Hard luck for Robbie Farah but Jason Taylor must pick his own team

JASON Taylor had every right to axe Robbie Farah given the Tigers are chronic underachievers, writes Mal Meninga.

Jason Taylor coach of the Wests Tigers rugby league team during training at Campbelltown Stadium, Sydney. Pic Brett Costello

LOYALTY is a word that gets thrown around a lot in rugby league.

It had another good run over the past week during the fracture between Robbie Farah and the Wests Tigers.

In an ideal world, it would be pleasing to see a guy like Farah, who started his career at the club and has gone on to be one of its best servants, remain a one-club player and retire a Tiger for life.

The fact is that the world of the Wests Tigers is not ideal at the moment. Far from it.

They are a club that has had precious little to celebrate since their premiership win in 2005, despite a huge turnover of star players and coaches.

Something has to change, and coach Jason Taylor knows this because his job is depending on it.

Every year, at least one NRL club will find the coach responsible for its lack of success, and sack him.

Jason Taylor needs to pick the team that he believes will bring success to the club, writes Mal Meninga. Pic Brett Costello

No matter if there are mitigating factors like front office instability, lack of resources, injuries or players not being accountable for their performances, the old maxim that it is easier to get rid of one coach than a dozen other problems holds sway.

The club’s administrators then sit back feeling pleased about how they have shown the sponsors and fans that they have acted to arrest the decline.

A large part of the equation here is the power of the players. How many times have we heard how a coach has “lost the dressingroom” because a group of players find it far easier to put the blame on the coach instead of putting the spotlight on themselves?

It might start with one unhappy individual player who has an axe to grind after being dropped, or fined or criticised in front of the team. Then the undermining begins.

He gets into the ear of a teammate, who in turn gets into the ear of another.

Pretty soon you have a large chunk of the playing group convinced the coach can’t do his job.

Team unity is divided, results suffer and the board, hearing the whispers, decides the coach has to go.

Taylor knows this because he has inherited a club and a culture that has allowed this to happen not once but twice in the past five years.

Taylor knows if he cannot turn the club around, he will be out the door as well, and he only has a short time to do it.

Tigers coach Jason Taylor alongside captain Robbie Farah who is looking for a new club. Picture Gregg Porteous

Some of the decisions he makes, like the one with Farah, will not be popular but ultimately it is Taylor’s job riding on whether he is right and no one else’s.

The decisions must be his because it is his career that will live or die by it.

So often when players leave their club for a better deal elsewhere, they explain away accusations of a “lack of loyalty” by saying “I had to do what was best for me and my family”.

No one should have a problem with that.

Nor should people be critical of Taylor for making tough calls that are the best for him and his family by hopefully allowing him to keep his job.