Can anyone fault how Cleary has handled things?
- Thread starter GNR4LIFE
- Start date
Cosimo_Zaretti
New member
@ said:
Well he's only been here a week and hasn't lost a game yet. Even this forum can't hate a coach that quickly.
Tweed_Tiger
Well-known member
I bet some people will question him if we loose Tedesco / Woods.
Which would be very unfair, its completely in the players hands. I think the tigers have bent over backwards to try to hold onto them.
Which would be very unfair, its completely in the players hands. I think the tigers have bent over backwards to try to hold onto them.
Benjirific
New member
If Tedesco & Woods leave, it is hardly Cleary's fault. The reality is that the offers we have put to both players, and the offer we originally put to Moses, will be higher than the offers they accept at other clubs. If they leave, it is purely non-financial, and as Tedesco revealed last week based mainly on drama & mismanagement around the club. That, we can fairly & squarely place on the head of Pascoe & the board (NOT just Marina Go, but the board as a whole).
cqtiger
Well-known member
At every other NRL club players always say "we are footy players and we just play footy"
Apparently not here
Apparently not here
Magpie_Magic
Well-known member
@ said:
This is true and why I believe there is a big push from within the club to get rid of Moses and in essence Issac and Benny and why they pushed Farah out.
The exciting thing about this is that yes the board was right to move in this direction and it feels like we more than other clubs have a unique opportunity to pick a whole new roster and Ivan was born for this chance.
tig_prmz
Well-known member
@ said:
i think the point of the thread is that he hasn't screwed up yet?
could be wrong
jirskyr
Well-known member
@ said:
Just give it time, truly. The thing about Raelene Castle is that she has a fairly strong pedigree in sports management, so people aren't going to cross her on that point. Go in comparison is a publisher, she's much easier to write off as not being a sports person or league person.
Dave Smith copped so much flak for not being a League person, so many of the criticisms leveled at him boiled down to not being a "Leaguie", even if being a league-head actually had nothing to do with the decision or the criticism, they just went there, they couldn't help themselves. He wasn't perfect of course, but Dave Smith brought in the first ever $1B TV deal, and sometimes being an outsider or not having specific ties within the code is helpful.
I think there is a tendency also for criticism of Marina Go to just fall into the trap of "she isn't from a league background" or, unspoken of course, that she's a woman trying to find her way in a male-dominated game. Of course nobody will come out and say that any woman in the game would be treated differently than a man, but we have to be honest with ourselves that at this women time really would be treated differently, even by accident, because league is still very much a blokey, male-dominated business. Think of how we only this year have our first all-female football show, how recently any League broadcast has included a female anchor or commentator, how long it took Erin Molan to go from weekend tidbit reporter to having her own place on The Footy Show.
Anyway I digress, back to Raelene. She is a CEO for one, so she's obviously got a different mandate to Marina Go. Secondly Bulldogs aren't actually doing so badly, they've made the finals for 5 consecutive years. A lot of the drum-beating at Canterbury is of their own design, failure against their own high standards. And don't roll out the cliche "well imagine if Tigers' standards were that high" - you have to get to the finals first before you set the expectation of being there every year.
A lot of the unrest at Canterbury is from themselves, and they've had the same coach for a long time, the team appears to be gradually getting worse, not better, and some of their roster decisions haven't worked out well.
So if the Dogs start missing finals, if the Des Hasler extension ends up being a mistake, if he cannot turn the team performance around… then you will start seeing the media pressure on Raelene Castle. It's easy to kick a team like the Tigers, we fail to achieve wins, it's easy to throw criticisms at poor clubs with a history of mismanagement. Newcastle, Warriors, Titans, Dragons, Eels, so easy to criticise these teams for things that have happened and decisions they've made.
**Marina Go is right about sexism in rugby league, but that's not why some Wests Tigers fans want her gone\
\
Andrew Webster**
>
A few months after her appointment two years ago as Wests Tigers chair, Marina Go sent a group email to her fellow club bosses.
>
Some of them remember it well. She wanted to arrange a convivial catch-up at a wine bar in the Sydney CBD to break bread and share a quiet moment.
>
"What she doesn't realise," one chairman said to me at the time, "is that we all actually hate each other – because we're trying to steal each other's players."
>
Welcome to rugby league, the most brutal game of all. And that's off the field. At least there's two refs on it.
>
In a short space of time, Go has attracted her fair share of critics: because of her gender; because she likes dumping old-school beliefs firmly on their arse; because of her naivety at how it all works.
