Maguire's job not on the line: Lee Hagipantelis

[mike]

Where are the leaks coming from? Sounds like someone pretty influential in admin is a bit leaky to Mr Chammas.

Mr Chammas dislikes Maguire...

But there is a story to write and blaming the messenger is unhelpful.

First it's Slothfield doesn't like us
then Kent doesn't like us
then Hooper doesn't like us

don't shoot the messenger

We all would like to shoot the old drunk.

Nah, just give him enough alcohol and he'll do the job himself.

 

[Harvey]

Robbie Farah is joining the coaching staff. Watch out Madge!

In all seriousness, I think Robbie is the only person who actually understands WT. I hope having him at training and gameday will improve things.

Get Benji as an assistant. Seriously a bloke that helped push 3 coaches out the door and spat the dummy when the club wanted to move on.

Nothing like passing that culture onto the youngsters we have coming through.

Can't seem to move beyond the boys club. No wonder we are a running joke.

Surely he can combine the CEO and head coach roles

 

[jadtiger]

The numbers that show why Maguire is in the crosshairs at Tigers
By Michael Chammas
April 26, 2021 — 5.00am

Michael Maguire equalled Jason Taylor on Sunday as the second-longest serving coach in Wests Tigers history. His record is now worse.

In his 51 games as Wests Tigers coach, Maguire has won just 19 at a rate of 37.3 per cent. Even Taylor, who was sacked just three rounds into the 2017 season in the hope of keeping the now defunct big four, had a better record.

Granted, new coaches are always given time to rebuild, but time is now revealing that this may be more than just a Wests Tigers problem. Perhaps there’s a Michael Maguire problem?

In Maguire’s last 51 games in charge of a star-studded Rabbitohs side, his success rate was even worse (18 wins) than it is now at the Wests Tigers.

The mood in the dressing rooms following a 46-6 loss to Canberra in the nation’s capital four years ago was enough to convince the Tigers to pull the trigger on Taylor. Club hierarchy decided that Taylor had lost the dressing room. They would have been wondering the same thing again after the Anzac Day demolition at the hands of Manly at Bankwest Stadium.

The players aren’t without fault, but they don’t appear to be playing for the jersey or the coach. The club held those fears over the summer. It’s why they would only give Maguire a two-year extension if he agreed to specific performance-based clauses that allowed them to spear him without a huge financial hit.

While the Tigers need to be applauded for nabbing some of the best young players in the game, the fact they can’t attract any big name quality players isn’t a good reflection of the coach.

In an interview in the preseason, Maguire tried to sugar-coat it by saying he didn’t want players who were afraid of hard work. Having spoken to several players about the Tigers, the concern isn’t about hard work, but being over-worked.

Since Benji Marshall turned back the clock on Friday night to lead South Sydney to a come-from-behind win against the Titans, questions have been asked as to why the Tigers let him go. But those suggesting the Tigers should have done more to keep Marshall are oblivious to what went on in Marshall’s last season at the club. What he could offer the team on a football field became irrelevant.

The only way Marshall could have stayed at the Wests Tigers and it not blow up in their face was if the club chose him over Maguire. That’s how badly their relationship had soured.

At the time, sacking the coach was a non-negotiable. But what Rabbitohs coach Wayne Bennett has since been able to extract from a 36-year-old Marshall is just one reason why Maguire is no longer on such solid ground.

Maguire’s decision to drop Marshall after round four was the beginning of the end for the Kiwi at the club. Marshall felt so disrespected, and hard done by given his Dally M-leading form over the opening month of the season, that his strong relationship with the coach deteriorated rapidly.

Marshall was so upset with how things played out that he did not want his wife and son at his final game. He even left the match ball that was presented to him inside the change rooms at Bankwest Stadium, and had to be begged to attend the club’s presentation a few nights later.

Maguire would never talk about it publicly, but multiple sources within the club have told the Herald the Tigers coach began to question Marshall’s influence on the team.

Internally, there was a feeling the narrative – that the coach had lost the dressing room – stemmed from Marshall’s discontent towards him. That may have been the case, but perhaps someone at the club should have listened to what was being said, not who was saying it.

Young Tiger’s grief
It’s been an emotionally draining few weeks for boom Wests Tigers prop Stefano Utoikamanu – not that you would have known by the way he has been playing.

Utoikamanu was given time off this week to attend the funeral of his 17-year-old cousin Elijah Faalua, the Newcastle Knights Harold Matthews player who died in a car accident earlier this month.

