OFFICIAL Q&A Club discussion with Shaun Mielekamp

Terrell May and Jahream Bula were both recently given major contract upgrades and extensions and are now both being paid above 900k per season by Wests Tigers.
This was all endorsed by Benji who asked/demanded to have full control of all rugby league related matters including the recruitment and retention.
This is a much bigger issue and concern than anything to do with the Luai issue.
So who is at fault, the club board for giving Benji all this power and control or the club board itself?
Many say the club board itself as it has now been happening over and over for the past 15 years and therefore the club board need to take plenty of blame, but they have to put their trust in somebody and currently that person is Benji.
I am not suggesting we churn through another coach and go through yet another total rebuild, but the onus has to be on Benji to put his hand up and own the fact he has been getting plenty wrong regarding recruitment and retention, which leads to the playing roster and matchday team selections.
There are certain players in the current NRL team that are way overrated, some who keep being selected that are simply not good enough to be regular NRL players and some that are certainly not ready for the weekly grind of playing NRL each and every week.
This being the case it’s not possible to win games consistently and be consistent over a full NRL season.
The playing roster needs a major review and major overhaul to ensure none of our underwhelming players keep their positions in the NRL team if they are not playing up to NRL standard.

I will add that unlike Terrell, Jahream has tried really hard over the last couple of weeks and is doing some things such as digging into the line much better than he has ever done before.
The problem with Jahream is certainly not lack of effort or commitment, he simply is not good e ough to have the pressure of being a marquee player.
That being said, there is little doubt Jahream can and will contribute much better than he has recently had the opportunity to do once we get a better quality team around him iwhich needs to include some other fast and tackle busting backs
 
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ShaunMielekamp said:
I agree with you more money is needed- I'm passionate about this needs to be improved. I can't answer why it hasn't happened in the past but I can answer why it should happen and confirm this is a conversation i am having with all four boards, I need to present a clear and concise plan for investment - there is a lot to be done here and this is the real key to our long term future success.
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Hi Shaun thanks for coming on and discussing things with us fans it cant be easy but i guarantee its very much appreciated. The tone of some of the fans might be a bit off, though imo its only because for the life of Wests Tigers in particularly the past 15 years, there hasnt been a real avenue for us to go down to ask whats going on. Every owner we have had has been insulated, every admin unanswerable for the issues we have. Its just pure frustration. So thank you for your time. Your statement right there is my issue though. HBG have more money than Scrooge Mcduck. You shouldnt need to go looking to generate more money, any owner with more than 2 braincells to rub togeather would know we are one of if not the most underfunded team in the league and just write a blank cheque. They are a not for profit. Your working to generate more revenue streams to supplement more funds for us and the owners who should be funding us instead decide to buy a share in an A league side. Why, so they can make them the poverty team of the A league. Everyone knows the problem at the Wests Tigers is HBG, they havnt got a clue what theyre doing. My question is why cant you just tell HBG to dump more money in every year, they easily have it. Also what is being done to indulate the Wests Tigers from board instability at HBG. Its all quiet now, it was 12 months ago aswell before they decided to blow the place up. Also can you organise pay pal payment for memberships online. Thanks for coming on, imo you've been doing a great job since taking over.
 
Since this thread was started with good intentions by @ShaunMielekamp to connect with forum members, please keep discussion from here on on topic. Questions to ask of SM, the club, and keep the griping to other threads. There's about a million of them.

Off topic posts will be, and have been, deleted.

Thanks
WTF admin team
 
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@ShaunMielekamp I have a question regarding memberships.

I purchase NRL and NRLW memberships as xmas gifts for family.

Ours are without doubt the worst value for money. I buy 3 children's memberships, one for Roosters, one Bulldogs, and one WT. The Roosters one is far and away the best value.

I also buy 2 (used to be 5) bronze Campbelltown memberships. My seats have been shuffled along from the 30m line to about 12m. Northern end, so my member seats are in the opposition bay.

The price has increased, but my game day experience has significantly decreased, to the point of not wanting to renew my 2 ticketed and 2 non-ticketed memberships. Not to mention the 800km, 10 hours driving round trip on game day.

My question is why are our memberships so poor? Do your marketing team look at other membership packages? And if they do, how do Wests Tigers justify the most expensive packages, especially when our team is literally one of the worst in the NRL.

A second question is why can't we have an NRL and NRLW packaged membership? And why are the NRLW packages not released at the same time as the NRL ones?

I have been a member on and off since 2006, and consistently since 2012, but I am really reconsidering for 2027.
 
