‘Doesn’t bother me’: Benji’s brutal answer as worrying Tigers issues are laid bare
Benji Marshall has well and truly put his time at the Wests Tigers behind him.
The 36-year-old — who played 257 games over two stints with the Tigers — was asked on NRL 360 about how he feels watching his old club struggle so early in the season.
Marshall was brutally honest as he batted away the question.
“My interest in what they were stopped about in October when they let me go,” he said.
“I was focused on what I was going to do next. I don’t take too much interest into what they’re doing, it doesn’t affect me like it used to when I was there.
“I’m fully invested in Souths. What they’re doing at the moment doesn’t bother me. When I was there it did, but not now.”
Marshall was shown the door at the end of last season by coach Michael Maguire. His axing was particularly harsh given he discovered he was on the outer through news reports, despite going down in history as one of the Wests Tigers’ greatest.
The Tigers have had back-to-back losses this year, which Marshall did eventually touch on.
“We can talk about them that’s fine,” he said.
“They haven’t been up to scratch. They’ve had two pretty tough games, you have to take into account they played Canberra and the Roosters — two top four teams. Did you expect them to win any of those games?”
NRL 360 host Ben Ikin responded to Marshall, pointing out that it’s not the fact that the Tigers have lost their first two games which is most concerning, it’s the lack of improvement.
“I expected them to better,” he said.
“It’s not always about wins and losses, what you want to see if you’re trying to build to something better that there are indicators in the performance that suggest you are moving forward.
“There was nothing about that game (against the Roosters) that suggest the Tigers are better than they were last year.”
Former Bulldogs and Dragons forward James Graham believes the Tigers’ defence is a real sticking point in the team’s troubles.
“They don’t like look like they’re a Michael Maguire side at the moment,” he said.
“Going back to when he started at Wigan (in the Super League), he had a real impact there and that was built on defence... he comes to Souths and you see a noticeable difference in how they’re playing defensively and he’s just not having that impact with the playing group at the moment.
“All his teams always looked so well-drilled. You knew exactly what you were going to get with them in terms of their defensive structure.
“If you came up with a play that beat that, they seemed to be happy enough to go ‘you got us there but we’re going to stick to your guns on this.’
“At the minute they look like they almost don’t really have any structure.”
Graham went on to say Maguire has a huge task ahead of him and he has to figure out the right approach to get his team firing.
“Maguire’s possibly got one of the biggest tests of his coaching career. Does he put the pedal down more or does he lay off?”
Marshall — who spent two seasons under Maguire — gave his take on what the under pressure coach should do next.
“He’s put the pedal down before and that didn’t go very well so maybe he has to go the other way.”
Maguire made a couple of changes for Sunday’s clash with the Knights. The most important one being dropping centre Joey Leilua to reserve grade after a pretty poor performance last week.
