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Balmain legend Benny Elias’ advice for ‘broken’ Wests Tigers
With the Wests Tigers’ finals drought set to continue. a club legend has floated an idea for how the Tigers can turn their form around.
Matthew Sullivan
4 min read
August 30, 2021 - 4:56PM
Balmain legend Benny Elias believes the Wests Tigers need to hire a legend of the game in a mentoring role to help fix the club’s “broken” halves pairing.
The Tigers are 13th on the NRL ladder and are set to miss out on the top eight for the 10th year in a row — the longest finals drought of any team in the competition.
The emergence of Adam Doueihi at five-eighth has been one of the few bright spots for the Tigers, but he will miss at least the opening rounds of next season after suffering a partial tear of his ACL in his left knee during the round 23 loss to Cronulla.
With Doueihi’s injury and Super League Man of Steel winner Jackson Hastings joining the club in 2022 to support Luke Brooks, it’s unclear what halves combination the Tigers will go with next season.
“I’m a big fan of Doueihi, I think he’s a great player,” Elias told news.com.au.
“I think he’s really excelled well this year as a great leader.
“I think he (Hastings) will probably go to five-eighth. I can’t see Brooksy at five-eighth — Brooksy’s a number seven, he’s not a five-eighth.
“You need someone that’s got great vision and I think Hastings at six will do that and I think Adam will probably go back to fullback or in the centres.
“I see Hastings being a five-eighth. He’ll introduce new ideas, I think he’ll be a real welcome addition to our club, especially in the halves.”
Elias, who was the gun hooker for the legendary Balmain side of the 1980s and 1990s, believes the Tigers halves have a lot of room for improvement.
“It’s certainly a concern,” he said.
“It’s no secret that halves are the most important players on the paddock.
“You have a look at all the sides who are in the top four and you look at their halves.
“They’re the ones that create the line breaks, they’re the ones with the kicking game, they drive your team, they’re the quarterback.
“They drive your car. You’ve got a beautiful car but if you’ve got a sh*thouse driver you’re in trouble.
“You need to learn to drive properly, you need to learn how to take turns. Your five-eighth and halfback do that, they’re the drivers of the whole team.
“So that is where the emphasis and the importance would be from my point of view for what we need to fix.
“It’s broken at the moment but we can fix it. It’s taken us a long while to get a combination at seven and six.”
Elias believes the Tigers should try and employ the services of a “brilliant player of the past” such as Andrew Johns, Cooper Cronk or Brad Fittler in a mentoring capacity to help the playmakers get the best out of their game.
“What we do know, we’ve got Hastings, we’ve got Brooks, we’ve got Doueihi next year, you’ve got to work with what you’ve got and the personnel you’ve got there,” he said.
“The way to better that is to introduce some very, very experienced good people who coach and have done already in that field. You get great players who have played in that position.
“The Parramatta Eels go out and get Joey Johns to help Mitchell Moses and Dylan Brown. You’ve got Cooper Cronk who looks after the Roosters in the halves there.
“You’ve got great players of the past who commit to those two players, they become their mentors. And I don’t know whether we’ve got that at the club.
“The obvious ones that come to mind are Joey and Cronk and maybe (Brad) Fittler, those three. And you welcome them into the team and see if they’re able or willing to be part of trying to fix our problem.”
Elias said despite the fact the team requires “a lot of fixing” by incoming head of football Tim Sheens, there is reason for Tigers fans to be optimistic the tide will turn soon.
“There’s a lot of light and potential still for next year, which is a good thing,” he said.
“It’s not a dead and dusted thing. And we can introduce a halves relationship with Hastings who’ll bring some new ideas and we need some good strong support there and he offers that.”
Elias also said he thinks Michael Maguire should stay on as coach and has the ability to turn around the run of poor results.
“At the beginning of the year you would have thought we were a certainty for the top eight,” he said.
“Madge has been there for three years and he’s got to take responsibility.
“The buck stops with him. At the end of the day he’s the coach and he’s accountable for the results.
“And you see coaches get sacked only when they’re not doing too well.
“Is he the right man for the job? I believe he is and watching the Tiger Town documentary, I believe he’s got all the good qualities.
“What I love about Madge is his passion and his ethics to work hard for the club. I find that extraordinary, I love that.”
