Hard Decisions? A New Outlook?

C

Chris

Well-known member
Some people were asking in the Jason Toumolo thread why do we always miss out on decent players when struggling clubs like Cronulla and St. George can seem to sign. I was going to put my answer in that thread but I think my answer will open a can of worms that deserves its own thread.

Since as far as I can remember, in my opinion, we have been caught in this rut where the club finds players through the open market and our own back yard, who are fringe NRL/Holden Cup players at best, who have a handful of decent games and we hang on to hope that they'll be superstars. Players, in my opinion, for example, like the Richards, the Nofos, the Simonas, the Leulias, the Sues, Seumanafagis, the Buchanans and so on who have a few decent games but then have some ordinary ones too. Even us fans fall in love with these players because they scored 3 tries in a game but fail to recognize that they've let in 4 tries over a span of 2-3 weeks.

Here is a list of players that will be off contract next year.

Adam Blair, Jack Buchanan, Andy Fiagatusa, Salesi Funaki, Dene Halatau, Matthew Lodge, Kyle Lovett, Joel Luani, Keith Lulia, Te Maire Martin, Nathan Milone, Tim Moltzen, Kevin Naiqama, Pat Richards, Kurtis Rowe, Brenden Santi, Ava Seumanufagai, John Sila, Tim Simona

Here's a list of who is off contract 2016

Sitaleki Akauola, Nathan Brown, Manaia Cherrington, Josh Drinkwater, Asipeli Fine, Keith Galloway, Dallas Graham, Delouise Hoeter, Chris Lawrence, Chance Peni, Sauaso Sue, Martin Taupau

Out of all those players off contract, who would you seriously consider keeping??? At this point in time, I would keep Martin Tapau, Mania Cherrington, Matthew Lodge and Blair if he takes a pay cut. I would put Simona, Akauola, Hoeter and Seumanaufani on 2nd tier contracts and the rest I would let go.

Then you could put in bids for the Konrad Hurrell's, Jason Toumolo's, Aiden Guerra's and Shawn Kenny Dowell's who come off contract next year for example, that we typically complain that we'll never get.

Am I right?

What are your thoughts?
 
The problem is shedding that amount of players to spend big money on one. All of a sudden the quality of the rest of the team drops even further, and we're not like a Melbourne or Manly where we have the coaching and leadership to bring the best out of these basement blokes and win a premiership.
I honestly think that we're heading in the right direction. We have a strong group of juniors who have already shown a willingness to put mates ahead of money, and while we do have to be careful not to overspend, all we need is a quality signing or two to supply that leadership.
Blair has it (at an inflated price tag), Richards has it, Halatau has it, and the likes of a Willie Mason would have had it too.

At the end of the day I'd much rather be in our position than Canberra, who can't hold their juniors and pay drastic overs for unproven players. It wouldn't be Wests Tigers without the perennial preseason optimism!

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I just think were are usually the final option for these players you say we could bid on…remember they have a choice too...seems to be 15 better options than us out there currently
 
I think JT and the new football GM have a plan for the next couple of years,JT is highly impressed with our young players and knows who he wants to keep from the senior players…
At the end of 2015 I reckon we will see a couple of very good signings and a release of a few of the playing group..
If we look at the progress made so far,it is not overwhelming,but a start in the right direction,as with all restructures things take time and Iam prepared to wait and see what the outcome of 2015 is and
who performs better on the field and will be worth resigning or disposing of..
 
Its pretty simple

Many players we have paid big bucks to aren't performing Sheens's legacy lives on

Blokes like Moltzen ,Lawrence , Keefy ,Blair (Blair is more a case of paying too much for the wrong style of player )

We need to getting good middle of the road players that you know each week will do their jobs effectively

At the moment we have a lot of has beens and wanna bes and our position on the table over the past 3 seasons proves that

I wonder how many players at the club are living up to their earnings ?? Woods , if the 900 k figure that Robbie is supposedly earning is true he is not playing to that level for us
 
I still believe you need one or two genuine superstars of the game to win a premiership. Roosters: SBW
Souths : S Burgess and Inglis
If we cannot afford this calibre of player, stop the fringe first grader signings and promote youth until we can make a massive play at an elite player.