Faalua died at the scene after he was thrown from the front passenger seat after the 17-year-old driver crashed into a barrier on a private road near Cessnock.

Those at a packed funeral service Newcastle on Tuesday said images of Faalua’s distraught mother refusing to let go of her son’s casket will live with them for the rest of their lives. The Tigers gave Utoikamanu time off this week to be with his family.

It’s been a tough six months for the former Parramatta prop, who also lost one of his best friends when Manly up-and-comer Keith Titmuss tragically died following a Manly preseason training session last November.


And that poor me attitude is exactly why Benji had to be punted. No accountability and considers himself as an entitled part of the club.

The more Benji flaps his gums the worse he looks.He is completely up himself

 

[twentyforty]

I would be more concerned about a real estate salesman, an insurance sales rep, a car salesman, a musician, a director of marketing and an IT guy, but hey they’re all long time debenture holders and fans of Wests Magpies. Isn’t that what’s important in organisational development? Yep, because it gives them the right to sack another coach who’s trying to fight the good fight. Where is the development though?

 

[Deleted member 3518]

Robbie Farah is joining the coaching staff. Watch out Madge!

In all seriousness, I think Robbie is the only person who actually understands WT. I hope having him at training and gameday will improve things.


Get Benji as an assistant. Seriously a bloke that helped push 3 coaches out the door and spat the dummy when the club wanted to move on.

Nothing like passing that culture onto the youngsters we have coming through.

Can't seem to move beyond the boys club. No wonder we are a running joke.

Surely he can combine the CEO and head coach roles

Robbie was not a part of the boys club mate . He’s a pest , and I’m not sure I ever thought “geez there’s a bloke I want to have a beer with “ , but that guy , has always bled for the tigers and , his consistency over his career , in a team full of guys like benji , who turned up when it was 12-0 , is something that is worth building around .

I have way more faith that of all the players to come through the club , he would be the one , to blast us in a way that should get the boys firing . I actually think he will coach the club one day , and be a success .
Maybe we are like manly . Maybe our only chance to be successful to have guys like him around to drive the “tigers “ culture . For better or worse .
But he’s a tigers legend , who doesn’t think Madge is a spoon . Unlike the other one , who has been whiteanting Jim since the moment he was told he’s 36 and we need to try and get our 500k tigers junior signing from Souths , into the 6.

 

[jirskyr]

Michael Chammas has an agenda against Madge I reckon. He's got two articles ready to roll immediately after the match: lead article on Sunday, analysis on Monday. Nothing about the individual player performances, only commentary on the coach.

I’ve heard him speak about Madge before he had high hopes for us at the start of the season. Some of it is based on facts and the other headlines.

First foxtel are bad and news limited are bad
now it is SMH and Australian
The press are not out to get the club... we have issues and are incompetent don't shoot the messenger

I don't think it's the club, I think it's Chammas vs the coach specifically. For Chammas to write that there is a crisis meeting, then Tigers to immediately go public to quash it - either his mail is bad, or he has an axe to grind and will publish without checking his facts.

 

[jirskyr]

Madge has coached wins over Australia with NZ. Can only coach good players.

Yet no NZ players are racing to join the WT's .....

That is damning

And I look at all those English players that have joined Souths since Bennett went there...

 

[jirskyr]

Bomber is a young coach that is tuned into the modern game. So is Cameron Ciraldo.

Do you mean young coach, as in inexperienced / new, or young as in age? Bomber Morris is 40 years old, Madge is only 47. Ciraldo is 36.

 

[TIGERPOWER]

Robbie Farah is joining the coaching staff. Watch out Madge!

In all seriousness, I think Robbie is the only person who actually understands WT. I hope having him at training and gameday will improve things.


Get Benji as an assistant. Seriously a bloke that helped push 3 coaches out the door and spat the dummy when the club wanted to move on.

Nothing like passing that culture onto the youngsters we have coming through.

Can't seem to move beyond the boys club. No wonder we are a running joke.

Surely he can combine the CEO and head coach roles

Robbie was not a part of the boys club mate . He’s a pest , and I’m not sure I ever thought “geez there’s a bloke I want to have a beer with “ , but that guy , has always bled for the tigers and , his consistency over his career , in a team full of guys like benji , who turned up when it was 12-0 , is something that is worth building around .

