Michael Maguire leaves club

[Madge]

It was evident by naming Brooks at halfback and Hastings at 6 for round 1, it wasn't until all the reports came out his job was really on the line that he made the positional change.

Hastings was bought prior to AD’s injury. He was looked at as a 13. With Brooks and AD in the 6 and 7. It wasn’t until his injury that he had to change it. So yes he did have a clear strategy when purchasing Hastings.

 

[batboy]

Hastings was bought prior to AD’s injury. He was looked at as a 13. With Brooks and AD in the 6 and 7. It wasn’t until his injury that he had to change it. So yes he did have a clear strategy when purchasing Hastings.

If you believe that - You'll believe anything....

He's on 500k!!
You don't pay 500k for a halfback to play lock - When he's never played there.

 

[Kelce68]

I

Hastings was bought prior to AD’s injury. He was looked at as a 13. With Brooks and AD in the 6 and 7. It wasn’t until his injury that he had to change it. So yes he did have a clear strategy when purchasing Hastings.

Don't think for one second that they saw Hastings as a 13. I think that was the public chatter because they wanted to see who would prevail out of Hastings, Brooks and madden for the long term number 7 and wanted to do so without upsetting any of them in the meantime.

Hastings has now won that race and will be no. 7 so long as he is at the club. Meaning, I personally don't think they would mind releasing Brooks now, given what they have learnt about Hastings ability back in the NRL.

Had they come out and declared from day dot that he in the new half back, before a ball had been kicked, they would've risked madden and Brooks both walking out or exploring opportunities elsewhere, which would've been catastrophic at a time with doueihi also sidelined.

 

[Viking Warrior]

It’s a legit reason though . People talk about how Voldemort had us in 9th etc , but the guy presided over the oldest team in the comp at the time.
The team was chock full of mercenaries and resembled what expansion teams of the 90s felt like . A whole bunch of ex internationals who maybe had 1 or 2 good seasons left .
And he wisely bailed before those guys tethering on a cliff , went off the cliff .
For all we know if Cleary had had stayed we would have got the spoon with those squads the last 2 years . And we would have no green shoots , no Hastings , no AD, no Stefano etc.
That team that came 9th , almost all of it bar Momirovski , and brooks are either retired , should retire , or being bog average in Europe .
Credit to Voldemort for milking the cow dry , but like I said Who’s to say Voldemort wouldn’t have put us in the toilet the last few years , instead of treading water .

Bullshit how can you speculate Cleary would of got us the spoon I like Madge but Cleary was the better coach albeit he stuffed us over and I'll always hold a grudge against him for that. When he was the coach he was getting more out of the players then Madge like it or not.

 

[Mighty_Tiger]

I don't think there is a coach at this club who has ever had the squad he wants because the players that are required to reach the standards needed to be successful have not wanted to come to the club. When you are forced to spend the cap under the rules of the system and your junior system is delivering very little the players that you have to take a risk with are players that have been discarded from other squads and or those well past their best. The whole it his squad thing still turns a blind eye to quality of the players who are prepared to play at this club compared to the ones who choose not to.

I don't disagree with that at all but the reality is any new coach that goes into a team has very similar problems. They inherit someones else team, salary cap constraints etc.

People keep saying the following:

1) Passion for the club - awesome, I love his passion. I think he is a top bloke and actually does throw everything into his job. But Passion isn't getting results. Our last 4 games we are averaging 34.5pts a game. The passion isn't rubbing off and hasn't over the 4yrs.

2) His CV - He hasn't had a positive win/loss record for a while, his premiership win was 8yrs ago and his contracted was ended at Souths within 2yrs of it.

3) He had salary cap pressure & never had his own team - This is something I find really interesting. 100% of coaches who take on a team has these exact same issues. Not their roster, salary cap used. Madge has been given 4yrs now. His best performing years as a coach was during the Cleary inherited roster and salary cap times. This year he has zero hang over from that and look at our squad. The complete squad he has this year was all signed under Madge, 100% of them. That includes Brooks on 1mil this season, Nofa on 5yr deal, Musgrove who hasn't played 50 games yet on a 5yr deal, signing Hastings/Brooks/AD + Liddle/Simpkin/Api on overlapping deals. BJ/JTJ/Gildart as our profile centers. The reality is it is his squad and they just aren't performing.

4) Injuries - Yes we have had a bucket load but so have alot of other sides as well. Raiders haven't used it as an excuse. Those who are injured have struggled over the years with us & been apart of the losing sides. Are they really a loss? Some sides actually have had more crucial injuries to key players than us. AD is the main one but we don't know how he fits into the structure. Coaching isn't just about the 17 who take the park this week it's about how do you prepare those next inline to be able to step up & development plans to support them to be a success. I'm yet to see any development coming from our reserve graders lasting it in the NRL over 4yrs. When players get called up they don't just fit in they often look at each other.

