avocadoontoast
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From Forbes magazine (not sure why they're writing about us lol)
What Is The Point Of Wests Tigers?
MIKE MEEHALL WOOD MAY 12, 2021
Apologies if you’re an National Rugby League (NRL) fan, because this might seem the most obvious #NRLOutsider column yet. See, in my trips around Sydney’s rugby league culture, I’m yet to meet anyone with an answer to the question in the headline, and instead tend to find several versions of the same theme: they’re not really anything.
Last week, various figures from Brad Fittler to Benny Elias came out with their ideas about what the Wests Tigers should be in the future, but nobody appears to know what they are right now. They’ve played five home games this season in four different stadiums. One of those in a heritage stadium that everyone agrees can’t be a full time NRL venue, another is six times too large for their fanbase, the third is Parramatta’s stadium and the fourth is Campbelltown.
They’re owned 90% by Wests, but everyone calls them the Tigers, and by all accounts, they seem to play up the Tigers bit far more than the Wests bit. They are funded by Wests Ashfield Leagues Club, but none of those four stadiums that have hosted any games are anywhere near Ashfield and the other Wests Leagues Club, outside Campbelltown Stadium, isn’t formally linked to the football club at all. If you find this confusing, join the club.
The best line of argument appears to be that the Wests Tigers, who were built out of the amalgamation of the Western Suburbs Magpies and the Balmain Tigers at the turn of the millennium, have now been around long enough to have their own fans, as opposed to just the fans of the previous two clubs combined. They have their own legends, the likes of Benji Marshall and Robbie Farah, and their own club with an independent culture built on two decades of shared history.
If that exists, it wasn’t in Campbelltown on Saturday when the Tigers played the Gold Coast Titans.
Campbelltown Stadium, home to the Wests bit since 1987, hosted 8,000 or so fans, well down on the number who attended in the last season of records (2019) and slightly less than attended the most recent game at Leichhardt Oval, home to the Balmain bit, a few weeks ago. At the two larger venues, the Tigers have had stronger attendances, but largely due to playing clubs from Sydney that bring their own contingent to boost numbers.
That’s the numbers. The anecdotal evidence is more damning: the jersey split seemed to be about 50% Wests Tigers, 25% old school Wests and 25% old school Balmain. When the bloke on the PA tried to start up chants of “Tigers”, a significant portion of the crowd seemed more than reluctant to join in with singing in favor of their partner. They played in Wests Magpies tribute jerseys, in honor of Tommy Raudonikis, but that only seems to confirm that every other week, they aren’t really Wests. You could still buy Wests merch, but only to support the junior setup that still bears the name.
It felt like nobody really had ownership of anything.
NRL Rd 6 - Rabbitohs v Wests Tigers
NRL Rd 6 - Rabbitohs v Wests Tigers
Who are the Tigers, and who are Wests?
The obvious answer to why that might be is because nobody does. The Balmain Tigers, as a brand, resonate far more than Western Suburbs. I doubt even the most myopic Magpies fan would contest that, for the bulk of the living memory of both sets of fans, Balmain were the superior team. Wests’ main draw was their plucky underdog nature and battler reputation. Tommy Raudonikis, whose life was celebrated at the game on Saturday, could not have had a more perfect vehicle than Wests Magpies.
Balmain was different. They were from the inner city, they had glamor, they played in big games and everyone knew their jerseys. Now, they’re not really anything: they’re three afternoons a year on the hill at Leichhardt, reminiscing about old times and the old team. They’re a heritage brand, and an incredibly strong one at that. If you’ve read previous columns, you’ll know that I think they should be playing in the NSW Cup and drawing a crowd like Newtown and North Sydney do.
Wests, on the other hand, might do better to look to their future than their past. While they are a foundation club of Australian rugby league and can boast a strong history, it might be that their golden age is still ahead of them. After all, their side of the joint venture is in charge, and their junior pathways are the ones supplying all the players. The junior ranks still play under the Magpies name and the NRL is filled with elite players from South Western Sydney: James Tedesco, arguably the best player in the world, to name just one.
That stream is only getting stronger, and everyone knows it. South Sydney Rabbitohs, for example, are ploughing cash into the Macarthur region, and well they should: Camden, the next town over from Campbelltown, is slated to double in size in the next 15 years. As Sydney’s property market continues to explode, outlying regions are only going to grow—and that’s before you factor in that South Western Sydney is the gateway to all the country areas in that direction too.