I have way more faith that of all the players to come through the club , he would be the one , to blast us in a way that should get the boys firing . I actually think he will coach the club one day , and be a success .
Maybe we are like manly . Maybe our only chance to be successful to have guys like him around to drive the “tigers “ culture . For better or worse .
But he’s a tigers legend , who doesn’t think Madge is a spoon . Unlike the other one , who has been whiteanting Jim since the moment he was told he’s 36 and we need to try and get our 500k tigers junior signing from Souths , into the 6.

Fantastic idea to have Farah around. The guy bleeds orange and black. Benji should never be let around the joint again . Nothing but ego and all about me attitude .

 

[jirskyr]

Where are the leaks coming from? Sounds like someone pretty influential in admin is a bit leaky to Mr Chammas.

Mr Chammas dislikes Maguire...

But there is a story to write and blaming the messenger is unhelpful.

First it's Slothfield doesn't like us
then Kent doesn't like us
then Hooper doesn't like us

don't shoot the messenger

That's a mis-used phrase on here.

The "messenger" proverbially is a nobody who relays information or an opinion entirely on behalf of someone else. Most of the journos you mentioned write opinion-pieces and speculation/gossip, they leave the boring fact-based work to the junior writers.

 

[Guest]

OPINION
Why the Wests Tigers need to stop blaming coach Michael Maguire
Andrew Webster
Chief Sports Writer
April 27, 2021 — 6.00am

Well, of course it’s all Michael Maguire’s fault. When isn’t the coach to blame at the Wests Tigers?

Tim Sheens. Mick Potter. Jason Taylor. Ivan Cleary. Now Maguire after the Tigers’ diabolical 1-6 start to the season.

At what point does chief executive Justin Pascoe, chairman Lee Hagipantelis and the rest of the board start taking ownership and accepting blame for the club stumbling about the NRL competition like the drunkest man at the party?

Is this club ever going to get it together?

The problem with joint ventures, much like St George Illawarra, is they’re as united as the Brady Bunch when the team is winning. When it is not, they leak like a waterfall and stab each other in the back.

Perhaps the greatest indication of what Maguire is up against is the leaking from within the club of a get-out clause in his recent contract extension, which was signed in December last year and takes him through to the end of 2023.

It’s been presented as outstanding management from the club; that it can sack Maguire if it wants and only pay him a paltry sum.

In reality, as confirmed by three separate sources, it’s a standard termination clause found in most contracts, in all forms of business and in most coach contracts these days.

To sell it as smart management is signature arse-covering for a club that’s had to cover its arse quite a lot of over the past decade. It reeks of something out of the Broncos’ playbook last year with Anthony Seibold.

Maguire isn’t without fault in the way things are developing at the Tigers – we’ll get to that in a minute – but it’s near impossible to coach a side when there’s so much chatter coming from above, whether it’s public or not.

You can set your clock to when the Tigers are playing the Panthers because you can guarantee Pascoe will make a comment about how Cleary disrespected and walked out on the club, stuffing up the salary cap.

As for Hagipantelis, he’s on speed dial for every almost every reporter in the business because he always talks. (That said, he didn’t return this columnist’s call on Monday to answer some hard questions).

Earlier this month, Hagipantelis let go with a stream of consciousness about besieged halfback Luke Brooks, saying he “will not partake in that narrative whatsoever” before partaking in an extraordinary narrative about Brooks and his future and what people are saying about him and what the club thinks of him …

The smart chairs know when to shut up. Hagipantelis doesn’t have an off switch.

In fairness, he’s only been chairman since November 2019.

Pascoe has been chief executive for just under six years. Sure, he cops it from angry members via social media and email, but he’s a darling of most league roundsmen/women and has barely been fingered for the malaise that’s infected this great club.

The Tigers have so much going for them, not least a $75 million centre of excellence and platoons of resources the NRL team has never really had. But the team hasn’t soared whatsoever on his watch.

The problem at the Tigers is their roster, pure and simple, and for that a whole stack of people need to take responsibility.

The abject lack of experience explains why they are drifting in and out of matches; why they can trail the Cowboys 28-6 at halftime, then come screaming back into it in the second; why they can appear to have Manly’s measure for 20-or-so minutes then fold like a cheap suit for the remaining 60.

Consider their spine.

Fullback Daine Laurie, 21, has played 10 matches. Hooker Jake Simpkin, 19, just two. Five-eighth Adam Doueihi has played 56 matches but is also just 22 and still finding his feet in the halves.