5) He was doing too much not allowing him to focus more on coaching - interesting, they sack his assistants, bring in new ones. Setup various functions all to make his role easier with 100% his squad but we aren't improving. We look disjointed in attack, our backup players don't know their role, we are leaking points, our bench use has been atrocious & we aren't seeing any improvement in our players. But he is meant to have more time to coach the team this year so how does this make sense. If Hastings wasn't playing we would be dead last right now.


I really like Madge, stuck by him last year when he was copping it and for the early part of the year was willing to give him half of the season to see how we fair. We are at that point and I'm really struggling to find reasons why Madge should stay if a different style of coach is a viable option.

 

[Mighty_Tiger]

Sorry, should be clearer in my posts. Of course the club fine isn't 25%. But as I wrote, the club fine AND players such as Matulino, Packer, Reynolds, Mbye ... all big money signings over which he had no control. That's the context. Sorry.

And then operating with what's left, making sure you fill the 30 spots, etc etc.

100% get it but what I find interesting is during that time Madge was getting more positive results than he is getting now without those restraints.

I just think we are trying to find excuses because we all like Madge v the reality as to why we are having a 2nd review in 6mths on his performance.

 

[Mighty_Tiger]

It’s a legit reason though . People talk about how Voldemort had us in 9th etc , but the guy presided over the oldest team in the comp at the time.
The team was chock full of mercenaries and resembled what expansion teams of the 90s felt like . A whole bunch of ex internationals who maybe had 1 or 2 good seasons left .
And he wisely bailed before those guys tethering on a cliff , went off the cliff .
For all we know if Cleary had had stayed we would have got the spoon with those squads the last 2 years . And we would have no green shoots , no Hastings , no AD, no Stefano etc.
That team that came 9th , almost all of it bar Momirovski , and brooks are either retired , should retire , or being bog average in Europe .
Credit to Voldemort for milking the cow dry , but like I said Who’s to say Voldemort wouldn’t have put us in the toilet the last few years , instead of treading water .

Is it really a legit reason though

It would be if we sucked during the 2yrs but Madge actually had his best results then.

Last 2yrs the team has been his and we have sucked worse than when he had those mercenaries/old age home players.

 

[Mighty_Tiger]

Hastings was bought prior to AD’s injury. He was looked at as a 13. With Brooks and AD in the 6 and 7. It wasn’t until his injury that he had to change it. So yes he did have a clear strategy when purchasing Hastings.

Interesting you say that as Hastings debunked the 13 talk, he laughed at it when questioned on the Matty Johns show and said it was never discussed.

 

[Madge]

Interesting you say that as Hastings debunked the 13 talk, he laughed at it when questioned on the Matty Johns show and said it was never discussed.

Fair enough mate. I tried going back to find it. Mind if you share a time stamp ?

 

[batboy]

3) He had salary cap pressure & never had his own team - This is something I find really interesting. 100% of coaches who take on a team has these exact same issues. Not their roster, salary cap used. Madge has been given 4yrs now. His best performing years as a coach was during the Cleary inherited roster and salary cap times. This year he has zero hang over from that and look at our squad. The complete squad he has this year was all signed under Madge, 100% of them. That includes Brooks on 1mil this season, Nofa on 5yr deal, Musgrove who hasn't played 50 games yet on a 5yr deal, signing Hastings/Brooks/AD + Liddle/Simpkin/Api on overlapping deals. BJ/JTJ/Gildart as our profile centers. The reality is it is his squad and they just aren't performing.

I would argue most coaches who walk into those positions don't have contracts quite as large, Or for quite as long as Maguire did. Even if they did - It wouldn't be hard to argue those coaches weren't getting a little more bang for buck out of those players / contracts.

You state Maguire has zero hang over for that this year - It's common knowledge we're paying Mbye 400k (ish) to play at the Dragons this year. - So that is also incorrect.

No one seems to take into account the rep players that have left while still under contract - Are we a better team with Aloiai and Matterson last year, And the year before....
YES WE ARE
- Those 2 players left, Without equal or better quality on the market for us to replace them with.
Do we fall further down the ladder the last 2 years if they honour their contracts? - No probably not.

This year has already been judged as further failing - when it's not yet half way through...
How does that math work?

Last year we won 8 Games, This year we've been crippled by injuries and won 3 already...
We have 12 games left, If we win half of them - We've improved on last year!!
Any more than that... We've we and truly improved.
You can't say we've gone backwards for 4 years after 3.5 Years - It's not final - And it's not a fair argument.

