@Geo. said:
Wests Tigers are right to back coach Jason Taylor over his decision to dump Robbie Farah
PAUL CRAWLEY, The Daily Telegraph
July 21, 2016 5:53pm
I DON’T know if Jason Taylor is right to think the Wests Tigers are a better team without Robbie Farah.
What I do know is the head coach of any professional sporting organisation deserves the right to pick the team.
And the Wests Tigers, in particular chief executive Justin Pascoe, should be commended for showing the strength to give Taylor the power to do that.
Whether or not Taylor is right will be determined over the course of the rest of the season. Ultimately, that will decide if Taylor keeps his job next year.
What can’t be argued is that this sort of leadership has been a long time coming at the Tigers.
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Farah hasn’t been happy with his treatment — but it’s Taylor job to make the tough calls. People say Taylor’s decision to dump a club legend like Farah could have been handled better. How exactly I’m not so sure.
Would it have been any less controversial if Taylor sacked Farah last year? Would it have been any less divisive if Taylor had let it drag on for another couple of months until the season was finished, even if it ended up costing the Tigers a place in the finals?
Or would it have been better still if the old Wests Tigers board and administration had backed Mick Potter way back in 2013?
The reality is if the Tigers had listened to their last coach this wouldn’t even be a debate.
Former Wests Tigers coach Mick Potter also struggled with the Farah problem.
I remember speaking to Potter last year, just days after the story broke that Taylor had threatened to play Farah in reserve grade if he didn’t leave the club.
Potter is about as decent a man as you will find in rugby league. Yet when he coached the Tigers he was the odd man out. Potter said he advised the Wests Tigers board back in 2013 not to sign Farah to a hugely inflated back-ended four-year contract that still has more than a year to run on it.
Potter claimed the board ignored his advice, like they were playing “Fantasy League with other people’s money”.
It wasn’t that Potter didn’t rate Farah as a player, but “if he was still going well at the end of the two years, you could have kept him on”, Potter argued.
“Age becomes no barrier. But you don’t sign a 30-year-old for four years, I don’t think.”
But because Potter spoke up, it eventually cost him his job. Now it has been left to Taylor and Pascoe to mop up the mess.
Like Pascoe said this week, Taylor will live and die by the results. But he has to be at least given the chance to make the decisions he feels necessary.
Plenty of coaches over the years have made similar tough calls.
I remember the late Graham Murray dropped Noel Goldthorpe after the then Hunter Mariners half returned from playing in the Super League Tri-Series in the late 1990s to usher in a young Brett Kimmorley.
Wayne Bennett sacked Wally Lewis in the formative years at the Broncos.
A couple of years ago Ricky Stuart made the unpopular decision to let club legend Terry Campese go at Canberra.
Des Hasler has made plenty of tough decisions over the years. Michael Ennis to Cronulla for starters.
Last year Hasler was playing Josh Reynolds off the bench, before letting then NSW halfback Trent Hodkinson go to Newcastle. It never created the same tension at the Bulldogs because everyone knew Hasler was in charge.
Like Bennett had power in Brisbane, Stuart in Canberra.
Right now Tigers fans are divided because they have been let down by weak administration for too long. Tough decisions aren’t always the most popular.
The Daily Telegraph ran an online poll asking if Farah should have been dropped? Of more than 6000 votes, 48 per cent backed Taylor while 52 per cent were with Farah.
That split highlighted the division among the fans. It’s also rather ironic that almost to the week two years ago the Tigers were preparing to play St George Illawarra on another Sunday in July, The Sunday Telegraph broke the story Potter was about to be sacked.
You might remember the Tigers called a snap board meeting to be held after the game against the Dragons, that was again crucial to the team’s top eight hopes.
That day we ran another online poll asking the question if Potter should be sacked?
Of more than 5500 votes, a massive 86 per cent voted in favour of Potter keeping his job.
That public support ended up saving Potter temporarily, though he was still gone at the end of the year.
Wests Tigers playing won’t be questioning who’s in charge now.
Right now Taylor doesn’t have the same support from the fans. But, most importantly, he has the backing of his bosses.
As Taylor pointed out, his belief is that young guns Luke Brooks, Mitchell Moses and James Tedesco play better without Farah.
“We have got too many cooks spoiling the broth,” Taylor said. “That is the perfect analogy of what we are talking about.
“And it is purely based on that.
“Robbie Farah is the NSW State of Origin hooker. He is a Wests Tigers great. He is a great player.
“But it is just not working for us at the moment in regards to the cohesion of our team.”
And as Pascoe pointed out this week, regardless of what we all think, Taylor’s view should carry the most weight.
After all, he is the coach.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/opinion/wests-tigers-are-right-to-back-coach-jason-taylor-over-his-decision-to-dump-robbie-farah/news-story/3ad83d2a3ea62247ab2bc1598ddb01cf
