Can we really blame injuries and bad luck?

[cnx_tigers]

Lots of threads on here about injuries / bad luck etc.

Let's look at it objectively:

- Out of all the top eight contenders, we had the least number of REP players. Therefore we had very little disruption during the 6 weeks Origin was on.

- Our two main guys, Benji and Robbie played almost every game.

Conversely:

- Manly : have had the season from hell and missed their main player all season. They are ABOVE us.

- Penrith: had Lewis hurt playing Origin AND lost Petro during that period…their two best players missed a lot of football. They are ABOVE us.

- Newcastle: massive turmoil, coach sacked, Gidley missed games, not a lot of real talent there, their big $ forward Ben Cross has hardly played a game. They are ABOVE us.
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I could go on...Souths will be above us if they win this week and we lose. They've had a lot more injuries than us.

I am kind of sick and tired of the excuses.

We were without some players, but nothing more than most. We hardly had any rep commitments.

We don't really have a legitimate claim to being 'unlucky' compared to some teams above us.

 

[Ghostdogg]

I'm also sick of the excuses. You can make excuses for one bad season, not four.

The sooner fans hold this club to account the better.

 

[cnx_tigers]

The thing that really bugs me is that we have basically had ZERO rep commitments the past four years.

Robbie two Origin games…and that's it.

Other teams have had 4 or 5 guys away...teams like Melb and Brisb, hell even Penrith were without Waterhouse + Lewis + Petro + Jennings for a game...and they are all above us.

Penrith lost Jennings for 6 weeks due to Origin one.

Yet we are all on here crying because we had a few injuries.

Other teams had a much harder road + more injuries...and they are above us.

 

[Gobbs]

Nope, **Team Selection** for a 3rd year in a row is the main factor in why Wests have fallen short yet again. You'd think that the Super Coach would have been able to have seen the errors of the his ways after '07 and '08\. It took him 16 weeks this season to bite the bullet and go with specialists in the 1,6,7 and 9\. The damage was done. Too little too late. Will Sheens learn and rectify the selection problems that have plagued Wests Tigers for several seasons and finally bid farewell to the makeshift mentality? Stay tuned.

**Specialists Fullbacks:** Gallant, Mullaney, Lazurus
**Specialists Halves:** Marshall, Lui, Moltzen, Taumata
**Specialist Hookers:** Farah, Carr, Waters

Do not play them anywhere else but their position of trade. If not required, play them in Reserve Grade and make them compete for their positions, just like it used to be and still happens at other clubs. Wests now have the depth in each key attacking position. Let's see it used properly and effectively for once and for all.

 

[cnx_tigers]

Great post Gobbs.

Next season, we will have some genuine depth…I think we'll go well.

But mate...it is just so frustrating to bomb out again this season.

Spring arrives tomorrow...finals footy, the hype, media coverage goes up a level.

And we'll be without a team. Again.

I still can't accept J Morris at 6 for 4 months...Dene Halatau at center, lock, the bench all year when fit, Payne an automatic selection, going into so many games clearly one forward short, no bench impact for 80% of games.

 

[alexaki]

We look to blame injuries and luck(lack of) when we dont want to face the truth…

In my opinion, we should've started the season with Gallant at FB, Moltzen at halfback, Benni at 6, Galea in the 2nd row and Skando on the bench from Rd1, Morris as a utility...What killed our season in my view was poor team selections by our coach..I mean for heavens sake he was touting Lawrence as a 5/8th at the beginning of the year...when the players aren't sure what's in the coaches mind how could they possible settle down and play well in their position!??????...Sheens has to be held accountable for the failed year...again

 

[Guest]

Nope, **Team Selection** for a 3rd year in a row is the main factor in why Wests have fallen short yet again. You'd think that the Super Coach would have been able to have seen the errors of the his ways after '07 and '08\. It took him 16 weeks this season to bite the bullet and go with specialists in the 1,6,7 and 9\. The damage was done. Too little too late. Will Sheens learn and rectify the selection problems that have plagued Wests Tigers for several seasons and finally bid farewell to the makeshift mentality? Stay tuned.

