Why Alan Jones should be last person criticising Wests Tigers over Robbie Farah dispute
Date September 2, 2015 - 1:41PM
Peter FitzSimons
Yes, the one-time "Balmain basket-weavers", as Paul Keating once famously described them, now have a Tigers rugby league team made to order - their very own basket case - but still.
But still, in recent times they have been seen to be committing radical surgery to get things going again, under the leadership of Marina Go, the accomplished publishing executive.
This surgery includes attempting to drop Robbie Farah off at the next station, basically, as detailed by Fairfax Media, because, while he is an outstanding player, he is no longer a million-dollar a year performer, and nor is he any longer the leader of the Tiger troupe a player of that calibre should be. And of course the move to drop a legend of the club has attracted a great deal of criticism, no doubt much of it legitimate.
I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of what is right and wrong re Farah but I can tell you this, and I mean it: When they line up the 25 million of us Australians in order of who has the credibility to bitterly attack the Tigers board for doing what it has done - with No.1 standing at the gates of Leichhardt Oval - the person I want to see at the very back of the queue, on Perth's Cottesloe Beach, with the waves washing his knobbly knees, is the broadcaster Alan Jones.
This, of course, hasn't stopped Jones from going in full bore, as he is ever wont to do, accusing Go of "running the club into the ground in 12 months".
Well, to be fair, Alan, it demonstrably didn't take you that long! When you took over the Tigers as coach after the 1990 season, it was one short year after they had been a good enough team to have been within a breath of winning the classic 1989 grand final.
In 1990 they came fifth. But then you took over, and after losing seven of their first eight matches, finished the season 12th. Next year, under your coaching, they came 10th and the year after that, still under your coaching, 15th, at which point you were let go as a disaster. You had taken them from fifth to 15th in three years.
Despite that, Alan, you then open up on the failings of Jason Taylor as a Tigers coach, who inherited a team coming 13th and is now 14th - but may rise three slots to 11th if they beat the struggling Dragons this week!
"The bloke can't select and can't coach," you said. "My understanding is that the players support Robbie Farah. When a club is in difficulty, you need iconic figures like this to drag the young kids through. It's clear. This bloke [Taylor] is 'my way or the highway'."
Alan, you coached me, and in rugby union you were excellent. But are you the one who can criticise others for the "my way or the highway" approach?
And when it comes to lecturing others about not dropping icons of the club, let's see what you did when you were at the Tigers, Alan. Oh, that's right, you dropped the Tigers halfback and captain, the Kiwi captain at the time, the heart and soul of the side - Gary Freeman - to reserve grade!
Not the messiah: Balmain Tigers had high hopes for Alan Jones when he was appointed coach in the early 1990s but he failed to deliver success.
He was demonstrably the best and most inspiring player New Zealand could produce, but in your view, your protege and former Wallaby Brian Smith, who had never played league, was better.
Smith, you endlessly told the players was "the next Ricky Stuart!" As noted to me over the years by many of your players, and many league journos, it remains the most gobsmacking selectorial decision any of them had ever seen, before or since, Let's look at it again: Freeman to reserve grade, at the expense of young Brian. Freeman went to the Roosters and had his best rugby league season ever, winning the Dally M Medal in 1992, as the best player in the game that year. Smith went nowhere.
But, please, do go on.
"The woman in charge is named Go and she should go," you squawked.
Brilliant! Who is writing these lines for you? "Go … should go," geddit, geddit, geddit?
We got it.
"I believe Taylor was booed at the game in Campbelltown," you went on. "The public have had their say."
Ah, the booing again. You are a professional boo-er, Alan, the best in the business of bully-boy booing radio. You could, and do, boo for Australia. It's great for ratings. But for the rest of us, it is worth noting who you are booing, as a good guide to who we should support.
Go on!
"This is before this woman even arrived," you said. "She wouldn't know anything about this."
Exactly, Alan. Because she's a woman, am I right? If I had a dollar every time you've said with vitriol "this woman", about women in positions of power - who aren't Bronwyn or Julie Bishop - I would never need work again.
In short, Alan, I repeat. There are others who might credibly criticise what is happening at the Tigers, but you ain't one of them. And once again, your hypocrisy has set a new post-war record. The depressing thing is you keep doing it, as you have smashed your own record, by my count, 110 times now.
When you coached the Wallabies and Tigers, you swore you would not be one of those former supremos who endlessly criticised the current set-up. Any chance that you, who portray yourself as one who holds others to account on their promises, could try to keep that one? Just for a few weeks?