Then there’s Brooks, 26, who has played 155 matches but hasn’t developed into the playmaker many of us expected after watching him carve up the Dragons on debut at the SCG all those years ago.

Roster management is about keeping the players you want. The best clubs do it with shrewd aplomb.

The Tigers will be eternally paying the price for letting the best player in the game, James Tedesco, walk out and join the Roosters.

Because it’s so painfully clear this side is in desperate need of a superstar. Or half a superstar. But which superstar would want to join the Tigers unless it’s on enormous money?

Instead, the Tigers have had to recruit whoever they can get and this is where Maguire must shoulder some of the responsibility.

James Roberts was signed on very little money. So were BJ and Luciano Leilua.

The problem is they are completely not Maguire-style players, only sometimes seeming interested.

Players like Corey Thompson and Paul Momirovski are Maguire-style players, ripping in at training and never giving up in matches, yet they are no longer at the club.

Interestingly, the former players I spoke to on Monday thought these types of departures have hurt the club more than that of Benji Marshall.

It’s too simplistic to say Maguire and the Tigers got it wrong with Marshall. He’s revelling in a well-established team at Souths, surrounded with international- and Origin-standard players, having been given a roving commission to do whatever he wants.

What Maguire did miscalculate was the fallout that came when he dropped Marshall early last season. The veteran playmaker was one of his biggest allies. It didn’t take long for the sentiment to swing the other way.

The other criticism of Maguire is he can only “coach one way”. In other words, with the intensity of an SAS officer, not happy until someone or all them are vomiting lactic acid.

To be honest, that’s a copout – something that’s also been acknowledged by former players.

Because what they notice from some members of this Tigers squad is that some care deeply about the result (like Doueihi who was in tears after the Cowboys’ loss), and others (like the ones who are posting on Instagram less than an hour after another defeat) do not.

Those who can’t dance blame it on the music. Too often at the Wests Tigers, players who don’t care enough and officials who aren’t doing their job, blame it on the coach.

If Michael Maguire goes, will life be any different under the next poor soul who comes along?

 

[tony soprano]

OPINION
Why the Wests Tigers need to stop blaming coach Michael Maguire
Andrew Webster
Chief Sports Writer
April 27, 2021 — 6.00am

Well, of course it’s all Michael Maguire’s fault. When isn’t the coach to blame at the Wests Tigers?

Tim Sheens. Mick Potter. Jason Taylor. Ivan Cleary. Now Maguire after the Tigers’ diabolical 1-6 start to the season.

At what point does chief executive Justin Pascoe, chairman Lee Hagipantelis and the rest of the board start taking ownership and accepting blame for the club stumbling about the NRL competition like the drunkest man at the party?

Is this club ever going to get it together?

The problem with joint ventures, much like St George Illawarra, is they’re as united as the Brady Bunch when the team is winning. When it is not, they leak like a waterfall and stab each other in the back.

Perhaps the greatest indication of what Maguire is up against is the leaking from within the club of a get-out clause in his recent contract extension, which was signed in December last year and takes him through to the end of 2023.

It’s been presented as outstanding management from the club; that it can sack Maguire if it wants and only pay him a paltry sum.

In reality, as confirmed by three separate sources, it’s a standard termination clause found in most contracts, in all forms of business and in most coach contracts these days.

To sell it as smart management is signature arse-covering for a club that’s had to cover its arse quite a lot of over the past decade. It reeks of something out of the Broncos’ playbook last year with Anthony Seibold.

Maguire isn’t without fault in the way things are developing at the Tigers – we’ll get to that in a minute – but it’s near impossible to coach a side when there’s so much chatter coming from above, whether it’s public or not.

You can set your clock to when the Tigers are playing the Panthers because you can guarantee Pascoe will make a comment about how Cleary disrespected and walked out on the club, stuffing up the salary cap.

As for Hagipantelis, he’s on speed dial for every almost every reporter in the business because he always talks. (That said, he didn’t return this columnist’s call on Monday to answer some hard questions).

Earlier this month, Hagipantelis let go with a stream of consciousness about besieged halfback Luke Brooks, saying he “will not partake in that narrative whatsoever” before partaking in an extraordinary narrative about Brooks and his future and what people are saying about him and what the club thinks of him …

The smart chairs know when to shut up. Hagipantelis doesn’t have an off switch.

In fairness, he’s only been chairman since November 2019.