Suzie-Q said:
@ShaunMielekamp I have a question regarding memberships.

I purchase NRL and NRLW memberships as xmas gifts for family.

Ours are without doubt the worst value for money. I buy 3 children's memberships, one for Roosters, one Bulldogs, and one WT. The Roosters one is far and away the best value.

I also buy 2 (used to be 5) bronze Campbelltown memberships. My seats have been shuffled along from the 30m line to about 12m. Northern end, so my member seats are in the opposition bay.

The price has increased, but my game day experience has significantly decreased, to the point of not wanting to renew my 2 ticketed and 2 non-ticketed memberships. Not to mention the 800km, 10 hours driving round trip on game day.

My question is why are our memberships so poor? Do your marketing team look at other membership packages? And if they do, how do Wests Tigers justify the most expensive packages, especially when our team is literally one of the worst in the NRL.

A second question is why can't we have an NRL and NRLW packaged membership? And why are the NRLW packages not released at the same time as the NRL ones?

I have been a member on and off since 2006, and consistently since 2012, but I am really reconsidering for 2027.
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I wish to echo these questions. And would like to add further information from a different perspective.

Firstly, despite living just 10 minutes from campbelltown stadium unlike you Suzie, who admirably do make that massive trip each game, I do question the memberships with this club, and the value that all fans get with it compared to the majority of other clubs in both gameday, and members rewards/recognition.

The only saving grace for my memberships unlike yours Suzie is that my two memberships have not been relocated (yet). As I know with the upgrade to Leichhardt that is happening, that the corporate seats will be getting the prime seating position in the new stand from the plans. And with that I know that we (my mother and I who currently sit right next to the corporate seating on the roughly 35 metre line), along with a lot of other long term members that are closer to halfway, who have spent a lot of money on the club over the years through memberships that continue to increase in price, and attend most, if not all, games every year, will be unceremoniously shuffled down the stand towards the goals to far worse seating positions than what we have now, and have held for years (getting close to 20 years for us) to help serve the corporate dollar. And yet I and my mother, who is now a pensioner, will have to fork out more money for the ever increasing, and yet seemingly cheaper and less quality membership product while also making that move against our want.

Beyond that is the lack of anything that shows the clubs appreciation for members, I know people who hit 20 years this year who received a keyring, and a cheap one at that, and nothing else. Membership didn't even know that they were, as no-one was in that department back then. This clearly shows a lack of care and professionalism with previous membership departments not keeping records like they should, especially for a professional sporting club. But it is more than that, so often people in the "cheap seats" (no such thing any more really) and may not even be members are the recipients of prizes or rewards from the club, while those who are long time members paying far more are left to just sit and watch.

Then there is the watch the team warm up and be the ones lining up for the run out. Sure it doesn't interest me to do it, as you are guaranteed to miss some of the game, and despite the onfield product I would far more prefer to see the whole game rather than have to walk back to my seats. But with that being said, not once have myself or my mother been asked even if we want to (again, nearly 20 years), and now, I believe it is a pay extra to have the chance option. Again this just shows the clubs lack of care for their long term members, and more to the increase in income.

Oh and of course the sell your seat option. Great idea. Actually did it, and saw on the ticketing website that they sold. Excellent!! Someone that couldn't get tickets actually got to go when I couldn't. However, any contact from the club to say that we will get our discount (which was going to be a fraction of what the tickets actually sold for)? Nope. Honestly didn't even try to contact the club, as probably wouldn't have gotten us anywhere, and that says a lot about how we are feeling about the membership department, let alone the club as a whole at the moment.

And with the NRLW membership. We have been supporter members of that since it became an option. Did we get an option to renew this year, or an auto-renew? Nope. Just messages to sign up from scratch, no mention even on the membership portal of even having been members in the past.

So after all of that, where is the incentive to keep our memberships in any form?

And I am not asking for member days (which most of the time are poorly organised for those with jobs), but for far better game day experiences, better treatment of members as a whole, proper contact, and of course better prices for better quality across everything from packs, to recognition of membership, in line with the rest of the NRL who are doing far better.

It is getting harder and harder to actually want to try and support this club financially. The onfield and back room issues are one thing, and I am not even going to get into them, which does impact on the want to buy memberships. But it is also the smaller things that make you feel like you are actually respected and wanted that really makes the difference. Currently, and for a long time, that is not the experience that we have had.
 
Shaun, serious question, noting that you have said you can’t comment on football operations etc:

Given how consistently poorly the club has performed over the last 15 years, despite different coaches, playing groups and playing styles, and that throughout that time Wests Tigers have had the same salary cap as all the other clubs, it seems from the outside that the two constants throughout that time have been the owners of the club and the relative lack of funding for non-salary capped areas.

