tedesco.

That's a good review, and I agree, the spine for once was fairly settled. In fact, Tedesco showed how classy he is when he stays on the field.

The question for me is, firstly, can Brooks and Moses go to that same level as Tedesco, if they get enough games under their belts?

Second question is, does Farah fit with the young style of spine we now have? Coach thinks no and Cherrington is no mug, despite how much I like Farah as a player.

Third and last question is, how is it that this spine managed to destroy Dogs / Rabbits / Storm / Eels / Dragons / Warriors / Raiders at times this season, but drop games to Titans / Penrith / Knights x2 / Eels / Raiders. What does the coach need to do to replicate the good games and cut out the bad ones.

Because 2015 for me was a season of polar opposites in performance. Usually I get a decent feeling for how the team is travelling, but this year we pulled out some amazing wins right when I thought we were struggling most. The Storm game is the best example, I thought we were a spent force, but we totally outplayed Storm for no particular reason, it wasn't even the Leichhardt thing, considering how meekly we lost already at LO to Raiders, Titans, Panthers.

How does JT get the spine, which has shown to be potentially very effective, to be mentally tough and consistently effective?

 

[Flippedy]

2015 season analysis summary: we sucked, that's why we came second last.

 

[Russell]

Tedesco, Moses, Brooks, Farah. That was supposed to be the spine. All our problems in previous years were down to not getting it together for one reason or another, and now we had them all good to go. Our two halves are supposed to be the best out of our system in years, so much so that we let Te Maire Martin and Blake Austin go so the Tigers could focus on them. We had the 238 game veteran and incumbent Blues hooker Robbie Farah and possibly the best young fullback in the game in James Tedesco.

That's a good review, and I agree, the spine for once was fairly settled. In fact, Tedesco showed how classy he is when he stays on the field.

The question for me is, firstly, can Brooks and Moses go to that same level as Tedesco, if they get enough games under their belts?

Second question is, does Farah fit with the young style of spine we now have? Coach thinks no and Cherrington is no mug, despite how much I like Farah as a player.

Third and last question is, how is it that this spine managed to destroy Dogs / Rabbits / Storm / Eels / Dragons / Warriors / Raiders at times this season, but drop games to Titans / Penrith / Knights x2 / Eels / Raiders. What does the coach need to do to replicate the good games and cut out the bad ones.

Because 2015 for me was a season of polar opposites in performance. Usually I get a decent feeling for how the team is travelling, but this year we pulled out some amazing wins right when I thought we were struggling most. The Storm game is the best example, I thought we were a spent force, but we totally outplayed Storm for no particular reason, it wasn't even the Leichhardt thing, considering how meekly we lost already at LO to Raiders, Titans, Panthers.

How does JT get the spine, which has shown to be potentially very effective, to be mentally tough and consistently effective?

That is why it is called "Rocks and Diamonds"

JT has to keep playing them so they get NRL game time and they need to get older and wiser. So most of which JT can't do.

We know they can do it - we have seen it - not consistently and usually not together. We have seen them both work well with Teddy and Cherrington. It is just experience and they need help. i.e. forwards going forward and a good quick service from dummy half - these two things give halves so much more time to sum up play and weave their magic.
In the games where the forwards went forward we did well obviously but the halves shone. In the games where the forwards were dominated the defence was on top of them and they could do very little.
I have also noticed (no axe to grind in this comment) that the passes that Farah delivers from dummy half are a lot slower that Cherrington - usually because he takes a couple of steps then passes. It does affect Moses and Brooks though.

Give them a good off season, a year older, this season under their belt - I see a really big improvement in store for next year.

That is my take - right or wrong.