Pascoe has been chief executive for just under six years. Sure, he cops it from angry members via social media and email, but he’s a darling of most league roundsmen/women and has barely been fingered for the malaise that’s infected this great club.

The Tigers have so much going for them, not least a $75 million centre of excellence and platoons of resources the NRL team has never really had. But the team hasn’t soared whatsoever on his watch.

The problem at the Tigers is their roster, pure and simple, and for that a whole stack of people need to take responsibility.

The abject lack of experience explains why they are drifting in and out of matches; why they can trail the Cowboys 28-6 at halftime, then come screaming back into it in the second; why they can appear to have Manly’s measure for 20-or-so minutes then fold like a cheap suit for the remaining 60.

Consider their spine.

Fullback Daine Laurie, 21, has played 10 matches. Hooker Jake Simpkin, 19, just two. Five-eighth Adam Doueihi has played 56 matches but is also just 22 and still finding his feet in the halves.

Then there’s Brooks, 26, who has played 155 matches but hasn’t developed into the playmaker many of us expected after watching him carve up the Dragons on debut at the SCG all those years ago.

Roster management is about keeping the players you want. The best clubs do it with shrewd aplomb.

The Tigers will be eternally paying the price for letting the best player in the game, James Tedesco, walk out and join the Roosters.

Because it’s so painfully clear this side is in desperate need of a superstar. Or half a superstar. But which superstar would want to join the Tigers unless it’s on enormous money?

Instead, the Tigers have had to recruit whoever they can get and this is where Maguire must shoulder some of the responsibility.

James Roberts was signed on very little money. So were BJ and Luciano Leilua.

The problem is they are completely not Maguire-style players, only sometimes seeming interested.

Players like Corey Thompson and Paul Momirovski are Maguire-style players, ripping in at training and never giving up in matches, yet they are no longer at the club.

Interestingly, the former players I spoke to on Monday thought these types of departures have hurt the club more than that of Benji Marshall.

It’s too simplistic to say Maguire and the Tigers got it wrong with Marshall. He’s revelling in a well-established team at Souths, surrounded with international- and Origin-standard players, having been given a roving commission to do whatever he wants.

What Maguire did miscalculate was the fallout that came when he dropped Marshall early last season. The veteran playmaker was one of his biggest allies. It didn’t take long for the sentiment to swing the other way.

The other criticism of Maguire is he can only “coach one way”. In other words, with the intensity of an SAS officer, not happy until someone or all them are vomiting lactic acid.

To be honest, that’s a copout – something that’s also been acknowledged by former players.

Because what they notice from some members of this Tigers squad is that some care deeply about the result (like Doueihi who was in tears after the Cowboys’ loss), and others (like the ones who are posting on Instagram less than an hour after another defeat) do not.

Those who can’t dance blame it on the music. Too often at the Wests Tigers, players who don’t care enough and officials who aren’t doing their job, blame it on the coach.

If Michael Maguire goes, will life be any different under the next poor soul who comes along?

This Is the best article yet.


If the answer is Pascoe to be sacked who replaces him that can attract and keep players??

Pascoe has shown he cannot retain players we want

 

[twentyforty]

Michael Chammas has an agenda against Madge I reckon. He's got two articles ready to roll immediately after the match: lead article on Sunday, analysis on Monday. Nothing about the individual player performances, only commentary on the coach.

I’ve heard him speak about Madge before he had high hopes for us at the start of the season. Some of it is based on facts and the other headlines.

First foxtel are bad and news limited are bad
now it is SMH and Australian
The press are not out to get the club... we have issues and are incompetent don't shoot the messenger

I don't think it's the club, I think it's Chammas vs the coach specifically. For Chammas to write that there is a crisis meeting, then Tigers to immediately go public to quash it - either his mail is bad, or he has an axe to grind and will publish without checking his facts.

Chammas is going to be terribly disappointed when we start winning. We’ve been thereabouts and there’s something to like in the last 3 games, so a few wins aren’t far away.

 

[sleeve]

Madge has coached wins over Australia with NZ. Can only coach good players.

Yet no NZ players are racing to join the WT's .....

That is damning

And I look at all those English players that have joined Souths since Bennett went there...

The England players were less then happy with Bennet, and he was sacked. They sad he could not coach!

 

[old_man_tiger]

OPINION
Why the Wests Tigers need to stop blaming coach Michael Maguire
Andrew Webster
Chief Sports Writer
April 27, 2021 — 6.00am

Well, of course it’s all Michael Maguire’s fault. When isn’t the coach to blame at the Wests Tigers?

