Paul Kent: Why NRL joint ventures St George Illawarra Dragons and Wests Tigers continue to fail

St George Illawarra and Wests Tigers are continuing to reinforce their reputations as basket cases with confusing management, infighting and feeble power plays, PAUL KENT writes.

Paul Kent on why the Dragons and Tigers are failing.

Jack Gibson worked out long ago clubs could not function by committee.

It was one of many things Gibson was the first to understand the value of, like tackling counts, Saturday morning captains runs, and there should also be only ever one SP bookie at every club, and preferably the coach.

Big Jack wasn’t beyond a little trickery.

At the risk of setting off small mushroom clouds of outrage across the terrain it might be time to take a sword to the NRL’s two joint ventures Wests Tigers and St George Illawarra.

Despite the evidence that no committee is a good committee, they continue to operate by consensus.

St George Illawarra and Wests Tigers are continuing to reinforce their reputations as basket cases with confusing management.

Paul Kent on why the Dragons and Tigers are failing.

They stride the halls like old Labor unionists, protecting what once was.

The cumbersome management structures are their own undoing and they can’t seem to get past it.

Except for a few brief, brilliant moments, neither St George Illawarra or Wests Tigers have been a success as a new entity.

More than 20 years into their joint ventures both clubs are still fractured, share two premierships between them, and are battling at or near the bottom of the ladder in recent times.

MERGED IN NAME ONLY

At St George Illawarra — you can’t ever call them “Saints”, and even a lazy call of “St George” leaves Steelers fans frothing — they are currently in quiet dispute over who will replace Anthony Griffin as head coach, even as he remains employed.

This won’t come as spectacular news to Griffin, under pressure even though his team plays the bye this weekend, although the speed of the debate might be of concern.

The St George faction of the venture are quietly pushing for Jason Ryles to be the next coach.

The Illawarra faction at the club are pushing for a more experienced coach, with Shane Flanagan among those mentioned.

Point is, they can’t agree.

As late as last year the club canvassed fans asking whether it should undergo a name change, which is the measure of their internal confusion.

Twenty years in, both still haven’t become one club.

CRACKS IN TIGERS’ COACHING DREAM TEAM

The Wests Tigers remain nomadic, splitting their commitments around three home grounds.

After more than a decade of failure they have taken a Back To The Future approach to success, recalling Tim Sheens to the job after they sacked him in 2012 and hiring Benji Marshall to succeed Sheens in two years time, a decade after he contributed to Sheens’ sacking, all with no coaching experience of which to speak.

The wounds between Sheens and Marshall have long ago healed although, already, there are whispers they are already beginning to disagree on certain directions they want to take the club.

Roosters assistant coach Jason Ryles.

Sea Eagles assistant coach Shane Flanagan.

At Wests Tigers — you can’t call them “Wests” and you can’t call them “Tigers”, at risk of sending the other mob hurtling to their keyboards to fire off angry emails — the club is still split along club allegiances.

Wests Tigers chairman Lee Hagipantelis confirmed the split still exists ahead of a disciplinary hearing into Western Suburbs Magpies’ chairman Shannon Cavanagh this week after he gave Wests Tigers chief executive Justin Pascoe a spray at the club’s opening of its Centre of Excellence last year.

“In his capacity as Chair of Wests Magpies, he has not only embarrassed himself, but also your club,” he wrote.

Your club. Not ours.

Technically, of course, according to the various by-laws and in-laws within the club, Hagipantelis is correct.

Tim Sheens and Benji Marshall. Picture: David Swift

But it reveals a club still very much run along old party lines, with old party prejudices.

Can they ever get out of each other’s way to run in the same direction?

That, at its root, has been the problem at the club for too long.

It was born out of the brawl about who holds true power.

In the early days Western Suburbs was broke and Balmain had the cash and used that position to muscle the Magpies.

Now, Wests Leagues has all the money while Balmain Leagues Clubs houses derelicts and spotfires, and the Magpies have made sure they pay for their early bounce.

CUT-THROAT POWER PLAYS

All either club needs to understand is that the path to success is to take an example from the smartest rugby league administrator who ever lived, Ken Arthurson, who believed true power is taken, not given.

When the NRL was being put together and the only way to decide which teams would qualify the ARL and Super League bosses came up with the “criteria”, a set of measures that would be ranked to pick the new competition’s 16 clubs.

Joint ventures were guaranteed a start, which is why both the Dragons and Tigers merged clubs in the first place.

Tigers CEO Justin Pascoe and chairman Lee Hagipantelis. Picture: NRL Imagery

The Northern Eagles were another creation but, hidden in the detail, Arthurson as the former Manly boss lamented how he would hate to see the new club fall over if they could not get along, meaning there would be no NRL team from the Harbour Bridge all the way to Newcastle.

How about, he suggested, a little clause that said if the joint venture fell over the licence was to revert back to Manly, just so there would still be a licensed presence in northern Sydney.

The Bears knew there would be no risk of this so of course they agreed in the spirit of getting along with their new partners.

Lo and behold, after just a few short years into the whole thing it spectacularly imploded, the club split, a private buyer miraculously emerged to financially rescue Manly, and only as Manly, and the Sea Eagles were suddenly reborn.

It was the greatest example yet of a man who knew how to wield power, wielding that power, and nobody ever suspected a thing.

Originally published as Paul Kent: Why NRL joint ventures St George Illawarra Dragons and Wests Tigers continue to fail