>
She's never hidden from the fact she's a female walking tall in a male-dominated sport.
>
In an interview with The Australian Financial Review two years ago, she actually boasted about it, claiming her Tigers role worked to her advantage with men in the business world.
>
"By chairing a club board in a male sport, I was almost parachuting right into their heart, into their line of visibility, which is the most important thing," she said.
>
As she told me on Monday: "I am a few things that challenges the old guard. I am a woman and I am an independent director."
>
I phoned Go because she took a reasonable swipe at the weekend at two powerful corners of rugby league – club chairmen and the media – and their attitude towards women.
>
Asked why she received so much media attention, she told the rugbyleaguehub.com website: "Because I am a woman. Let's call it for what it is. Most of the commentary is plain ignorance."
>
Asked if it was difficult being a "female leader" in rugby league, she said: "A small section of the media is tedious. A minority of the other chairmen are tedious. For example, in my first rugby league season during the Women in League round, a group of the club chairmen got together for a meeting and the two female chairs were excluded."
>
In some respects, Go is right: rugby league, like many male-dominated sports, often has its head buried in another time.
>
On a regular basis, I witness sexism, racism and homophobia and the tough choice is whether to call it out or let it slide. Go refuses to let it slide. That takes courage and it deserves respect.
>
The problem that she has, though, is that her issues as the leader of the Wests Tigers don't have anything to do with gender.
>
It comes down to performance. It comes down to competence. It comes down to the calamity of the last two-and-a-half years on her watch.
>
If the club loses James Tedesco and Aaron Woods after already losing Mitchell Moses, the Tigers faithful won't be tearing down Concord Oval because Go is a woman.
>
They'll be tearing it down because of the running joke their club has sadly become.
>
To be fair, Go is on a board of which she really has no control with five Wests directors now holding the balance of power. How much say she actually had in Jason Taylor's sacking as coach after just three rounds remains unclear and a source of much speculation.
>
If that is the case, she should resign.
>
In the meantime, she wants it known that when she talks about the game's outdated views she's talking about a minority; that she doesn't feel a deep-seated misogyny in the game is holding back her or the Tigers.
>
"I don't want anyone to think I'm bothered by it," she said. "It's just important to call out behaviour. At the first ARL Commission AGM, I stood up and said, 'there's no gender balance, we need another female on the commission'. I'm very thick-skinned."
>
Thick-skinned, yes, but also naive of the world in which she now operates.
>
She doesn't seem to understand that the cut and thrust of footy is very different to the cut and thrust of her previous roles in publishing and on the board of Netball Australia.
>
Rugby league is ruthless. It always has been. If you're not tough enough, you'll be chewed up and spat out.
>
"We've had dramas but so have other clubs," she said. "The other club chairmen … people don't call for their sacking."
>
Well, that's not right. The media, members, fans, former players … they call for boards and chairmen to be sacked all the time.
>
"I look at Geoff Toovey [who was sacked as Manly coach in 2015] and nobody called for the sacking of their board."
>
Well, there have been calls for Manly chairmen and directors to be sacked for years. People call for chairmen of other clubs to be sacked when it's warranted.
>
"Which chairmen have you called to be sacked?" she asked.
>
How long have you got?
>
"I didn't see any other chairs on the back of the paper last year when a club loses Daly Cherry-Evans, Jarryd Hayne," she continued. "Other players have left clubs and the chairman hasn't been blamed for it. I'm not suggesting we're doing all the right things. All I'm suggesting is that the attention that's given to me is personal."
>
Maybe. Rugby league is full of hate and agenda but if you look and listen carefully enough you'll see that most chairmen very rarely put their heads up, are rarely quoted.
>
They prefer to lurk in the shadows instead of being splashed all over the back page of the Herald hugging Woods and Tedesco after Saturday night's win over the Cowboys.
>
And especially when their team is third-last, has gone through five coaches in as many years, has dumped a club legend and has three local juniors ready to walk out on the club.
>
I also phoned a few other women across the game to see if they shared Go's view about the game's attitudes towards women. A few did, many didn't.
>
But they all agreed now was not the time for Go to be calling it out, as admirable and courageous as it might be.
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/wests-tigers/marina-go-is-right-about-sexism-in-rugby-league–but-thats-not-why-some-wests-tigers-fans-want-her-gone-20170410-gvhwpg.html
\
Andrew Webster**
>
A few months after her appointment two years ago as Wests Tigers chair, Marina Go sent a group email to her fellow club bosses.