**Specialists Fullbacks:** Gallant, Mullaney, Lazurus
**Specialists Halves:** Marshall, Lui, Moltzen, Taumata
**Specialist Hookers:** Farah, Carr, Waters

Do not play them anywhere else but their position of trade. If not required, play them in Reserve Grade and make them compete for their positions, just like it used to be and still happens at other clubs. Wests now have the depth in each key attacking position. Let's see it used properly and effectively for once and for all.

Good post Gobbs and hard to argue with. Selection and use of the interchange bench also hurt the Tigers a lot during the season with not enough size and impact there for most weeks. Hopefully with the emerging talent coming through the grades, the same mistake will not be made next year.

 

[alex]

The thing that really bugs me is that we have basically had ZERO rep commitments the past four years.

Robbie two Origin games…and that's it.

Other teams have had 4 or 5 guys away...teams like Melb and Brisb, hell even Penrith were without Waterhouse + Lewis + Petro + Jennings for a game...and they are all above us.

Penrith lost Jennings for 6 weeks due to Origin one.

Yet we are all on here crying because we had a few injuries.

Other teams had a much harder road + more injuries...and they are above us.

Have you forgotten the Origin games Hodgo played?

 

[alex]

In blunt terms, team should accommodate for injuries by using their depth. We failed to do so. Yes we had our fair share of injuries but it's how you cope with them which shows how strong the club is. Rather than bringing up form players from the lower grades to cover injuries in FG, we simply shuffled the deck chairs and had players playing out of position. It's as simple as that. The only clever decision was to bring Skando and Ayshford in when we were short on front rowers and centres. Other than that we've seen Halatau play in the centres - wrong. Morris at five eight for half the season - wrong. Payten playing at lock - wrong. Ayshford on the wing - wrong. Having two utilities on the bench - wrong.

 

[hybrid_tiger]

Lots of threads on here about injuries / bad luck etc.

Let's look at it objectively:

- Out of all the top eight contenders, we had the least number of REP players. Therefore we had very little disruption during the 6 weeks Origin was on.

- Our two main guys, Benji and Robbie played almost every game.

Conversely:

- Manly : have had the season from hell and missed their main player all season. They are ABOVE us.

- Penrith: had Lewis hurt playing Origin AND lost Petro during that period…their two best players missed a lot of football. They are ABOVE us.

- Newcastle: massive turmoil, coach sacked, Gidley missed games, not a lot of real talent there, their big $ forward Ben Cross has hardly played a game. They are ABOVE us.
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I could go on...Souths will be above us if they win this week and we lose. They've had a lot more injuries than us.

I am kind of sick and tired of the excuses.

We were without some players, but nothing more than most. We hardly had any rep commitments.

We don't really have a legitimate claim to being 'unlucky' compared to some teams above us.

Great post. We've had some injuries, but other clubs simply manage it better than we do.

Other clubs have better recruitment. Other players replace PROPS with PROPS. We replace PROPS with SECOND ROWERS and UTILITIES. Poor team selection for much of the season. Poor recruitment.

Injuries are just a poor excuse. You can't keep using that as a reason every single year. 2006, yes, we had a horrible injury toll that year. But three years in a row after that? There is only so long that excuse is valid for.

 

[supercoach]

You just have to visit the other sides forums, they all talk the same things,injuries,bad calls and bad luck. The only difference most of these other sides didnt have players like Marshall,Farah,Galloway,Ellis,Lawerence,Tnt and Rhino. Its negligence of the highest order from the boardroom down to Sheens that we have under achieved yet again. Appalling selections, brain dead use of the bench and very average recruitment are the reasons we fell over once again. What will change next year, maybe will finish 12th instead of 10th. A club with one starting frontrower deserves everything they get.