As I know you can’t change the ownership of the club, what is the plan and the immediate and medium term goals to lift the non-salary capped funding?

Rather than hearing about a player re-build (which we have heard about repeatedly), it will benefit fans and members to know a firm plan for funding the club, and what are the measurable benchmarks so we can have some hope things might get better.

Right now, things look incredibly bleak.
 
Hi Mods,

I have a suggestion to help streamline this thread.

Could we turn this into a strict Q&A-only thread? To keep it organised, we could move the general discussion and banter to a separate thread. That way, forum members can still chat freely without Shaun having to sift through irrelevant comments to find actual questions.

Obviously, if a post adds valuable context to someone’s question or idea, it should stay. Otherwise, keeping the main thread clean gives Shaun an easy place to answer questions, while leaving the spin-off thread available for when he wants to dive deeper into fan feedback.

Thanks for considering!
-_-
 
Shaun the toughest question I could possibly ask you is how you intend to achieve results for a club owned by the Holman Barnes Group.

When the necessary actions require consistent long term leadership and identity formation and investment into bleeding edge areas like sports science and psychology, organisational design, brand and narrative influence etc. and the Holman Barnes Group themselves cannot allow an independent organisation to operate the football club, how do you intend to navigate this?

How do you keep HBG from negatively influencing the football performance? How do you transform them into a strength not a weakness?

How do you convince the ownership to invest in the necessary areas and stick with the plan long term?

I respect you taking on the role. I respect you even more for engaging with fans. If you can figure it out you'll become a legend of the game.
 
Hi @ShaunMielekamp
Hopefully see you back online soon, when you have the time to answer a few more questions.

My question is... after 5 losses in a row and concering feelings towards when the next win will be, what is the general discussions around this?

Is injuries and form to blame?
Depth just not handling the expectations?
Coaching staff not getting the players prepared for the game adequately?

Are you worried about the reports of PNG being interested in one of our best players, Samuela Fainu?

I'm willing to put my super coach hat on and make some suggestions privately, on who we can target, realistically to improve the roster. No salary necessary 🙂
 
Hi Shaun. This is my first post on the forum, but been a tigers fan for about 45 years. Appreciate your time engaging with this forum and really believe you can take the club forward!!
I grew up a Balmain fan, but all on board the Wests Tigers since day 1.
Please could you tell us the plans to make us 1 club not a split club where people currently want to fight between Balmain and western suburbs?
 
G'day @ShaunMielekamp I didn't really have anything to say on this thread before, but given the nature of the result yesterday and in the last two months. I'm concerned our issues are coaching structural related, im not necessarily pointing the finger at Benji. But our coaching assisting him the 2005 boy's club i think that needs to be blown up and some actual quality experienced assistants need to be bought in to assist such a rookie coach.

Benji has openly admitted multiple time's results have been on him which i guess i have to take his words on that, but from the outside looking in he needs help and experienced help.
 
G'day @ShaunMielekamp ,

Been a member on and off since 2013, and while attendance constraints mean I’m not currently signed up, I'm still deeply invested in the club's long-term trajectory.

I have two specific questions regarding how the Wests Tigers navigate the NRL’s broader cultural objectives, strategic expansion, and government relations.

Clubs like Penrith, Easts, and Cronulla have successfully made their regions culturally "in vogue" and deeply tied to their brand identity. As a lifetime Inner West resident, I find it difficult to comprehend how underrepresented and under-promoted this beautiful, globally comparable region is by the club, especially alongside the distinct Macarthur footprint.

Given the recent significant financial commitments and infrastructure developments throughout both the Inner West and Macarthur corridors, what is the club's concrete strategy to promote these regions as genuine cultural hubs and secure the state-level government support we’ve historically struggled to capture?

The NRL clearly uses expansion for strategic soft power. A live demonstration of this is the PNG franchise, which leverages a wider federal geopolitical plan for the Asia-Pacific, backed by massive government injection into the sport. While this isn't a criticism of PNG, it shows where the game’s priorities lie.

As new franchises are introduced with heavy institutional backing, how do you, as CEO, communicate with the NRL to protect our grassroots-to-elite pathways? How do we ensure the Wests Tigers aren't pushed down the promotion totem pole, which will fundamentally hand a massive disadvantage to our Recruitment & Retention?

Appreciate your time and look forward to your insights on how we can restore, and show others our pride.

Cheers,
LC.
 
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