>
Some of them remember it well. She wanted to arrange a convivial catch-up at a wine bar in the Sydney CBD to break bread and share a quiet moment.
>
"What she doesn't realise," one chairman said to me at the time, "is that we all actually hate each other – because we're trying to steal each other's players."
>
Welcome to rugby league, the most brutal game of all. And that's off the field. At least there's two refs on it.
>
In a short space of time, Go has attracted her fair share of critics: because of her gender; because she likes dumping old-school beliefs firmly on their arse; because of her naivety at how it all works.
>
She's never hidden from the fact she's a female walking tall in a male-dominated sport.
>
In an interview with The Australian Financial Review two years ago, she actually boasted about it, claiming her Tigers role worked to her advantage with men in the business world.
>
"By chairing a club board in a male sport, I was almost parachuting right into their heart, into their line of visibility, which is the most important thing," she said.
>
As she told me on Monday: "I am a few things that challenges the old guard. I am a woman and I am an independent director."
>
I phoned Go because she took a reasonable swipe at the weekend at two powerful corners of rugby league – club chairmen and the media – and their attitude towards women.
>
Asked why she received so much media attention, she told the rugbyleaguehub.com website: "Because I am a woman. Let's call it for what it is. Most of the commentary is plain ignorance."
>
Asked if it was difficult being a "female leader" in rugby league, she said: "A small section of the media is tedious. A minority of the other chairmen are tedious. For example, in my first rugby league season during the Women in League round, a group of the club chairmen got together for a meeting and the two female chairs were excluded."
>
In some respects, Go is right: rugby league, like many male-dominated sports, often has its head buried in another time.
>
On a regular basis, I witness sexism, racism and homophobia and the tough choice is whether to call it out or let it slide. Go refuses to let it slide. That takes courage and it deserves respect.
>
The problem that she has, though, is that her issues as the leader of the Wests Tigers don't have anything to do with gender.
>
It comes down to performance. It comes down to competence. It comes down to the calamity of the last two-and-a-half years on her watch.
>
If the club loses James Tedesco and Aaron Woods after already losing Mitchell Moses, the Tigers faithful won't be tearing down Concord Oval because Go is a woman.
>
They'll be tearing it down because of the running joke their club has sadly become.
>
To be fair, Go is on a board of which she really has no control with five Wests directors now holding the balance of power. How much say she actually had in Jason Taylor's sacking as coach after just three rounds remains unclear and a source of much speculation.
>
If that is the case, she should resign.
>
In the meantime, she wants it known that when she talks about the game's outdated views she's talking about a minority; that she doesn't feel a deep-seated misogyny in the game is holding back her or the Tigers.
>
"I don't want anyone to think I'm bothered by it," she said. "It's just important to call out behaviour. At the first ARL Commission AGM, I stood up and said, 'there's no gender balance, we need another female on the commission'. I'm very thick-skinned."
>
Thick-skinned, yes, but also naive of the world in which she now operates.
>
She doesn't seem to understand that the cut and thrust of footy is very different to the cut and thrust of her previous roles in publishing and on the board of Netball Australia.
>
Rugby league is ruthless. It always has been. If you're not tough enough, you'll be chewed up and spat out.
>
"We've had dramas but so have other clubs," she said. "The other club chairmen … people don't call for their sacking."
>
Well, that's not right. The media, members, fans, former players … they call for boards and chairmen to be sacked all the time.
>
"I look at Geoff Toovey [who was sacked as Manly coach in 2015] and nobody called for the sacking of their board."
>
Well, there have been calls for Manly chairmen and directors to be sacked for years. People call for chairmen of other clubs to be sacked when it's warranted.
>
"Which chairmen have you called to be sacked?" she asked.
>
How long have you got?
>
"I didn't see any other chairs on the back of the paper last year when a club loses Daly Cherry-Evans, Jarryd Hayne," she continued. "Other players have left clubs and the chairman hasn't been blamed for it. I'm not suggesting we're doing all the right things. All I'm suggesting is that the attention that's given to me is personal."
>
Maybe. Rugby league is full of hate and agenda but if you look and listen carefully enough you'll see that most chairmen very rarely put their heads up, are rarely quoted.
>
They prefer to lurk in the shadows instead of being splashed all over the back page of the Herald hugging Woods and Tedesco after Saturday night's win over the Cowboys.
>
And especially when their team is third-last, has gone through five coaches in as many years, has dumped a club legend and has three local juniors ready to walk out on the club.