 

[tigerdre]

Nope, **Team Selection** for a 3rd year in a row is the main factor in why Wests have fallen short yet again. You'd think that the Super Coach would have been able to have seen the errors of the his ways after '07 and '08\. It took him 16 weeks this season to bite the bullet and go with specialists in the 1,6,7 and 9\. The damage was done. Too little too late. Will Sheens learn and rectify the selection problems that have plagued Wests Tigers for several seasons and finally bid farewell to the makeshift mentality? Stay tuned.

**Specialists Fullbacks:** Gallant, Mullaney, Lazurus
**Specialists Halves:** Marshall, Lui, Moltzen, Taumata
**Specialist Hookers:** Farah, Carr, Waters

Do not play them anywhere else but their position of trade. If not required, play them in Reserve Grade and make them compete for their positions, just like it used to be and still happens at other clubs. Wests now have the depth in each key attacking position. Let's see it used properly and effectively for once and for all.

Spot on Gobbs :righton:
Make no mistakes about it,it was team selection that cost us this season & i fear that next season will be the same
I pray im wrong ray:

 

[Aladinsane]

You just have to visit the other sides forums, they all talk the same things,injuries,bad calls and bad luck. The only difference most of these other sides didnt have players like Marshall,Farah,Galloway,Ellis,Lawerence,Tnt and Rhino. Its negligence of the highest order from the boardroom down to Sheens that we have under achieved yet again. Appalling selections, brain dead use of the bench and very average recruitment are the reasons we fell over once again. What will change next year, maybe will finish 12th instead of 10th. A club with one starting frontrower deserves everything they get.

All fair comments SC, and the bench use and team selections are only some of the problems the WT have. Let's face it…the club has a massive problem attracting players like Price, Petro, Taylor, Lote etc and we all know the accounting and other reasons for that.

Yes, other clubs have injury concerns of their own, but no team has a lesser home ground advantage as what our team has to play with, and in such a close even comp like this , it's the difference from coming 4th to 10th most of the time.

The lack of injury free frontrowers look set to distrub our campaign again next year.....hopefully 2 hard nuts get signed before the year's end ray:

 

[851]

Nope, **Team Selection** for a 3rd year in a row is the main factor in why Wests have fallen short yet again. You'd think that the Super Coach would have been able to have seen the errors of the his ways after '07 and '08\. It took him 16 weeks this season to bite the bullet and go with specialists in the 1,6,7 and 9\. The damage was done. Too little too late. Will Sheens learn and rectify the selection problems that have plagued Wests Tigers for several seasons and finally bid farewell to the makeshift mentality? Stay tuned.

**Specialists Fullbacks:** Gallant, Mullaney, Lazurus
**Specialists Halves:** Marshall, Lui, Moltzen, Taumata
**Specialist Hookers:** Farah, Carr, Waters

Do not play them anywhere else but their position of trade. If not required, play them in Reserve Grade and make them compete for their positions, just like it used to be and still happens at other clubs. Wests now have the depth in each key attacking position. Let's see it used properly and effectively for once and for all.

Spot on Gobbs :righton:
Make no mistakes about it,it was team selection that cost us this season & i fear that next season will be the same
I pray im wrong ray:

Spot on,4 straight seasons of poor team selection and poor bench and rotation,someone has to hold Sheens accountable,it is not acceptable. :angry:

 

[alexaki]

Nope, **Team Selection** for a 3rd year in a row is the main factor in why Wests have fallen short yet again. You'd think that the Super Coach would have been able to have seen the errors of the his ways after '07 and '08\. It took him 16 weeks this season to bite the bullet and go with specialists in the 1,6,7 and 9\. The damage was done. Too little too late. Will Sheens learn and rectify the selection problems that have plagued Wests Tigers for several seasons and finally bid farewell to the makeshift mentality? Stay tuned.