Sacking Madge would totally be an old Wests Tigers thing to do - After the river of shit he's had to paddle through in his time here...
Hopefully the new Wests Tigers are smarter than that.

 

[twentyforty]

100% get it but what I find interesting is during that time Madge was getting more positive results than he is getting now without those restraints.

I just think we are trying to find excuses because we all like Madge v the reality as to why we are having a 2nd review in 6mths on his performance.

I thought it was a football department review? If it is a fair dinkum review then you don’t leave anything off the table, including dismissal of those not willing to pull in the same direction.
I like that the club is having an honest review but I wouldn’t like to see dismissals at every review. Oddly, the last person who did the review got sacked. LOL

 

[Telltails]

Bullshit how can you speculate Cleary would of got us the spoon I like Madge but Cleary was the better coach albeit he stuffed us over and I'll always hold a grudge against him for that. When he was the coach he was getting more out of the players then Madge like it or not.

Who knows it's all speculative. I reckon we would have broken Cleary by now. He had just as much trouble attracting talent and we produced so few juniors of any ability. If ever thought twice about jumping when he got sounded out

I don't disagree with that at all but the reality is any new coach that goes into a team has very similar problems. They inherit someones else team, salary cap constraints etc.

People keep saying the following:

1) Passion for the club - awesome, I love his passion. I think he is a top bloke and actually does throw everything into his job. But Passion isn't getting results. Our last 4 games we are averaging 34.5pts a game. The passion isn't rubbing off and hasn't over the 4yrs.

2) His CV - He hasn't had a positive win/loss record for a while, his premiership win was 8yrs ago and his contracted was ended at Souths within 2yrs of it.

3) He had salary cap pressure & never had his own team - This is something I find really interesting. 100% of coaches who take on a team has these exact same issues. Not their roster, salary cap used. Madge has been given 4yrs now. His best performing years as a coach was during the Cleary inherited roster and salary cap times. This year he has zero hang over from that and look at our squad. The complete squad he has this year was all signed under Madge, 100% of them. That includes Brooks on 1mil this season, Nofa on 5yr deal, Musgrove who hasn't played 50 games yet on a 5yr deal, signing Hastings/Brooks/AD + Liddle/Simpkin/Api on overlapping deals. BJ/JTJ/Gildart as our profile centers. The reality is it is his squad and they just aren't performing.

4) Injuries - Yes we have had a bucket load but so have alot of other sides as well. Raiders haven't used it as an excuse. Those who are injured have struggled over the years with us & been apart of the losing sides. Are they really a loss? Some sides actually have had more crucial injuries to key players than us. AD is the main one but we don't know how he fits into the structure. Coaching isn't just about the 17 who take the park this week it's about how do you prepare those next inline to be able to step up & development plans to support them to be a success. I'm yet to see any development coming from our reserve graders lasting it in the NRL over 4yrs. When players get called up they don't just fit in they often look at each other.

5) He was doing too much not allowing him to focus more on coaching - interesting, they sack his assistants, bring in new ones. Setup various functions all to make his role easier with 100% his squad but we aren't improving. We look disjointed in attack, our backup players don't know their role, we are leaking points, our bench use has been atrocious & we aren't seeing any improvement in our players. But he is meant to have more time to coach the team this year so how does this make sense. If Hastings wasn't playing we would be dead last right now.


I really like Madge, stuck by him last year when he was copping it and for the early part of the year was willing to give him half of the season to see how we fair. We are at that point and I'm really struggling to find reasons why Madge should stay if a different style of coach is a viable option.

Weak and weakened squads will be consistently inconsistent. I've seen it happen this year to far stronger squads than ours as soon as they are impacted by injury - regardless of who their coach is.
I've also seen good performances by this team that I didn't think they had in them
I'm not suggesting Maguire has all the answers as an individual, but replacing him wont immenntly make us any better off while ever we dont have the resources to field a competitive side and that largely falls back on quality of the players you have available to select from.
Let Maguire do the dirty work see out his contract and the pathways to FG might finally start come to fruition for whoever is the coach.
All in Sheens hands.

 

[Tiger-ferret]

I'm not sure how to take your response.
I actually agree with some of what you say and have expressed the exact same things myself in the last few days, so you've missed my whole point.