\
\
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/wests-tigers/why-alan-jones-should-be-last-person-criticising-wests-tigers-over-robbie-farah-dispute-20150902-gjd87s.html?rand=4810978#comments#ixzz3kY9yRKAx
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook
:laughing:
Date September 2, 2015 - 1:41PM
Peter FitzSimons
Yes, the one-time "Balmain basket-weavers", as Paul Keating once famously described them, now have a Tigers rugby league team made to order - their very own basket case - but still.
But still, in recent times they have been seen to be committing radical surgery to get things going again, under the leadership of Marina Go, the accomplished publishing executive.
This surgery includes attempting to drop Robbie Farah off at the next station, basically, as detailed by Fairfax Media, because, while he is an outstanding player, he is no longer a million-dollar a year performer, and nor is he any longer the leader of the Tiger troupe a player of that calibre should be. And of course the move to drop a legend of the club has attracted a great deal of criticism, no doubt much of it legitimate.
I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of what is right and wrong re Farah but I can tell you this, and I mean it: When they line up the 25 million of us Australians in order of who has the credibility to bitterly attack the Tigers board for doing what it has done - with No.1 standing at the gates of Leichhardt Oval - the person I want to see at the very back of the queue, on Perth's Cottesloe Beach, with the waves washing his knobbly knees, is the broadcaster Alan Jones.
This, of course, hasn't stopped Jones from going in full bore, as he is ever wont to do, accusing Go of "running the club into the ground in 12 months".
Well, to be fair, Alan, it demonstrably didn't take you that long! When you took over the Tigers as coach after the 1990 season, it was one short year after they had been a good enough team to have been within a breath of winning the classic 1989 grand final.
In 1990 they came fifth. But then you took over, and after losing seven of their first eight matches, finished the season 12th. Next year, under your coaching, they came 10th and the year after that, still under your coaching, 15th, at which point you were let go as a disaster. You had taken them from fifth to 15th in three years.
Despite that, Alan, you then open up on the failings of Jason Taylor as a Tigers coach, who inherited a team coming 13th and is now 14th - but may rise three slots to 11th if they beat the struggling Dragons this week!
"The bloke can't select and can't coach," you said. "My understanding is that the players support Robbie Farah. When a club is in difficulty, you need iconic figures like this to drag the young kids through. It's clear. This bloke [Taylor] is 'my way or the highway'."
Alan, you coached me, and in rugby union you were excellent. But are you the one who can criticise others for the "my way or the highway" approach?
And when it comes to lecturing others about not dropping icons of the club, let's see what you did when you were at the Tigers, Alan. Oh, that's right, you dropped the Tigers halfback and captain, the Kiwi captain at the time, the heart and soul of the side - Gary Freeman - to reserve grade!
Not the messiah: Balmain Tigers had high hopes for Alan Jones when he was appointed coach in the early 1990s but he failed to deliver success.
He was demonstrably the best and most inspiring player New Zealand could produce, but in your view, your protege and former Wallaby Brian Smith, who had never played league, was better.
Smith, you endlessly told the players was "the next Ricky Stuart!" As noted to me over the years by many of your players, and many league journos, it remains the most gobsmacking selectorial decision any of them had ever seen, before or since, Let's look at it again: Freeman to reserve grade, at the expense of young Brian. Freeman went to the Roosters and had his best rugby league season ever, winning the Dally M Medal in 1992, as the best player in the game that year. Smith went nowhere.
But, please, do go on.
"The woman in charge is named Go and she should go," you squawked.
Brilliant! Who is writing these lines for you? "Go … should go," geddit, geddit, geddit?
We got it.
"I believe Taylor was booed at the game in Campbelltown," you went on. "The public have had their say."
Ah, the booing again. You are a professional boo-er, Alan, the best in the business of bully-boy booing radio. You could, and do, boo for Australia. It's great for ratings. But for the rest of us, it is worth noting who you are booing, as a good guide to who we should support.
Go on!
"This is before this woman even arrived," you said. "She wouldn't know anything about this."
Exactly, Alan. Because she's a woman, am I right? If I had a dollar every time you've said with vitriol "this woman", about women in positions of power - who aren't Bronwyn or Julie Bishop - I would never need work again.
In short, Alan, I repeat. There are others who might credibly criticise what is happening at the Tigers, but you ain't one of them. And once again, your hypocrisy has set a new post-war record. The depressing thing is you keep doing it, as you have smashed your own record, by my count, 110 times now.
When you coached the Wallabies and Tigers, you swore you would not be one of those former supremos who endlessly criticised the current set-up. Any chance that you, who portray yourself as one who holds others to account on their promises, could try to keep that one? Just for a few weeks?
\
\
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/wests-tigers/why-alan-jones-should-be-last-person-criticising-wests-tigers-over-robbie-farah-dispute-20150902-gjd87s.html?rand=4810978#comments#ixzz3kY9yRKAx
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook
:laughing:
