MacDougall
New member
Firstly, I'd like to say that I am glad Taylor and Potter have tried to do this. For the Tigers to ever become a consistent force, Taylor is right and we have to play the type of Rugby League that works year in year out. I am glad they have tried because it has made it apparent just how pointless it is.
Unfortunately in my opinion this isn't going to work, not just on the field, but from a business perspective either. Taylor has been trying to improve the defence for nearly two years and it's actually gone backwards.
I believe Tim Sheens had a vision for the Wests Tigers that was fairly accurate for what we must be as a point of difference to the other Rugby League clubs in the NRL and that was an image of underdog young exuberant talents and he instilled that into the club DNA in an extremely effective way. We are still seeing the evidence of it now. Razzle dazzle is in our DNA right through the grades. Staunch bullying defensive style play is not.
Our young guys grew up wanting to be the next Benji and the next Farah. The next gen will want to be the next Tedesco, Brooks and Moses. It's who we are.
Even in our most successful seasons we still had relatively poor defence. We just happened to be that good in attack those seasons that it didn't matter.
So what you say? Well here's a left of centre viewpoint on why we actually should just embrace who we are.
The Wests Tigers are the newest Sydney NRL club. We have no history notwithstanding Balmain and Wests and continuously calling on our history pre-merger is fractious.
The Wests Tigers are the poorest club in Sydney. We have no money. Making it hard to afford good talent.
The Wests Tigers are the most divided club. Without significant on field success our club is constantly fighting within itself.
The Wests Tigers have the worst facilities.
These four factors make it near on impossible to attract good players to the club. There is one thing that the Tigers are though, and that is fun and entertaining. That is the only thing we can use to attract good talent. When we do manage to drag a decent player to our club that is the only thing they refer to "the great young players, make me feel young, it's exciting to play alongside such freakish talents etc."
It is our only value proposition as a club and Tim Sheens did a serious job instilling it into our culture. Being young and reckless at football is also the only way that our club can compete on the field because we cannot attract seasoned, quality footballers to the club to play moneyball and play like everyone else. We need to be a point of difference to every side every year. We need a ridiculous strategy to play anti-footy every season.
In my opinion we need to just embrace who we are and accentuate the positives. The lesser interchange and the whistle happiness for ruck infringements makes it a distinct possibility to play fast and free but instead we are trying to change who we are as a club.
Hand the reigns to a young, outrageous coaching choice and let's embrace who we are as a club. If we keep trying to change who we are as a club we're eventually going to have no club.
Unfortunately in my opinion this isn't going to work, not just on the field, but from a business perspective either. Taylor has been trying to improve the defence for nearly two years and it's actually gone backwards.
I believe Tim Sheens had a vision for the Wests Tigers that was fairly accurate for what we must be as a point of difference to the other Rugby League clubs in the NRL and that was an image of underdog young exuberant talents and he instilled that into the club DNA in an extremely effective way. We are still seeing the evidence of it now. Razzle dazzle is in our DNA right through the grades. Staunch bullying defensive style play is not.
Our young guys grew up wanting to be the next Benji and the next Farah. The next gen will want to be the next Tedesco, Brooks and Moses. It's who we are.
Even in our most successful seasons we still had relatively poor defence. We just happened to be that good in attack those seasons that it didn't matter.
So what you say? Well here's a left of centre viewpoint on why we actually should just embrace who we are.
The Wests Tigers are the newest Sydney NRL club. We have no history notwithstanding Balmain and Wests and continuously calling on our history pre-merger is fractious.
The Wests Tigers are the poorest club in Sydney. We have no money. Making it hard to afford good talent.
The Wests Tigers are the most divided club. Without significant on field success our club is constantly fighting within itself.
The Wests Tigers have the worst facilities.
These four factors make it near on impossible to attract good players to the club. There is one thing that the Tigers are though, and that is fun and entertaining. That is the only thing we can use to attract good talent. When we do manage to drag a decent player to our club that is the only thing they refer to "the great young players, make me feel young, it's exciting to play alongside such freakish talents etc."
It is our only value proposition as a club and Tim Sheens did a serious job instilling it into our culture. Being young and reckless at football is also the only way that our club can compete on the field because we cannot attract seasoned, quality footballers to the club to play moneyball and play like everyone else. We need to be a point of difference to every side every year. We need a ridiculous strategy to play anti-footy every season.
In my opinion we need to just embrace who we are and accentuate the positives. The lesser interchange and the whistle happiness for ruck infringements makes it a distinct possibility to play fast and free but instead we are trying to change who we are as a club.
Hand the reigns to a young, outrageous coaching choice and let's embrace who we are as a club. If we keep trying to change who we are as a club we're eventually going to have no club.
