Paul Kent: It’s time for Wests Tigers players to harden up
Michael Maguire has made it clear the standards need to change at Wests Tigers and, for that to happen, the players need to stop looking for sympathy and harden up, writes Paul Kent.
NRL
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The best part about Saturday’s game for the Wests Tigers is, for the first time in nine years, they get to play September football.
Unfortunately these are COVID times, though, and so there are still four more rounds remaining, after which the Tigers will miss the playoffs again.
It was a topic that reached crisis point at Leichhardt this week, a place where professionalism is discretionary, it seems.
It is a well accepted fact that there are many fine young men nowadays happy to be regarded as professional footballers, particularly at times like on pay day each month or, in the more popular non-COVID times, inside nightclubs at midnight.
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Then, it is wonderful to be a professional rugby league player.
But other times, not so much.
So when Michael Maguire turns the blowtorch on his players, effectively telling them they are being paid a lot of money to do what currently amounts to not very much, being a professional rugby league player is not much fun at all anymore.
In these times, goes the groan, rugby league is a sport. The coach is too tough.
He is not coaching the style of football they like to play.
The Tigers are currently in the difficult position of being coached by a man who finds their standards unacceptable and, while they don’t like his fiery demeanour, neither do they feel inclined enough to change their ways, which would eliminate that fire.
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So instead they are trying to change him.
By all reports it got fairly honest at a Monday meeting where the players complained to Maguire they were forever walking on “eggshells” because of the intensity of his personality.
They were looking for sympathy, another soft hand, and got none of it from the coach.
Maguire is from the school of coaching that believes steel sharpens steel.
“An unfit team never won the comp,” he likes to say.
The coach has made it clear the standards need to change within the club and, for that to happen, eggshells need to be broken.
The problem for the Tigers is they are comfortable being comfortable. And have been for too long.
They run ninth often, miss the playoffs more often, and don’t do a whole lot between seasons to change that trend, hence why they continue to run ninth.
The irony in all this is that Benji Marshall was tapped on the shoulder on Monday and told he would not be re-signed at the club even though, as the joint venture’s greatest player, he has already indicated he wants to play another season.
All season long Marshall has been one of Maguire’s strongest supporters.
When he was dropped earlier in the season he stated plainly it was because his standards were not to the levels Maguire demanded, supporting the coach’s decision.
When others were dropped at other times Marshall sided with the coach, declaring it was the only way for improvement.
Marshall understands the standards required to play winning NRL football.
To be a professional.
Yet as a club legend Marshall has been identified, most would say unfairly, as the fall guy for the Tigers’ recent troubles.
It emerged on Monday that the Tigers are not interested in signing him beyond this season, a decision that stunned the Tiger great. The club made it official in a press release on Tuesday afternoon.
The club has pointed to the numbers in the halves for reasons why. There is a mix of rising stars and high-priced veterans who all can play in the halves who are unable to be moved on, who collectively take up a large chunk of salary cap.
Here, Marshall suffers on two fronts. His contract is up and he comes cheap, so he is expendable.
On the flipside, Josh Reynolds did such a great job negotiating his contract when he switched from Canterbury to Wests that he is now unaffordable, even to the Tigers.
With two seasons to run Wests have shopped around the NRL and even all the way to the English Super League, offering to pay a percentage of his wage if a club takes him on, without a nibble.
Nobody doubts what Reynolds can bring, but nobody wants it at the price.
Professionalism is a beautiful word when the players’ representatives are sitting down to negotiate their share of the rich new broadcast deal, or negotiating their personal contracts.
When it comes to standards in performance, though, what old-timers used to call professionalism, too often the minimum standard gets the easy victory in Tiger Town.