Lara Pitt had some good points last night that got overlooked.
For mine, the fact that Madge won a premiership at Souths (which nobody has done since) but was given the boot says that he's a very good coach but has poor people skills.
It seems like things haven't changed too much. If this report is true, it's pretty bad form. I think any of us would be fuming if our boss treated is this way (source, smh):
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*There's also a perception among the playing group that the coach avoids confrontation. It was evident again during the week when Marshall walked into Maguire's office on Monday and strongly suggested he should play on in 2021 at the Tigers.
Maguire, despite playing a leading hand in the decision not to extend the club legend, left the door ajar and told Marshall to give him 24 hours to see if he could do anything else.
The club, already booked in for a meeting with his manager later that day, didn't budge on the original decision. but Marshall was left disappointed that Maguire couldn't tell it how it was.*
Nothing wrong with that at all, don't know why you think it's bad form?
It's likely that Madge was able to cast the ultimate vote on Benji, in consultation with the others in the recruitment team. However that doesn't mean he had made his mind up when he spoke to Benji and it doesn't mean he wasn't persuaded (or even over-ruled) by the others, or that nothing changed in the space of a few days.
According to the account, Benji walks into his office and says I think I should play on, can we reach a deal. Madge may not have had his final answer at that point, and perhaps Benji coming in was the final move that told Tigers a decision was required now, this week.
I'll say this again: if Benji was playing great football then he'd have his extension. If he made his tackles he would never have been dropped. You don't go in to the boss with a weak hand and ask for a pay rise or a contract extension, and expect it will all just fall your way.
It's entirely possible that Madge genuinely wanted to keep Benji around and asked for some more time to see if they could figure something out. There may be third-party deals or maneuvering with marquee allowances or total player numbers.
It may be that something else moved wrt future signings and retention. We've seen enough from people like The_POM to know that signings decisions can change by the day, even just with Latrell, 50 comments that he was a done deal, then all of a sudden he isn't.
Madge may simply have changed his mind, which he is allowed to do.
I have no problem with any of this at all. If Benji feels hard done-by, he's been precious about it, I'm sorry. 100 people a week walk into their bosses office and ask for more money or an extension and lots of them walk away disappointed, whether their boss is their best mate or a complete moron.