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I have to agree with you Chris. Players are commodities to a team. If you look at it from a purely numbers and business POV. We invest in these younger players from early Jnr feat. And when the investment stops returning we still seem to hang on to them. Now, at this point business is becoming emotional. Rarely do the two mix well. Not too dissimilar to the share market or business in general, sometimes investments don't pay off and they travel in the opposite direction we'd hoped. We need to cut our losses before we lose more.
 
its because our facilities are crap, our coaching team unprofessional, our results mediocre and our boardroom quite inept.

obviously we're fixing some of this up now, but until we do no one will want to come here for the same reason no one wants to go to canberra at the moment. although their facilities and boardroom are probably still better than ours.
 
2014 NRL players that made their debut at Wests Tigers but who were not at the club in 2014.

Blake Ayshford, Isaac De Gois, Andrew Fifita, Bryce Gibbs, David Gower, Bronson Harrison, Chris Heighington, Marika Koroibete, Robert Lui, Benji Marshall, Ben Murdoch-Masila, Pat Politoni, Beau Ryan, Ben Te'o

Players we signed who will be with us next year: Martin Taupau, Pat Richards, Keith Galloway, Adam Blair

It speaks volumes about how we are retaining a lot of our juniors, and that costs money.

It also says, our juniors are more than good enough.
 
@happy tiger said:
Blair is more a case of paying too much for the wrong style of player
Click to expand...

Is Adam Blair really so overpriced? In three years he's missed one game through suspension, and has redeveloped his game to put in a consistent 80 minutes. In fact for dollars in vs minutes played Blair is probably the best money the Tigers have ever spent. I'm more concerned about how much of our cap gets spent paying blokes to go to physio sessions. It's the Tedescos and the Moltzens who are draining our resources, not the one bloke who actually makes it onto the bus every week.
 
Rugby League is a Business if you like it or not? and that is how it's got to be run, at the same time you don't give players loyalty your not going to get it back. I think we are to much of a loyalty Club that have kept signing our players on emotion, past performances and loyalty.
Chris and Justo are spot on.
JT will be putting this in place in regards with professionalism and that you come to training to train and not a boys day out like the Sheens era when it seemed we had more clowns than professional players.
Chris the only players I would sign out of that bunch is: Lodge, Taupau, Ava, Simona, Akauola, Sue and the following players I would keep as I believe wouldn't break the bank :Te Maire Martin, Santi, Fine, Dallas Graham, Cherrington, Hoeter.
The rest a surplus to our Club in my opinion.
In JT I trust :wink: :sign:
 
Chris excellent post and so true. With Wests Tigers glasses on people often view players to be far greater than they actually are and that is why we struggle, because we lack hard class players who make the big plays both in attack and defense.

IT actually ends up a catch 22 situation, because your young players or should I say most of them, will not make that next step if they do not have these class players inside or outside them showing the way, and it is very hard to entice elite players to your club when your on struggle street.

I also think out of desperation we are paying some of our kids way over the odds and that also reduces your chances of having the cap space to lure a marquee player. I think Penrith have shown you need about 12 experienced hard heads and five boom youngsters in any 17 man team. If the balance goes the other way, you will get big wins one week and big losses the next week.

Anyway Chris, I hope our new football GM reads your post because it is what a few of us have been saying for years
 
Unfortunately it is an unrealistic plan to release all the middle-ground players and hope to get more superstars.

I agree with previous posters that we have locked in players who have not consistently lived up to expectations, and that may be more a reflection on the conditioning / coaching than the recruitment strategy.

What I really want us to think about is how many clubs truly sign high-profile, consistently match-winning footballers? Is it realistic to plan on signing the SBWs or Sam Burgess-es of the world?

Melbourne, for example, have brought all of their superstars through juniors and good scouting - Smith, Slater, Inglis, Folau, Bromwich. They were able to identify talent and develop consistent excellence.

