Paul Kent: Time for Tim Sheens to make big changes at Wests Tigers

Enough is enough. The Wests Tigers haven’t made the finals in over a decade, and the fans are fed up. It’s time for Tim Sheens to unleash hell on the NRL’s basketcase, writes PAUL KENT.

Wests Tigers were embarrassed by the Knights. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

In the latest episode of Wild Wests: Tales from Tiger Town, Tim Sheens calmly attends to his knitting while the tiger burns his tail in the fireplace, the Jimmy the Jet celebrates a five-line exotic on the Queen of the Nile and chief executive Justin Pascoe leaves a hundred-dollar bill under the pillows of every Tigers fan in a desperate bid to stop them abandoning their club.

It might or might not work. Tigers fans have had enough.

What is certain, though, whatever reasons Tigers fans continue to try to find to support their team, they lost another one on Tuesday.

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Sheens was brought to the club as a change agent.

Yet he provided no answers in response to the weak 26-4 loss to Newcastle on Sunday, saying he has been around too long to make knee-jerk reactions.

Tyrone Peachey (No.14) was sin-binned against the Knights on a bad day for the Tigers. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

“It’s a bit early to be jumping the gun — it’s round two for goodness sake, not round 22,” he said.

True, but Tigers fans are not two rounds into their misery. They are 10 years and two games into their misery.

For more than a decade now the Tigers have tried this, and then tried that, and then tried this again, in a bid to even make the playoffs, but without success.

Their last finals series was in 2011.

Tuesday’s revelations that James Roberts and Daine Laurie were playing poker machines in a Newcastle pub the night before the game will be received by each in regard to where they are involved in the game.

Those who live in clubland will say no big deal.

Every player has his pre-match routine, they’ll say, and if putting wages through a poker machine is it, and a five-star performance follows, then feel free to pound the machines all night. May god deliver you cherries.

Gambling is a bad pre-game routine, though. The losses suffered some nights are greater than others and can affect the mindset.

Without knowing even whether they cashed out or not, you could assume by the way they played on Sunday that Roberts and Laurie did not leave the pub with their pockets full.

Roberts and Laurie had the chance to dispel any criticism by putting in a good performance but they failed, and so surrendered their right to a vigorous defence.

Yet even on Tuesday, Laurie, who is still young and yet to fully understand the consequences in this game are everywhere, was playing hurt. He spoke at the NRL’s launch for multicultural round before news broke of the poker machine run.

Luke Brooks and James Roberts were unable to spark the Tigers against the Knights. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

“Every time I go through my socials I see something about us,” he said. “It’s just unfair.”

There is a reality here that Tigers fans understand but which the club and certainly the players do not.

Already the club is defending their actions, offering the weak excuse that they broke no rules.

Meanwhile, most Tigers fans have had a gutful. They don’t believe the Tigers share their pain at how awful they are.

First the losses became acceptable and now the lack of effort.

Tyrone Peachey got sin-binned on the weekend and smiled it away as he left the field.

Meanwhile, in the stands, they bleed inside.

It has reinforced the fans belief that the club has a losing culture and not a strong enough intent to change it.

Ask anybody at the club if they want success and they will say of course they would.

They just don’t seem willing to pay the price.

Surely the time has come for Sheens to do what he was hired to do, which is to begin the change. Nobody else at the club is either capable or allowed.

Wests Tigers football boss Tim Sheens has some big decisions to make at Concord. Picture: Richard Dobson

Michael Maguire was hired to bring a tough edge to the club but was almost immediately undermined from within and, with no strong internal support, Maguire was smart enough to recognise he needed to adjust in certain ways to simply remain employed.

The support of the playing group, as fragile as this mob is, is crucial to a coach’s employment welfare.

Player power and weak management have put Maguire in this strange half-land, where he remains aware of what needs to be done but is unable to do it fully because he could so quickly lose support.

So he continues a softly-softly approach, coaching softly-softly players.

This mob will never win anything.

When the Tigers next win a premiership not one of these players will still be at the club.

And if management remains the same for much longer then it will be generations before they find success.

Sheens, Maguire and James Tamou are the only men at the club who know what success looks like.

Yet one won’t be listened to, one remains quiet and the other won’t speak.

Originally published as Paul Kent: Time for Tim Sheens to make big changes at Wests Tigers