>
I also phoned a few other women across the game to see if they shared Go's view about the game's attitudes towards women. A few did, many didn't.
>
But they all agreed now was not the time for Go to be calling it out, as admirable and courageous as it might be.
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/wests-tigers/marina-go-is-right-about-sexism-in-rugby-league–but-thats-not-why-some-wests-tigers-fans-want-her-gone-20170410-gvhwpg.html
Firstly if you put your hand up to be the chair of a board,you do so in the interest of the club that you are chair of…
Secondly the club you have been put in the chair of is a highly male dominated environment ....
does Marina not think there would be questions asked of her and her gender in this particular situation..
Thirdly if you are in such an important position as Marina is in,dont you think that it would be a cutthroat environment where men have dominated and they would try and find as much fault as possible to see how Marina would handle things..
These are just my thoughts on the matter,and after reading the post all I can say is Marina you are in the hot seat of this club it is your business acumen and smarts that you will be judged on.I read with great interest that Marina has said she is thick skinned,hopefully it doesn't turn out to be "thick headed"when it comes to seeing in what position this great club is in after her tenure...
My advise to Marina would be to ...not worry about gender equality or inequality,get on with the job of making the hard decisions for the benefit of the Wests Tigers,the club and team..I can guarantee if Marina does a fine and outstanding job for this club then I for one wouldn't care if she was Female,Male or Trans..... :stuck_out_tongue:
Secondly the club you have been put in the chair of is a highly male dominated environment ....
does Marina not think there would be questions asked of her and her gender in this particular situation..
Thirdly if you are in such an important position as Marina is in,dont you think that it would be a cutthroat environment where men have dominated and they would try and find as much fault as possible to see how Marina would handle things..
These are just my thoughts on the matter,and after reading the post all I can say is Marina you are in the hot seat of this club it is your business acumen and smarts that you will be judged on.I read with great interest that Marina has said she is thick skinned,hopefully it doesn't turn out to be "thick headed"when it comes to seeing in what position this great club is in after her tenure...
My advise to Marina would be to ...not worry about gender equality or inequality,get on with the job of making the hard decisions for the benefit of the Wests Tigers,the club and team..I can guarantee if Marina does a fine and outstanding job for this club then I for one wouldn't care if she was Female,Male or Trans..... :stuck_out_tongue:
Byron_Bay_Fan
New member
At low level of organisations including local govt council persons I have seen positive discrimination for females and every time it was a disaster.
old_man_tiger
Well-known member
Good article, and I'm usually the first to defend anyone based on prejudice (perceived or real).
There are two issues, one that women are underrepresented and to an extent disrespected at the highest level. And two, our board has made many poor decisions and managed a lot of things poorly, she is the leader of that board and deserves criticism and praise in line with her performance.
There are two issues, one that women are underrepresented and to an extent disrespected at the highest level. And two, our board has made many poor decisions and managed a lot of things poorly, she is the leader of that board and deserves criticism and praise in line with her performance.
jirskyr
Well-known member
Can a mod consider merging this with the "Can anyone fault how Cleary has handled things?" thread? There's a whole line of conversation about Go and women in sport in there.
http://www.weststigersforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=28902
http://www.weststigersforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=28902
supercoach
Well-known member
Go's not from the old boys club,where all the hack jurnos would spend all day and night at the bar with the CEO and board members getting there headlines. Her IQ is about ten times greater than anything from the DTs sports section.
Anyway Iam more than happy to have Go,Pascoe and Cleary shaping our future and if we lose three of the big 4 because they are unhappy with the way we are been ran…so be it
Anyway Iam more than happy to have Go,Pascoe and Cleary shaping our future and if we lose three of the big 4 because they are unhappy with the way we are been ran…so be it
jirskyr
Well-known member
@ said:
Andrew will you stop being so misinformed about the coaches? Sheens, Potter, Taylor, Cleary. That's 4 coaches. If you are counting Webster you are a sensationalising idiot.
Very selective commentary. I haven't seen anything where Marina Go has suggested that the Tigers management doesn't warrant criticism because she is a woman. In fact Tigers were surprisingly open last week about the way they feel they could have managed certain issues better.
Marina Go is pointing out that she receives a lot of commentary, a lot of negative feedback, and she feels a good amount of this attention is because she is a woman in a male-dominated field. I don't think anyone would truly argue with this, we can't trot out the old "pulling the minority card" line. There is a difference between criticism (rightly or wrongly) towards a role, and why Marina Go's role specifically comes up so often. I really do believe she gets more attention because she is a woman and an independent appointment (seen as NRL-aligned).