Brisbane, on the other hand, have the luxury of being a one-town team and generally get pick of the litter, with the added bonus of appealing to Brisbane-based families. Even still, they generally haven't gone about signing superstars - if they really did have a go for Inglis, Cam Smith, DCE, none of these have yet worked out. They picked up Barba and that did not turn out, now they have Milford who is an up and coming, not fully proven, commodity.

We compete in Sydney, so who in Sydney can we compare with?

Penrith have gone for the approach of experience and juniors, generally the way we also choose to operate. It worked out well 2014 but they've been fairly light-on since 2003; they still rely on the performance of sometimes inconsistent players like Soward and Wallace. I'd argue it's not working out any better for them than it has for us in the past decade, although Penrith are a year or two ahead of the rebuild process than we are.

Dragons certainly picked up the stray Benji and Dugan, but these players are not sure things and Dragons have hemorrhaged as a team due to inability to balance the cap. Not an ideal model and they have struggled since their golden generation of ~2005 began retiring.

Sharks usually have nobody, so sometimes they have money to throw on name players. But how has that worked out for them, how much impact has Luke Lewis, Tupou, Carney had on consistent success? I believe Sharks a prime example of spending your money on the players you don't really need.

Roosters, they don't operate like the other Sydney teams, with arguably the best financed and politically-linked management in the comp. They generally get their man, and whilst it doesn't always work out right (2009 wooden spooon) they usually buy fairly astutely.

Souths are now following the Roosters model, with the pillar of financier / movie guy to introduce stronger financial backing and association with big brands: your Virgins and Crowns. Only Souths have a Rusty Crowe to leverage in this market, the kind of guy who can add Hollywood gloss and favour to a potential new contract - remembering that Sam Burgess was engaged by several clubs before he chose Souths.

Manly have done well with talent scouting from outside their core juniors - DCE from QLD, Foran and Matai via NZ (though Foran played junior footy in Northern Beaches). They also have well-financed operators and have built success off the back of a golden generation of elite juniors - Stewarts, Watmough, Ballin. They have had their share of in-fighting, as we have, and it has hurt them as well.

Bulldogs are, I believe, the Sydney team we should most try to emulate. They don't always get their man, but they keep money aside for high-profile pickups like Graham and Morris twins. They are typically no frills in reserve grade and don't currently spend big bucks on positions away from the spine, such as wing or second row. They have a strong club culture and management, with an influential and successful head coach. They are near the top of the finals most seasons, even when you don't really rate their team. I hate the Bulldogs but they know how to build a strong team.

So Tigers - well I feel we are heading the right way and we have the foundations of a winning side in the next few years. We are shedding dead wood and continue to do so, investing in a new core group of potentially elite youngsters. It worked out in 2005 and there is no reason why it cannot again. We've restructured the board, the coaching… I say let them do their job. We don't need more elite players, we need to keep or elevate our current players into those consistent elites.
 
Great post. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.

We need to make some tough decisions and getting rid of Lawrence and Galloway are the first ones that needs to be made. This will give us a massive amount of cap space!

_"Even us fans fall in love with these players because they scored 3 tries in a game but fail to recognize that they've let in 4 tries over a span of 2-3 weeks. "_

I am certainly NOT like what you describe above but too many people in this forum ARE. Lawrence scores a try in a couple of games and people forget that he's let in so many due to his turnstyle defense or bombed even more because he cant pass or stay away from the touchline.

Again, great post Chris.
 
@tig_prmz said:
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Click to expand...

Tell us what you really think…

Good post Chris....looking at our squad you really have to wonder where the money goes...invested in youth....time will tell...
 
it's still too early to tell on who should be cut from those contracted players. yes we're heading in the right direction since taylor has come onboard but lets wait and see mid 2015 where we're at before we start pencilling in who should stay or go.
 
It is not easy it's a balancing act with the current salary System.
If you put your money on one or two players. And they underachieve or get injured you can kiss your season goodbye. This is where good coaches and a professional outfits get the balance right and rich clubs have a Vantage.
Let's hope Jason Taylor,administration and staff get it right.