Soccer club Macarthur FC and the AFL’s Greater Western Sydney Giants know this as well. Macarthur just announced a $38.5m AUD new youth development center. None of them have the appeal that a strong Western Suburbs Magpies do, and crucially, none of them play rugby league, which is by far the most established sport in the region. For a sport that loves to say “fish where the fish are”, this is a total no brainer.
So who are Wests Tigers?
As far as I can see it, there are two things that hold the Wests Tigers in their strange limbo between the Inner West and Campbelltown. The majority of their sponsor base is based in the city, and they’re building a new training facility at Concord Oval, close to the Balmain heartlands. The sponsor base question is easy to answer: do more to get sponsors in Campbelltown. Given the exploding population, that shouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility. The Penrith Panthers, currently unbeaten at the top of the NRL, don’t seem to struggle getting corporate support despite also being on the outer fringes of Sydney. When Wests turn up four times a year at Bankwest Stadium as secondary tenants, they just remind sponsors that they’d be better off having their name on the front of Parramatta shirts.
The Tigers can still train at Concord if they like, but they need to accept the South Western Sydney region is their heartland and where they can draw strength from. In a salary-capped competition like the NRL, having access to that stream of talent can be the difference between making the Finals and not, between being a successful club and a perennial also-ran.
Staying at Concord would suit the consensus opinion that their recruitment potential is lifted by being based in the sort of place where players want to live, rather than the outskirts. Again, the Panthers seem to do just fine despite being based 50km from the CBD, and that seems to be because their players are from the area and therefore used to living there. I doubt many NRL free agents would turn down the red hot Panthers because they wanted to be closer to the beach.
Wests Tigers, as it stands, have no idea who they are. But there’s a clear potential for them to follow the demographics, follow the talent and become something better. The Magpies already did it when they left the Western Suburbs of Lidcombe in 1987 for the very Western Suburbs of Campbelltown.
The name is here to stay, and is essentially a blank canvas to be built on because at the moment, it doesn’t mean anything. They can still play 3 games at Leichhardt a year, for sure, and wear the old Balmain heritage jerseys when they do. But the Tigers need to play much, much more often at Campbelltown and make it a real home rather than somewhere that gets paid lip service. Invest money in that region and be rewarded in players, culture and roots.
For a team that has made the Finals once in the last decade and seems to be stuck in a permanent identity crisis, the time might have come to try something else.
What Is The Point Of Wests Tigers?
MIKE MEEHALL WOOD MAY 12, 2021
Apologies if you’re an National Rugby League (NRL) fan, because this might seem the most obvious #NRLOutsider column yet. See, in my trips around Sydney’s rugby league culture, I’m yet to meet anyone with an answer to the question in the headline, and instead tend to find several versions of the same theme: they’re not really anything.
Last week, various figures from Brad Fittler to Benny Elias came out with their ideas about what the Wests Tigers should be in the future, but nobody appears to know what they are right now. They’ve played five home games this season in four different stadiums. One of those in a heritage stadium that everyone agrees can’t be a full time NRL venue, another is six times too large for their fanbase, the third is Parramatta’s stadium and the fourth is Campbelltown.
They’re owned 90% by Wests, but everyone calls them the Tigers, and by all accounts, they seem to play up the Tigers bit far more than the Wests bit. They are funded by Wests Ashfield Leagues Club, but none of those four stadiums that have hosted any games are anywhere near Ashfield and the other Wests Leagues Club, outside Campbelltown Stadium, isn’t formally linked to the football club at all. If you find this confusing, join the club.
The best line of argument appears to be that the Wests Tigers, who were built out of the amalgamation of the Western Suburbs Magpies and the Balmain Tigers at the turn of the millennium, have now been around long enough to have their own fans, as opposed to just the fans of the previous two clubs combined. They have their own legends, the likes of Benji Marshall and Robbie Farah, and their own club with an independent culture built on two decades of shared history.
If that exists, it wasn’t in Campbelltown on Saturday when the Tigers played the Gold Coast Titans.
Campbelltown Stadium, home to the Wests bit since 1987, hosted 8,000 or so fans, well down on the number who attended in the last season of records (2019) and slightly less than attended the most recent game at Leichhardt Oval, home to the Balmain bit, a few weeks ago. At the two larger venues, the Tigers have had stronger attendances, but largely due to playing clubs from Sydney that bring their own contingent to boost numbers.