Every team has obstacles but we're still the only team in the competition that cannot seem to make the 8.
Take the teams I listed for example, Cowboys in particular. Payten's sole focus for this year was to have his team playing to the best of their capabilities and to their strengths. They were 15th last year and are now sitting in 3rd position.
We can only measure the team's success in terms of onfield results - not limitations - and there's gotta be a time where people can judge Madge's ( coaching ability on the team's performance levels and not the club's past mistakes or roster problems.
We can only play with what we've got and it's his responsibility to bring out the best in them.
Not to be rude but there's nothing wrong with feedback on Madge. I don't understand why you're so easily offended when it is negative though.

I’d love to have the talent scattered across the park that the cowboys have. They under achieved big time last year.

 

[earl]

It was evident by naming Brooks at halfback and Hastings at 6 for round 1, it wasn't until all the reports came out his job was really on the line that he made the positional change.

I think this is a complete misread of the situation.

If the club was happy with Brooks they wouldn't have bothered signing Hastings. Madden, Brooks and AD weren't considered good enough by the club so they went and got Hastings.

I think Brooks being pushed wider happened really early in the season as well.

 

[earl]

If you believe that - You'll believe anything....

He's on 500k!!
You don't pay 500k for a halfback to play lock - When he's never played there.

This is my take. The lock idea was a good story.

 

[Lauren]

I’d love to have the talent scattered across the park that the cowboys have. They under achieved big time last year.

I think they're highly suited to the modern game.Read this a few weeks back and found it intriguing he's somewhat following the blueprint of 05. https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/th...o-see-the-tigers-winning-20220512-p5aksg.html

 

[earl]

Sacking Madge would totally be an old Wests Tigers thing to do - After the river of shit he's had to paddle through in his time here...
Hopefully the new Wests Tigers are smarter than that.

To me the big problem with discussing Madge and if he is the right coach for us is that we haven't been a good team for a long time. We haven't had the cattle. We don't have the cattle for next year as well.

How do we know if he is the right coach ?

 

[Lauren]

Thanks for your response Lauren,I only want to say one thing and that is this year we expected to be a bit better than last year around about 11/12th maybe with the roster we have,,,Laurie breaks his leg last year and made a a weary start to this year,AD does a knee,out until rnd 14 this year and was our best player until he done his knee,AJ out with a bad knee etc...
So this year Hastings out 3 weeks,more injuries to players Brooks,Laurie again,Ken M playing on one leg and all of a sudden Madge has nearly HALF his NRL side out and our fringe players get used to fill those voids...So how can Madge get top results with most of his top players out,its not that easy...Typical,tonight the Titans now have lost 8 out of 9 games this year and played finals last year..
Anyone is entitled to an opinion of course and Im not angry or negative at you at all,Im just stating that its not fair to judge Madge after all the crap he has had to manage,get the pathways active again and this year woeful injuries to start the year..

Thanks for clarifying. Let's call it a truce.
Just don't want to fight with you over Madge 😂

 

[supercoach]

When was the last time a coach turned a team of battlers into world beaters….Probably Sheens.

Now it’s all about the players you have in your top thirty, the players who are in your pathway system, the health of your cap and your injury run.

Anyone of the current 16 coaches would have success at Penrith and Iam sure Ivan would struggle at the Dogs. I think way to much expectations are placed on coaches. Okay they are in a profession that is judged on wins, but getting wins is often controlled by things they can not control. I guess if there was enough talent to fill 17 teams, than we could judge all the coaches, but at present there is a real shortage of talent that is spread unequally among the teams.

 

[Deleted member 3518]

Is it really a legit reason though

It would be if we sucked during the 2yrs but Madge actually had his best results then.

Last 2yrs the team has been his and we have sucked worse than when he had those mercenaries/old age home players.

Ah yeah , cause he spent 2 years ridding the joint of the old contracts , filling spots in the squad with guys like AJ Kepaoa , hoping to strike gold , because all the guys taking the big money we’re playing for wests magpies .
The year before last he had Packer , and reynolds doing nothing , last year he had mbye killing our cap , and he swung for the fence in BJ. Got guys who were once the top of the good chain in roberts on cheap . Even this year it’s been confirmed we are paying 450k for mbye to ride the bench for the dragons .
You could say he extended brooks when he shouldn’t have , but he was just removed from a dally m award , and the reality is even now someone like Madden can command 500k . Showing that in all honesty brooks is probably even if he’s on 1 mil , about 200k overs . Blake green at 35 was getting 650k just to reference .
It is estimated the last 4 years we have been anywhere from 500-1mil under the cap . That’s in players having been bought out .
But if you think about dead weight like packer and Reynolds it’s probably more like 2 mil at some points .
The fact we haven’t been fighting with the dogs for wooden spoons is a miracle .
I’m not saying Madge is the best or worst or that someone else might have been way better , but when he took over he had hope in the squad , I don’t think he realised how busted half the squad was .