@TYGA said in [West Tigers to Slash 4 Test Stars](/post/1017767) said:
@jirskyr said in [West Tigers to Slash 4 Test Stars](/post/1017724) said:
I think people are also forgetting that some players aren't necessarily "duds" if the new coach doesn't use them like the old coach planned.
For example is ET a dud player? No certainly not, and Tigers have had some real value out of him to date. However if the new coach doesn't want to go in that direction, then it impacts the player's performance as much as anything.
You can say "Ivan made panic buys" but he didn't see out the contract to implement those buys, so we'll never actually know what he intended to do. Thus we'll never actually know how the players might have performed under the old coaching conditions / strategy / game plan / development / training regime.
That same roster got us to 9th and 50% wins in 2018, so it's literally a reasonable roster.
Well written post. Madge won’t settle for reasonable. He is a winner and drives the players hard. I don’t think ageing veteran forwards suit his style. The minutes Twal, Aloai, Mikalele are getting tell a story I think.
I agree and whilst I was thinking about it more this morning, Madge also seems to be the type of coach who expects a very rapid response to his performance goals.
This has been made clear by the fact that Madge named most of the "unfavoured" players in the first few rounds and did not drop them until those rounds were played out. Obviously he had plans and KPIs set in the pre-season, as all coaches do; he clearly gave the incumbents their chance and now the ones that aren't meeting those team needs are playing reggies.
And when I say "playing reggies", very clearly they are not just having a spell but totally out of the first-choice team picture. You have other blokes like you have mentioned who have stepped up to Madge's targets too, like Twal who has been made a starter and has gone to that next level. But not to be silly here, we can't ignore that Cleary recruited and blooded Twal in the first place.
So Madge expects performance and he's not afraid to drop players regardless of their prior reputation. Also he expects performance quickly, because his clear-out has only taken half a season to take shape.
Compare this to Sheens who basically pick and stuck with his preferred Top 17 through thick and thin. Sheens was more of an innovator and man-manager than disciplinarian - team always had flair and looked happy, but lacked starch at times. Madge is a different prospect altogether and so it's not totally surprising that he's already looking to re-shape his roster to meet his particularly needs.
Lastly, we do need to bear in mind that one of the reasons (reportedly) that Madge fell out of favour at Souths was exactly because he is tough on his charges and sets high expectations over long periods of time. So we can laud him for that now, for setting his mark on the Tigers after only 10 rounds and 1 pre-season, and it worked wonders for Souths in 2012-2014, but eventually the club did tire of it. I am sure Madge learned from that experience, but you obviously keep that in mind, where a tough coach can also become an unpopular coach - rightly or wrongly, players don't stand up for unpopular coaches.
