OFFICIAL Q&A Club discussion with Shaun Mielekamp

Hey everyone

I know it has been a while since I have been able to jump on and provide some updates and answers. I did take the opportunity to have a break with the family who had not seen me this year and upon return had focused on ensuring the club was ready for the return of the coaches and players.

You would have seen that the first crop of players have started pre-season and the energy is really good here at the club. As mentioned there is a huge focus on standards for 2027 and we will continue to embed this into the season.

There were a few common themes and questions since I was last on and many of them would have been answered by now. But to provide some summary and context to a couple of them.

The announcement of departing players was held until we could make a clear collective statement without fueling more debate or speculation. We wanted to be respectful to those departing players and some of these decisions impacted on each other and because of the small domino effect that had was why we had to wait until Oct 30 to make the announcement. I hope you can appreciate that the club should not make a statement until things are fully finalised.

The addition of the new coaches in Ryan Carr and Mick Crawley are key appointments that we needed to make to improve not only the 2027 season but also provide an impact on the entire pathway. Their experience and acumen matched exactly what we identified we needed to bring to the coaching staff and we are very excited to have them on board. Having also seen them both in action for the last couple of days I am very confident we have brought in some key people to help the club move forward. I appreciate that these appointments come with a lot of opinions and comments from everyone on if these are the right or wrong appointments. The process we went through for these appointments was a thorough one follows the clubs policy for on recruitment for any role at the club. So yes there was an advertisement of the roles and a rigorous interview process which attracted many candidates. Ryan and Mick were stand outs through this whole process that involved a selection panel of which I was a part of. It is inappropriate for me to disclose who the other candidates are or the finer details of the process so I hope everyone can get behind and support the new members of our club to be a part of our future.

I did want to outline a bit more on the appointment of Mick Crawley as the Pathways Coaching director, this is a new role with a specific focus to address the resources and focus on our coach development at the club. The experience that Mick brings will benefit all coaches at the club and the aim is overtime to ensure that our coach development program is consistent and ensures that we are developing future NRL Wests Tigers players.

The other big item that landed since I was last on here was the news that we are looking to take a home match to NZ. With the draw not far away the finer details are still to be released but yes this is a match that the financial benefit to the club played a significant part. For the club to continue to grow our resources in a season that we will not have Leichhardt and weigh up against the rest of the options I am excited to bring a match to a new market. I appreciate the feedback about taking a match away from our home fans and for those that travelled to NZ last year when we won will agree that we do have a lot of Wests Tigers fans across the ditch for us to nurture.

Again I am sure many of you will agree or disagree with this decision and I suggest that there was no perfect solution for us to take the last available match to for this season. Please consider that one of the long-term challenges for the club has always been to ensure we are financially competitive with the other clubs. This is why the strategic importance over the last few years has been to focus on stadium upgrades at both Leichhardt and Campbelltown so the long term will reduce the need for these games to be taken away. Whilst those venues are under development for the next two years we still need to grow financially and the three matches of Magic Round, NZ and Easter Monday are vital to ensure that we keep the resources needed for the footy departments. The club used to take matches regionally however the financial returns were not in the same ballpark.

The financial improvement by the club over the last few seasons has allowed us to increase the resources we have and some examples has been the increase of resource to the NRLW and the increase in resources to the Pathways for this season.

I hope for nothing else this helps explain the decision for you all and as the draw comes out this will also make more sense when viewed across the entire season.

Sorry for the long post I know it was overdue - I will try and answer a few more questions before getting back to work.
 
Leck said:
Thanks, but that’s a very political response. You said a lot without actually saying anything.

Can you please answer my initial question - How will you and HBG ensure we make the 8 in 2027?

I can guarantee that Tigers supporters are stunned that the Knights have gone from the wooden spoon to the grand final.

As fans, we’ve been waiting for similar success. However, each year seems to produce the same results.

So, what will actually change next year to ensure we see a different outcome?
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Hey Leck

Sorry if you felt I wasn't clear enough in my previous responses, not trying to be political just trying to be appropriate on public commentary. One of those changes is for us to be more confidential with internal matters at the club and getting the balance between that and also being transparent is a challenge in a club with so much media scrutiny.

I share the admiration for the Knights season and we have paid close attention to them in particular to how they went about their Vegas campaign from last year.

The last word any fans want to hear from me is 'rebuild' and that is not what we are doing. The improvements for 2027 will come from being consistent, lifting standards, reducing distractions, reducing injuries and delivering strong leadership. We are backing our players and people at the club to continue to improve, we showed at the back end of last year that we have a team that can beat the eventual premiers so it is about getting it right rather than looking for a new saviour or a big play.
 
achilles said:
How will that appointment help the fist grade team in the short term ?

Could you please explain the role and if it has any oversight with the first grade team?
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The role is to ensure that there is a style of play and culture consistent through the entire club. Players are to be trained and developed knowing the standards, drills, processes that will be required to be success at the NRL level. The connection with the first grade team is vital to ensure this is implemented, we cannot have players that come through the pathway but then have to start from scratch to understand what is required. This is one of our biggest competitive advantages that we have not yet unlocked.
 
ShaunMielekamp said:
Hey everyone

I know it has been a while since I have been able to jump on and provide some updates and answers. I did take the opportunity to have a break with the family who had not seen me this year and upon return had focused on ensuring the club was ready for the return of the coaches and players.

You would have seen that the first crop of players have started pre-season and the energy is really good here at the club. As mentioned there is a huge focus on standards for 2027 and we will continue to embed this into the season.