Tim Sheens. Mick Potter. Jason Taylor. Ivan Cleary. Now Maguire after the Tigers’ diabolical 1-6 start to the season.

At what point does chief executive Justin Pascoe, chairman Lee Hagipantelis and the rest of the board start taking ownership and accepting blame for the club stumbling about the NRL competition like the drunkest man at the party?

Is this club ever going to get it together?

The problem with joint ventures, much like St George Illawarra, is they’re as united as the Brady Bunch when the team is winning. When it is not, they leak like a waterfall and stab each other in the back.

Perhaps the greatest indication of what Maguire is up against is the leaking from within the club of a get-out clause in his recent contract extension, which was signed in December last year and takes him through to the end of 2023.

It’s been presented as outstanding management from the club; that it can sack Maguire if it wants and only pay him a paltry sum.

In reality, as confirmed by three separate sources, it’s a standard termination clause found in most contracts, in all forms of business and in most coach contracts these days.

To sell it as smart management is signature arse-covering for a club that’s had to cover its arse quite a lot of over the past decade. It reeks of something out of the Broncos’ playbook last year with Anthony Seibold.

Maguire isn’t without fault in the way things are developing at the Tigers – we’ll get to that in a minute – but it’s near impossible to coach a side when there’s so much chatter coming from above, whether it’s public or not.

You can set your clock to when the Tigers are playing the Panthers because you can guarantee Pascoe will make a comment about how Cleary disrespected and walked out on the club, stuffing up the salary cap.

As for Hagipantelis, he’s on speed dial for every almost every reporter in the business because he always talks. (That said, he didn’t return this columnist’s call on Monday to answer some hard questions).

Earlier this month, Hagipantelis let go with a stream of consciousness about besieged halfback Luke Brooks, saying he “will not partake in that narrative whatsoever” before partaking in an extraordinary narrative about Brooks and his future and what people are saying about him and what the club thinks of him …

The smart chairs know when to shut up. Hagipantelis doesn’t have an off switch.

In fairness, he’s only been chairman since November 2019.

Pascoe has been chief executive for just under six years. Sure, he cops it from angry members via social media and email, but he’s a darling of most league roundsmen/women and has barely been fingered for the malaise that’s infected this great club.

The Tigers have so much going for them, not least a $75 million centre of excellence and platoons of resources the NRL team has never really had. But the team hasn’t soared whatsoever on his watch.

The problem at the Tigers is their roster, pure and simple, and for that a whole stack of people need to take responsibility.

The abject lack of experience explains why they are drifting in and out of matches; why they can trail the Cowboys 28-6 at halftime, then come screaming back into it in the second; why they can appear to have Manly’s measure for 20-or-so minutes then fold like a cheap suit for the remaining 60.

Consider their spine.

Fullback Daine Laurie, 21, has played 10 matches. Hooker Jake Simpkin, 19, just two. Five-eighth Adam Doueihi has played 56 matches but is also just 22 and still finding his feet in the halves.

Then there’s Brooks, 26, who has played 155 matches but hasn’t developed into the playmaker many of us expected after watching him carve up the Dragons on debut at the SCG all those years ago.

Roster management is about keeping the players you want. The best clubs do it with shrewd aplomb.

The Tigers will be eternally paying the price for letting the best player in the game, James Tedesco, walk out and join the Roosters.

Because it’s so painfully clear this side is in desperate need of a superstar. Or half a superstar. But which superstar would want to join the Tigers unless it’s on enormous money?

Instead, the Tigers have had to recruit whoever they can get and this is where Maguire must shoulder some of the responsibility.

James Roberts was signed on very little money. So were BJ and Luciano Leilua.

The problem is they are completely not Maguire-style players, only sometimes seeming interested.

Players like Corey Thompson and Paul Momirovski are Maguire-style players, ripping in at training and never giving up in matches, yet they are no longer at the club.

Interestingly, the former players I spoke to on Monday thought these types of departures have hurt the club more than that of Benji Marshall.

It’s too simplistic to say Maguire and the Tigers got it wrong with Marshall. He’s revelling in a well-established team at Souths, surrounded with international- and Origin-standard players, having been given a roving commission to do whatever he wants.

What Maguire did miscalculate was the fallout that came when he dropped Marshall early last season. The veteran playmaker was one of his biggest allies. It didn’t take long for the sentiment to swing the other way.

