I’m still not 💯 convinced about Benji’s coaching, but today has proven he can get our players up for a very important game which is a step in the right direction.
He made some key positional tweaks, the team played to the conditions and the opposition, he got most of his full compliment back and the team played with energy and passion for 80 full minutes, toppling one of the best teams in the comp.
But not convinced about his coaching...
I'm not saying Benji will be the next Bellamy but he is clearly getting value out of this roster and some of the performances have been very respectable, which is something I have hardly been able to say for years.
Not just jagging the odd ugly win or occasionally stomping a terrible opponent, but a season of mostly decent performances, with many players performing to a respectable consistency, hanging tough in matches despite the score line. I see aggression, solidarity and Tigers don't immediately drop their heads when things go awry.
I see long-term average players like Sione Fainu, Doueihi, Sukkar, Twal achieving career-best form, all at the same time. Most of the new recruits are performing as well, and he's shown the balls to drop players who are not meeting standards, even if it means calling up a novice.
Probably only 4 matches so far this year where we were never really in the game (Storm, Panthers #2, Manly, Warriors #2), which is a marked improvement. Even the general NRL public can see Tigers are improving.
Early days yet, but so far Tim Sheens is the only coach who can legitimately claim to have improved the Tigers since he arrived. For everyone else the results were equal or increasingly worse than we'd already had.