Where is our team at at the moment?

I think the general feeling among the supporter base, pundits and fans of other clubs was that our performance against the Cowboys had been been brewing for about a month now.

Would be interesting to get some thoughts and feelings moving forward.

My big takeaways were

- Luke Brooks played to the top of his potential. He doesn’t often do this but when he does he deserves the plaudits. He could play 70% as good as he played against the Cowboys each week and I think we’d be a fair chance of making the 8. A lot of his play looked like it was confidence based given how eyes/heads up it was. Have we got the message right? Can he replicate it moving forward?

- Do we finally have a top 8 pack by league standards. We rate it as fans - is it there objectively? Its clear from the pre and post game comments from the Cowboys that they took us very seriously. I haven’t heard people talk about a Wests Tigers pack like that for a long time

- Toa, Bula, Tupou - is this the nucleus of our backline for the next 5 years? Where do Brooks, Wakeham and Nofa fit in? If they play cohesively like they did on the weekend are they a potential top 8 (7th/8th spot maximum) backline?

- Togetherness - these players are playing for each other. It is obvious in the broadcast. What can we do for the rest of the season?

- Specifics on players - what are we loving in individual players in the way we’ve played over the last month? My two special mentions - David Klemmer - has been immense. Taking tough carries, making effective tackles, leaving it all out there. Alex Twal - pushing up on the ruck with leg speed! He looks a transformed player. What are we loving in other players?

Would be great to get everyone’s thoughts and opinions. This is the best start to a week I’ve had in years.
Bl***y good thought provoking and well worded post ToddSanchez: 👍
 
Since Bula has come in legit reckon we have a top 8 quality side. Problem is how bad our start was, almost impossible to make it up. Bench needs strengthening and our left centre position has let us down for too long. Obviously a top quality half but can't see us getting one. Otherwise, more experience in the young'uns and holding on to our senior players IMO is the way forward for next 2ish seasons.
 
I will tell you where we are ATM....we are a work in progress,Madge got sacked,the team and squad has been re-evaluated and now with the youth and experience we have attained this team will be awesome in 2024,,,,they need to understand each other,learn from each other and finally work together as a unit which Sheens can absolutely instill into these guys that its a team game,play for each other,stick to the gameplan and BACK each other up ....the glory days are just around the corner....Rugby League is a simple game,all you need to do is defend brilliantly and the attack will come on the back of that defence we have proven that this year only to be beaten by our own self confidence and some aweful ref calls....hang in there guys ...it will all come together very soon...👍😍
 
I will tell you where we are ATM....we are a work in progress,Madge got sacked,the team and squad has been re-evaluated and now with the youth and experience we have attained this team will be awesome in 2024,,,,they need to understand each other,learn from each other and finally work together as a unit which Sheens can absolutely instill into these guys that its a team game,play for each other,stick to the gameplan and BACK each other up ....the glory days are just around the corner....Rugby League is a simple game,all you need to do is defend brilliantly and the attack will come on the back of that defence we have proven that this year only to be beaten by our own self confidence and some aweful ref calls....hang in there guys ...it will all come together very soon...👍😍
How’s it feel always being on the wrong side? @Tucker
 
Last edited:
Since Bula has come in legit reckon we have a top 8 quality side. Problem is how bad our start was, almost impossible to make it up. Bench needs strengthening and our left centre position has let us down for too long. Obviously a top quality half but can't see us getting one. Otherwise, more experience in the young'uns and holding on to our senior players IMO is the way forward for next 2ish seasons.
I think after reflecting on Fridays result we can safely put aside any thoughts of the Top 8 in 2023.
I’m not talking about the final score but the fact that for most of the game we owned all the so called statistical indicators yet for nearly 70 minutes we were “ pointless”.
Sure we got a break toward the end and it was good to watch but disappointing to not get the win.
Whilst we have improved in leaps and bounds this year , we are still unable to ice games and start accumulating wins.
Like many others , I’m somewhat confused as to why this is happening when we seem to do so much good work but then make it into the 20 and freeze.
When we sort that out will be definitely be finals bound but imo any talk of a rapid rise up the ladder this year is unfounded.
 
I’ve given up on us making the 8 this year
If we some how managed to win against raiders I would have liked our chances

For the rest of this year the team needs to be practicing and implementing sheens/benjis game plans and attacking structures and try to get as many wins as possible to boost confidence heading into the off season
 
The projectory is very positive. We should be higher than where we are. Should have won on Friday. Push in the back to Brooks is as related to that try as Paps following through on Fogarty.
Yes this is true, however that’s done and there’s nothing we can do about it.
What can be done is improving our conversion rates. We had enough chances to win that game early on but couldn’t get a try. The coaching staff need to dig down into that. It is something they can control and fix moving forward.
 
No team has won less games than us this year and as results equal reality i would say that even though our team is much superior on paper than what we have had for a decade it has been a very underachieving year.Many games we have dominated stats wise and lost due to our inept organisational skill in the red zone.This is a coaching issue imo and the people in charge have had a year to fix it(Madge sacked after 12 games last year)and now after 12 games this year we are in the same position towards the bottom of the table with a far better squad.
We should not even need to be talking about this as i have stated before we have an 11-13 squad imho yet we are 3-9 and massively underperforming
 
it took Canberra 70 mins and lucky tries to be in a position to beat us. It took us under 10mins to overtake them with terrific team tries. Regardless we lost becoz of a dumb penalty, Tiges ripped them a new a/hole! looks like combos are building nicely. our season is f*****d as far as finals footy goes, but after the improvements I have witnessed over the past few weeks, can confidently say we are no more the easybeats. If the halves can be elevated, then we'll see more wins
 
it took Canberra 70 mins and lucky tries to be in a position to beat us. It took us under 10mins to overtake them with terrific team tries. Regardless we lost becoz of a dumb penalty, Tiges ripped them a new a/hole! looks like combos are building nicely. our season is f*****d as far as finals footy goes, but after the improvements I have witnessed over the past few weeks, can confidently say we are no more the easybeats. If the halves can be elevated, then we'll see more wins

Now that comment is someone using their Noggon.
 
No team has won less games than us this year and as results equal reality i would say that even though our team is much superior on paper than what we have had for a decade it has been a very underachieving year.Many games we have dominated stats wise and lost due to our inept organisational skill in the red zone.This is a coaching issue imo and the people in charge have had a year to fix it(Madge sacked after 12 games last year)and now after 12 games this year we are in the same position towards the bottom of the table with a far better squad.
We should not even need to be talking about this as i have stated before we have an 11-13 squad imho yet we are 3-9 and massively underperforming
I could not agree more, and it certainly is a coaching issue! It shows how inadequate and limited our ex-coach was during his overstayed time at the WT!
Our defence under our ex-coach was a laughing stock, it deteriorated from a solid (Cleary) to embarrassing, e.g. compare 60+ scores during Mauire coaching to pre-Maquire to post-Maguire periods.
 
Back
Top