There were a few common themes and questions since I was last on and many of them would have been answered by now. But to provide some summary and context to a couple of them.

The announcement of departing players was held until we could make a clear collective statement without fueling more debate or speculation. We wanted to be respectful to those departing players and some of these decisions impacted on each other and because of the small domino effect that had was why we had to wait until Oct 30 to make the announcement. I hope you can appreciate that the club should not make a statement until things are fully finalised.

The addition of the new coaches in Ryan Carr and Mick Crawley are key appointments that we needed to make to improve not only the 2027 season but also provide an impact on the entire pathway. Their experience and acumen matched exactly what we identified we needed to bring to the coaching staff and we are very excited to have them on board. Having also seen them both in action for the last couple of days I am very confident we have brought in some key people to help the club move forward. I appreciate that these appointments come with a lot of opinions and comments from everyone on if these are the right or wrong appointments. The process we went through for these appointments was a thorough one follows the clubs policy for on recruitment for any role at the club. So yes there was an advertisement of the roles and a rigorous interview process which attracted many candidates. Ryan and Mick were stand outs through this whole process that involved a selection panel of which I was a part of. It is inappropriate for me to disclose who the other candidates are or the finer details of the process so I hope everyone can get behind and support the new members of our club to be a part of our future.

I did want to outline a bit more on the appointment of Mick Crawley as the Pathways Coaching director, this is a new role with a specific focus to address the resources and focus on our coach development at the club. The experience that Mick brings will benefit all coaches at the club and the aim is overtime to ensure that our coach development program is consistent and ensures that we are developing future NRL Wests Tigers players.

The other big item that landed since I was last on here was the news that we are looking to take a home match to NZ. With the draw not far away the finer details are still to be released but yes this is a match that the financial benefit to the club played a significant part. For the club to continue to grow our resources in a season that we will not have Leichhardt and weigh up against the rest of the options I am excited to bring a match to a new market. I appreciate the feedback about taking a match away from our home fans and for those that travelled to NZ last year when we won will agree that we do have a lot of Wests Tigers fans across the ditch for us to nurture.

Again I am sure many of you will agree or disagree with this decision and I suggest that there was no perfect solution for us to take the last available match to for this season. Please consider that one of the long-term challenges for the club has always been to ensure we are financially competitive with the other clubs. This is why the strategic importance over the last few years has been to focus on stadium upgrades at both Leichhardt and Campbelltown so the long term will reduce the need for these games to be taken away. Whilst those venues are under development for the next two years we still need to grow financially and the three matches of Magic Round, NZ and Easter Monday are vital to ensure that we keep the resources needed for the footy departments. The club used to take matches regionally however the financial returns were not in the same ballpark.

The financial improvement by the club over the last few seasons has allowed us to increase the resources we have and some examples has been the increase of resource to the NRLW and the increase in resources to the Pathways for this season.

I hope for nothing else this helps explain the decision for you all and as the draw comes out this will also make more sense when viewed across the entire season.

Sorry for the long post I know it was overdue - I will try and answer a few more questions before getting back to work.
Click to expand...
Thank you Shaun, greatly appreciate the time you are taking to respond to comments in this thread.

Two quickies ...

1. Will the club announce who our full training squad are over the pre-season including who our Development and Train & Trial players are?

2. When will we hear which players have been selected as part of the training squads in our male pathways? I see the female squads were released a few weeks ago on socials but nothing on the lads yet.
 
ShaunMielekamp said:
I hope I explained this in my long post - but we had not finalised some of the departures that had an impact on who we could keep within the roster.
Click to expand...
Hi Shaun, can you confirm how many spots are remaining in the top 30 and the status of the contracts of Christian Taupau-Moors, Archie Duncombe, Charlie Murray and Pheonix Godinet, and whether Heath Mason and Tony Sukkar have been retained?
 
Tito Santana said:
Shaun,

Tell me what you’re going to do to bring this club success?

Why are you any better than the previous CEOs?
Click to expand...
Hi Tito

I am going to work bloody hard to turn the long term of the club around. I am focused on alignment at all levels of the club which i believe has not been there to produce consistent results.

A focus on our pathways is important to me as I see this as integral in our long term success.

I intend to ensure that the culture and values of the Wests Tigers is ingrained in all staff and players. I firmly believe in backing our people, owning our results, living high standards, finding innovative solutions and being a unified club. I know we have a long way to go here but this is my first off season as a CEO here so I am rolling the sleeves up and getting on with it.

I'm not going to proport to be better that previous CEO's but I do intend to have learnt from their mistakes so we don't make the same mistakes twice.
 
Halbrowne61 said:
Hi Shaun, one of your teal old Tigers fans here.
If revenue is the driver then why not Homebush, it provides massive extra capacity but takes away any perceived. “ Parra” home ground advantage .
Plus it will be good experience for our finals appearances next year ! (🤞🤞🤞)
After all , if Newy can do it then so can we.
Keep up your good work and all the best for a cracking 2027. Please remind the boys it all starts in Vegas. Storm are due to lose their first game of à new season, and what a boost for us to start the year !
Click to expand...
The numbers at Commbank financially are better than Homebush. Whilst there is a larger capacity the ticket prices are often heavily reduced to try and fill the stadium. The historical data from when we played there shows a better financial return at Commbank. Also the match day experience at Homebush being further away has been feedback from members that they also don't like Homebush as an option.
 
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