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@jirskyr said:
Unfortunately it is an unrealistic plan to release all the middle-ground players and hope to get more superstars.

I agree with previous posters that we have locked in players who have not consistently lived up to expectations, and that may be more a reflection on the conditioning / coaching than the recruitment strategy.

What I really want us to think about is how many clubs truly sign high-profile, consistently match-winning footballers? Is it realistic to plan on signing the SBWs or Sam Burgess-es of the world?

Melbourne, for example, have brought all of their superstars through juniors and good scouting - Smith, Slater, Inglis, Folau, Bromwich. They were able to identify talent and develop consistent excellence.

Brisbane, on the other hand, have the luxury of being a one-town team and generally get pick of the litter, with the added bonus of appealing to Brisbane-based families. Even still, they generally haven't gone about signing superstars - if they really did have a go for Inglis, Cam Smith, DCE, none of these have yet worked out. They picked up Barba and that did not turn out, now they have Milford who is an up and coming, not fully proven, commodity.

We compete in Sydney, so who in Sydney can we compare with?

Penrith have gone for the approach of experience and juniors, generally the way we also choose to operate. It worked out well 2014 but they've been fairly light-on since 2003; they still rely on the performance of sometimes inconsistent players like Soward and Wallace. I'd argue it's not working out any better for them than it has for us in the past decade, although Penrith are a year or two ahead of the rebuild process than we are.

Dragons certainly picked up the stray Benji and Dugan, but these players are not sure things and Dragons have hemorrhaged as a team due to inability to balance the cap. Not an ideal model and they have struggled since their golden generation of ~2005 began retiring.

Sharks usually have nobody, so sometimes they have money to throw on name players. But how has that worked out for them, how much impact has Luke Lewis, Tupou, Carney had on consistent success? I believe Sharks a prime example of spending your money on the players you don't really need.

Roosters, they don't operate like the other Sydney teams, with arguably the best financed and politically-linked management in the comp. They generally get their man, and whilst it doesn't always work out right (2009 wooden spooon) they usually buy fairly astutely.

Souths are now following the Roosters model, with the pillar of financier / movie guy to introduce stronger financial backing and association with big brands: your Virgins and Crowns. Only Souths have a Rusty Crowe to leverage in this market, the kind of guy who can add Hollywood gloss and favour to a potential new contract - remembering that Sam Burgess was engaged by several clubs before he chose Souths.

Manly have done well with talent scouting from outside their core juniors - DCE from QLD, Foran and Matai via NZ (though Foran played junior footy in Northern Beaches). They also have well-financed operators and have built success off the back of a golden generation of elite juniors - Stewarts, Watmough, Ballin. They have had their share of in-fighting, as we have, and it has hurt them as well.

Bulldogs are, I believe, the Sydney team we should most try to emulate. They don't always get their man, but they keep money aside for high-profile pickups like Graham and Morris twins. They are typically no frills in reserve grade and don't currently spend big bucks on positions away from the spine, such as wing or second row. They have a strong club culture and management, with an influential and successful head coach. They are near the top of the finals most seasons, even when you don't really rate their team. I hate the Bulldogs but they know how to build a strong team.

So Tigers - well I feel we are heading the right way and we have the foundations of a winning side in the next few years. We are shedding dead wood and continue to do so, investing in a new core group of potentially elite youngsters. It worked out in 2005 and there is no reason why it cannot again. We've restructured the board, the coaching… I say let them do their job. We don't need more elite players, we need to keep or elevate our current players into those consistent elites.
Click to expand...

Great post jirskyr.
 
Buy smarter , better contracts , better players and once we have all areas of the club working off field keep the systems in place

Look at it from a players perspective

If your playing in sides that are successful , you will get better pay checks , more chances to play rep footy and play finals footy

Why would you want to play in a side that had issues with the board ,S &C , money issues ,46 different venues , split fans , a joint venture that struggles to work together , no idea who the coach is going to be from week to week and are organizing end of season trips in early August ??
 
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