That’s the numbers. The anecdotal evidence is more damning: the jersey split seemed to be about 50% Wests Tigers, 25% old school Wests and 25% old school Balmain. When the bloke on the PA tried to start up chants of “Tigers”, a significant portion of the crowd seemed more than reluctant to join in with singing in favor of their partner. They played in Wests Magpies tribute jerseys, in honor of Tommy Raudonikis, but that only seems to confirm that every other week, they aren’t really Wests. You could still buy Wests merch, but only to support the junior setup that still bears the name.
It felt like nobody really had ownership of anything.
NRL Rd 6 - Rabbitohs v Wests Tigers
NRL Rd 6 - Rabbitohs v Wests Tigers
Who are the Tigers, and who are Wests?
The obvious answer to why that might be is because nobody does. The Balmain Tigers, as a brand, resonate far more than Western Suburbs. I doubt even the most myopic Magpies fan would contest that, for the bulk of the living memory of both sets of fans, Balmain were the superior team. Wests’ main draw was their plucky underdog nature and battler reputation. Tommy Raudonikis, whose life was celebrated at the game on Saturday, could not have had a more perfect vehicle than Wests Magpies.
Balmain was different. They were from the inner city, they had glamor, they played in big games and everyone knew their jerseys. Now, they’re not really anything: they’re three afternoons a year on the hill at Leichhardt, reminiscing about old times and the old team. They’re a heritage brand, and an incredibly strong one at that. If you’ve read previous columns, you’ll know that I think they should be playing in the NSW Cup and drawing a crowd like Newtown and North Sydney do.
Wests, on the other hand, might do better to look to their future than their past. While they are a foundation club of Australian rugby league and can boast a strong history, it might be that their golden age is still ahead of them. After all, their side of the joint venture is in charge, and their junior pathways are the ones supplying all the players. The junior ranks still play under the Magpies name and the NRL is filled with elite players from South Western Sydney: James Tedesco, arguably the best player in the world, to name just one.
That stream is only getting stronger, and everyone knows it. South Sydney Rabbitohs, for example, are ploughing cash into the Macarthur region, and well they should: Camden, the next town over from Campbelltown, is slated to double in size in the next 15 years. As Sydney’s property market continues to explode, outlying regions are only going to grow—and that’s before you factor in that South Western Sydney is the gateway to all the country areas in that direction too.
Soccer club Macarthur FC and the AFL’s Greater Western Sydney Giants know this as well. Macarthur just announced a $38.5m AUD new youth development center. None of them have the appeal that a strong Western Suburbs Magpies do, and crucially, none of them play rugby league, which is by far the most established sport in the region. For a sport that loves to say “fish where the fish are”, this is a total no brainer.
So who are Wests Tigers?
As far as I can see it, there are two things that hold the Wests Tigers in their strange limbo between the Inner West and Campbelltown. The majority of their sponsor base is based in the city, and they’re building a new training facility at Concord Oval, close to the Balmain heartlands. The sponsor base question is easy to answer: do more to get sponsors in Campbelltown. Given the exploding population, that shouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility. The Penrith Panthers, currently unbeaten at the top of the NRL, don’t seem to struggle getting corporate support despite also being on the outer fringes of Sydney. When Wests turn up four times a year at Bankwest Stadium as secondary tenants, they just remind sponsors that they’d be better off having their name on the front of Parramatta shirts.
The Tigers can still train at Concord if they like, but they need to accept the South Western Sydney region is their heartland and where they can draw strength from. In a salary-capped competition like the NRL, having access to that stream of talent can be the difference between making the Finals and not, between being a successful club and a perennial also-ran.
Staying at Concord would suit the consensus opinion that their recruitment potential is lifted by being based in the sort of place where players want to live, rather than the outskirts. Again, the Panthers seem to do just fine despite being based 50km from the CBD, and that seems to be because their players are from the area and therefore used to living there. I doubt many NRL free agents would turn down the red hot Panthers because they wanted to be closer to the beach.
Wests Tigers, as it stands, have no idea who they are. But there’s a clear potential for them to follow the demographics, follow the talent and become something better. The Magpies already did it when they left the Western Suburbs of Lidcombe in 1987 for the very Western Suburbs of Campbelltown.
The name is here to stay, and is essentially a blank canvas to be built on because at the moment, it doesn’t mean anything. They can still play 3 games at Leichhardt a year, for sure, and wear the old Balmain heritage jerseys when they do. But the Tigers need to play much, much more often at Campbelltown and make it a real home rather than somewhere that gets paid lip service. Invest money in that region and be rewarded in players, culture and roots.
For a team that has made the Finals once in the last decade and seems to be stuck in a permanent identity crisis, the time might have come to try something else.