**Specialists Fullbacks:** Gallant, Mullaney, Lazurus
**Specialists Halves:** Marshall, Lui, Moltzen, Taumata
**Specialist Hookers:** Farah, Carr, Waters

Do not play them anywhere else but their position of trade. If not required, play them in Reserve Grade and make them compete for their positions, just like it used to be and still happens at other clubs. Wests now have the depth in each key attacking position. Let's see it used properly and effectively for once and for all.

Spot on Gobbs :righton:
Make no mistakes about it,it was team selection that cost us this season & i fear that next season will be the same
I pray im wrong ray:

Spot on,4 straight seasons of poor team selection and poor bench and rotation,someone has to hold Sheens accountable,it is not acceptable. :angry:

1000% spot on…but supercoach will blame injuries..as he always does.

 

[dimitri]

Yes.

Losing Tagive and Lazarus before the season starting was not a good sign. Cuts into the Top 25 squad.

Losing Sauce, Rhino, Lawrence, Collis, Halatau for 8-12 weeks or half the season is not great either. These are rep standard players.

Losing Galea, Gibbs, Farah, Tuiaki, Moltzen, Ryan, Ellis, Gallant and the walkabout of Lauire, for shorter periods at the worst possible time during the year didnt help our cause either, particularly during that 6 match losing streak.

For those of you who have been smoking too much stuff that causes memory loss, the Tigers were on a roll and it was looking like history was repeating itself for the club. Why? Because we had a full strength squad.

What happened then? Losing both wingers (Tuiaki's loss was huge) and injuries to the Sauce, Skando and the Rhino during the game and against the Eels was it. Momentum killer.

Injuries and suspension of players since then has depleted the squad at the wrong possible time.

A year of bad luck for a talented team.

Get over it.

 

[TigersFan4Life]

Nope, **Team Selection** for a 3rd year in a row is the main factor in why Wests have fallen short yet again. You'd think that the Super Coach would have been able to have seen the errors of the his ways after '07 and '08\. It took him 16 weeks this season to bite the bullet and go with specialists in the 1,6,7 and 9\. The damage was done. Too little too late. Will Sheens learn and rectify the selection problems that have plagued Wests Tigers for several seasons and finally bid farewell to the makeshift mentality? Stay tuned.

**Specialists Fullbacks:** Gallant, Mullaney, Lazurus
**Specialists Halves:** Marshall, Lui, Moltzen, Taumata
**Specialist Hookers:** Farah, Carr, Waters

Do not play them anywhere else but their position of trade. If not required, play them in Reserve Grade and make them compete for their positions, just like it used to be and still happens at other clubs. Wests now have the depth in each key attacking position. Let's see it used properly and effectively for once and for all.

I made a post similar to this on the old board last season where I said each player has to be allocated a position and that position is the only one they play in. That's the only way you'll get consistency and make the players comfortable in their roles.

 

[supercoach]

Yes.
When we were on this massive roll who did we beat–How many top of the table teams??? We crashed out for all the same reason as the past four years
1--no front row barring KG
2--poor team selections
3--poor use of the bench
4--appalling recruitment barring Ellis

Losing Tagive and Lazarus before the season starting was not a good sign. Cuts into the Top 25 squad.

Losing Sauce, Rhino, Lawrence, Collis, Halatau for 8-12 weeks or half the season is not great either. These are rep standard players.

Losing Galea, Gibbs, Farah, Tuiaki, Moltzen, Ryan, Ellis, Gallant and the walkabout of Lauire, for shorter periods at the worst possible time during the year didnt help our cause either, particularly during that 6 match losing streak.

For those of you who have been smoking too much stuff that causes memory loss, the Tigers were on a roll and it was looking like history was repeating itself for the club. Why? Because we had a full strength squad.

What happened then? Losing both wingers (Tuiaki's loss was huge) and injuries to the Sauce, Skando and the Rhino during the game and against the Eels was it. Momentum killer.

Injuries and suspension of players since then has depleted the squad at the wrong possible time.

A year of bad luck for a talented team.

Get over it.