The other criticism of Maguire is he can only “coach one way”. In other words, with the intensity of an SAS officer, not happy until someone or all them are vomiting lactic acid.

To be honest, that’s a copout – something that’s also been acknowledged by former players.

Because what they notice from some members of this Tigers squad is that some care deeply about the result (like Doueihi who was in tears after the Cowboys’ loss), and others (like the ones who are posting on Instagram less than an hour after another defeat) do not.

Those who can’t dance blame it on the music. Too often at the Wests Tigers, players who don’t care enough and officials who aren’t doing their job, blame it on the coach.

If Michael Maguire goes, will life be any different under the next poor soul who comes along?

That's actually a brilliant article but it hurts to read it.

 

[GNR4LIFE]

Michael Chammas has an agenda against Madge I reckon. He's got two articles ready to roll immediately after the match: lead article on Sunday, analysis on Monday. Nothing about the individual player performances, only commentary on the coach.

I’ve heard him speak about Madge before he had high hopes for us at the start of the season. Some of it is based on facts and the other headlines.

First foxtel are bad and news limited are bad
now it is SMH and Australian
The press are not out to get the club... we have issues and are incompetent don't shoot the messenger

I don't think it's the club, I think it's Chammas vs the coach specifically. For Chammas to write that there is a crisis meeting, then Tigers to immediately go public to quash it - either his mail is bad, or he has an axe to grind and will publish without checking his facts.


Chammas is going to be terribly disappointed when we start winning. We’ve been thereabouts and there’s something to like in the last 3 games, so a few wins aren’t far away.

We were nowhere against Manly and the Cows

 

[avocadoontoast]

Michael Chammas has an agenda against Madge I reckon. He's got two articles ready to roll immediately after the match: lead article on Sunday, analysis on Monday. Nothing about the individual player performances, only commentary on the coach.

I’ve heard him speak about Madge before he had high hopes for us at the start of the season. Some of it is based on facts and the other headlines.

First foxtel are bad and news limited are bad
now it is SMH and Australian
The press are not out to get the club... we have issues and are incompetent don't shoot the messenger

I don't think it's the club, I think it's Chammas vs the coach specifically. For Chammas to write that there is a crisis meeting, then Tigers to immediately go public to quash it - either his mail is bad, or he has an axe to grind and will publish without checking his facts.


Chammas is going to be terribly disappointed when we start winning. We’ve been thereabouts and there’s something to like in the last 3 games, so a few wins aren’t far away.


We were nowhere against Manly and the Cows

There's been very little to like all season.

 

[happy_tiger]

Madge has coached wins over Australia with NZ. Can only coach good players.

Yet no NZ players are racing to join the WT's .....

That is damning

And I look at all those English players that have joined Souths since Bennett went there...

Have they needed players ...not really

Do we ...hell yeah

 

[tony soprano]

Michael Chammas has an agenda against Madge I reckon. He's got two articles ready to roll immediately after the match: lead article on Sunday, analysis on Monday. Nothing about the individual player performances, only commentary on the coach.

I’ve heard him speak about Madge before he had high hopes for us at the start of the season. Some of it is based on facts and the other headlines.

First foxtel are bad and news limited are bad
now it is SMH and Australian
The press are not out to get the club... we have issues and are incompetent don't shoot the messenger

I don't think it's the club, I think it's Chammas vs the coach specifically. For Chammas to write that there is a crisis meeting, then Tigers to immediately go public to quash it - either his mail is bad, or he has an axe to grind and will publish without checking his facts.

You do realise he is in the business of selling papers too

 

[tony soprano]

Michael Chammas has an agenda against Madge I reckon. He's got two articles ready to roll immediately after the match: lead article on Sunday, analysis on Monday. Nothing about the individual player performances, only commentary on the coach.

I’ve heard him speak about Madge before he had high hopes for us at the start of the season. Some of it is based on facts and the other headlines.

First foxtel are bad and news limited are bad
now it is SMH and Australian
The press are not out to get the club... we have issues and are incompetent don't shoot the messenger

I don't think it's the club, I think it's Chammas vs the coach specifically. For Chammas to write that there is a crisis meeting, then Tigers to immediately go public to quash it - either his mail is bad, or he has an axe to grind and will publish without checking his facts.


Chammas is going to be terribly disappointed when we start winning. We’ve been thereabouts and there’s something to like in the last 3 games, so a few wins aren’t far away.

I love your outlook mines not so bright