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REPEAT AFTER ME . . . I AM NOT A FAILURE
By Steve Mascord
Wests Tigers have revealed how they resurrected a dead campaign by taking a sports psychologist to a country retreat and convincing players they weren’t failures.
In the wake of last Sunday’s 17-10 win over Sydney Roosters – their fifth victory on the trot – coach Tim Sheens revealed that the Tigers’ expectation at the start of 2009 was to finish in the top four.
And he said when a round 15 loss to Melbourne put that dream out of reach, even captain Robbie Farah expressed the fear that the season was effectively over.
“We looked like we were slipping. Even the skipper, who is normally very positive about things, said, ‘This is going to be another one of those seasons’,” Sheens tells RLW.
“We wanted to finish in the top four. People said, ‘That’s stupid, it can’t happen’, but you have a look at the way the comp’s going and it’s not stupid. People would have said the Bulldogs can’t do that.”
Asked how Wests Tigers cheered themselves up after slumping to 13th with 10 games to play, star five-eighth Benji Marshall answers: “We went into a camp in Kiama and got the team together.”
Sheens explains: “The Kiama thing was my idea. We did a little bit of training and sat down and talked. We got the sports psych, Paul Penna, he went down and did some work with them too.”
By Steve Mascord
Wests Tigers have revealed how they resurrected a dead campaign by taking a sports psychologist to a country retreat and convincing players they weren’t failures.
In the wake of last Sunday’s 17-10 win over Sydney Roosters – their fifth victory on the trot – coach Tim Sheens revealed that the Tigers’ expectation at the start of 2009 was to finish in the top four.
And he said when a round 15 loss to Melbourne put that dream out of reach, even captain Robbie Farah expressed the fear that the season was effectively over.
“We looked like we were slipping. Even the skipper, who is normally very positive about things, said, ‘This is going to be another one of those seasons’,” Sheens tells RLW.
“We wanted to finish in the top four. People said, ‘That’s stupid, it can’t happen’, but you have a look at the way the comp’s going and it’s not stupid. People would have said the Bulldogs can’t do that.”
Asked how Wests Tigers cheered themselves up after slumping to 13th with 10 games to play, star five-eighth Benji Marshall answers: “We went into a camp in Kiama and got the team together.”
Sheens explains: “The Kiama thing was my idea. We did a little bit of training and sat down and talked. We got the sports psych, Paul Penna, he went down and did some work with them too.”