Again I don't see anywhere where she is using her gender or appointment as an excuse for what is going on. And to potentially lose some juniors from an under-performing team, that's not necessarily a bad thing or a misperformance. Sometimes to fix a team you need to fix the top, and we've had a complete overhaul up there in the last few years, now it's time for some roster overhaul as well.
Tigers have been underperforming for 18 seasons. Can anyone name for me the chairpersons of each of those seasons? David Trodden was one, in 2012, Mike Bailey in 2014\. John Chalk was the inaugural chair? Actually hard to confirm on the internet. However most game fans could name Marina Go and Raelene Castle.
So Webster congratulates Marina for being "bold and courageous" for calling out the sexism that exists, but sort of finishes with a patronising "now's perhaps not the time, love". If there is injustice and inequality, you call it out, there is no right time. For an openly gay journalist I thought he of all people would have understood that, been able to separate between criticism of a role and criticism of a minority / lifestyle.
I think Ivan has done a great deal without actually doing much at all. That is to say his presence alone will likely see a fair bit happen.
Without getting too carried away in regard to coaching, he did enough with the side to eke out the win against the Cowboys without making wholesale changes and getting half the team offside.
Stay or go, we should likely see decisions on Woods and Teddy in the near future (after all, they were waiting to see whom the new coach was to be.) Negotiations would likely be driven moreso by the board with Ivan providing his input rather than the other way around. Either way if they get a quick close on this I'd say Ivan's presence will have gone a long way to making it happen.
Moses is pretty much gone, Brooks is likely to stay, hopefully we see a number of signings from outside the club in the near future.
I'd like to think that in 6-8 weeks time we'd have a pretty good idea on what Ivan and the board have in mind for the 2018 season, and the rest of 2017 in the meantime. We got the Cowboys on a bad day and we were up for the challenge, but can he get the team to lift consistently for the rest of the season. You've got to assume that every team we play from here on in will be up for the challenge and we are already on the back foot.
Without getting too carried away in regard to coaching, he did enough with the side to eke out the win against the Cowboys without making wholesale changes and getting half the team offside.
Stay or go, we should likely see decisions on Woods and Teddy in the near future (after all, they were waiting to see whom the new coach was to be.) Negotiations would likely be driven moreso by the board with Ivan providing his input rather than the other way around. Either way if they get a quick close on this I'd say Ivan's presence will have gone a long way to making it happen.
Moses is pretty much gone, Brooks is likely to stay, hopefully we see a number of signings from outside the club in the near future.
I'd like to think that in 6-8 weeks time we'd have a pretty good idea on what Ivan and the board have in mind for the 2018 season, and the rest of 2017 in the meantime. We got the Cowboys on a bad day and we were up for the challenge, but can he get the team to lift consistently for the rest of the season. You've got to assume that every team we play from here on in will be up for the challenge and we are already on the back foot.
jirskyr
Well-known member
@ said:
In reading of all this, does Marina Go actually ever say people criticising her are being sexist? Or that they are criticising her performance as a chairperson simply because she is a woman?
From my view she is pointing out that people are giving her undue attention, much of it negative, because she is one of the few women in the game. That a male chairperson in her position would not get so much media attention. And I agree with that, I said it before, who can even nominate the list of chairpersons especially those that oversaw contentious times at the Tigers. Who was the chair when Sheens was dumped, can you remember that without looking it up?
You need to be really careful here differentiating between criticism of a performance and criticism of a person's background. She is absolutely open to criticism of her performance. But I always challenge people to really illustrate where a chairperson has misperformed, if they even understand what the chairperson's role is. Is it the chair's fault that they sacked a coach? She's only overseen one sacking. Is it the chair's fault that the team isn't winning? Partially, but lots of chairs have been there. Is it the chairs fault Tigers might lose some players? No idea, and who is to say roster changes aren't for the better?
Justin Pascoe had to detail the Tigers governance to the press recently, even the press isn't clear exactly who does what at the Tigers - and it's not our responsibility to explain it to outsiders either.
And it is my opinion that if you yourself are not from a minority, you will never truly understand what it is like, try as you might. I am a white middle-class male, I am as far from underprivilege and minority as can be. But I am aware of my lack of understanding, I have a long hard think before I toss out the card "this is political correctness gone mad!"
