All the Round 5 team news!

[TheDaBoss]

# All the Round 5 team news!

Author

Dan Talintyre

Timestamp

Tue 9 Apr 2019, 03:58 PM

**Wests Tigers Head Coach Michael Maguire has named a strong side for Thursday's clash against the Brisbane Broncos at Suncorp Stadium with Josh Reynolds to start at five-eighth.**

A standout in his side's heartbreaking Golden Point defeat to Penrith last week, Reynolds will once again don the number six jersey and partner Luke Brooks in the halves with Benji Marshall (hamstring) not available for selection.

After selecting a near unchanged forward pack for the first month of the season, Maguire has made a number of changes to the engine room this week with Russell Packer starting in place of Ben Matulino, who drops back to the bench.

Josh Aloiai also earns promotion to the run-on side after a number of impressive performances off the bench so far this year, while young gun Thomas Mikaele also returns after missing out last week — pushing Elijah Taylor back to the reserves.

Taylor is joined in the reserves by Paul Momirovski, Chris McQueen and David Nofoaluma, the latter of whom makes the squad for the first time this season. Nofoaluma had missed the start of the year with a dislocated shoulder but is available for selection this week — named in jersey 20 as part of the 21-man squad.


For the Broncos, Coach Anthony Siebold will welcome back young prop Payne Haas for Thursday's game while also handing an NRL debut to Patrick Carrigan, but will be without Tevita Pangai Junior after he picked up a two-game suspension for a late shot on Cooper Cronk in last week's loss to the Sydney Roosters.

Kotoni Staggs retains his place in the centres with James Roberts battling an achilles injury, but the Blues flyer has been named among the reserves for Thursday's game and could potentially be a late inclusion to watch out for.

David Fifita comes in to the starting side in place of Pangai Junior, while Haas could replace either of Gehamat Shibasaki, Jaydn Su'a or Thomas Flegler come kickoff.

Wests Tigers will fly to Brisbane tomorrow ahead of Thursday's game, with two players dropping out of the squad 24 hours before kickoff (7:50pm, Wednesday).

OK please west tigers, i would like a nice easy win please, no injuries, no stupid mistake, no golden point, im still recovering from our loss last week,

 

[innsaneink]

Need a W badly… Three Ls no good

 

[Geo]

# Coaching Insider: Round 5

Author

Dan Talintyre

Timestamp

Wed 10 Apr 2019, 03:56 PM

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**A month in to the 2019 NRL season, Wests Tigers Head Coach Michael Maguire reflected on his side's good start to the year — saying that there were a number of positives to date but also still plenty of things for his side to improve on going forward.**

Rather than seeing those as a negative, Maguire said the opportunities to improve while also putting together some strong performances to date was a positive, and said that last week's loss to Penrith still showed plenty of improvement in the side.

"I thought there were a lot of good things in our game last week and we managed to put some pressure on the opposition," Maguire told reporters on Wednesday.

"That's something that every team is trying to do and we did it well, we've just got make sure now that we get that last part of the game right and execute.

"We're getting better and better with our game plan and the cohesion around that.

"Josh Reynolds coming in added a little bit there too with us, and I've been pretty spoiled to have two special players in him and Benji in that position.

>

NRL.com preview Broncos clash

"As we're going from game to game, we're starting to grow with the style we're putting together and I was really happy with what we delivered defensively.

"We know that we can be a lot better, though, and that's a positive."

With plenty of talk throughout the week about the home side, Maguire said he was undaunted by the focus on the hosts — highlighting the battle between the two forward packs as a particular battle to watch for on Thursday night.

"It's going to be a great challenge [up front]," Maguire enthused.

"Everyone has said a lot about the Broncos team but I'm really comfortable with where we're going as a team. Our forwards are growing and I think the amount of work they're doing in the background to achieve what we want will pay off.

"If they keep doing that, there's no doubt the rewards will come.

"I'm going to pick on performances… and we're not hitting some of the things we want to achieve at the moment, so it's a reward for those guys coming in now.

"What I'm after is a performance from our boys," he added.

"We went pretty close last week, but what we've got to make sure is that we get that 80-minute performance out now.

"We're aware of our environment this week but it's more about how we go about things and that's something this team has been big on."

 

[TheDaBoss]

1 positive, we r the underdogs