Paul Kent: The NRL needs a draft to spread talent throughout the game

The Wests Tigers can’t attract talent, the Dolphins can’t land a marquee man – there’s a simple solution to both of these problems, writes Paul Kent.

The Wests Tigers are proof the NRL needs a draft.

A tremendous apathy swept the land on Sunday when the Wests Tigers, as loveable a bunch of losers as you could ever hope to meet, decided they were not going to let the season idly fade away like most teams do and so, instead of merely rolling over, they went for defeat in spectacular fashion.

Refusing to fail quietly, the Tigers took a solid attempt at the record books, and almost got there.

Alas, it surprises nobody that even when the Tigers were about to announce themselves as the best losers ever, they failed even at that.

Minutes before halftime the Raiders were hammering their line and the stats boys were sweating excitedly over their decimal points, aware the greatest halftime deficit in the history of the NRL was the 48-0 scoreline set way back in 2003 when the Knights were giving it to the Cowboys, when Benji was still a bub, and that the way things were going two minutes was more than enough time for a couple of Canberra tries to beat the record.

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James Tamou and his teammates look dejected after letting in a Canberra try during the massacre at Leichhardt Oval. Picture: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images

Then, somehow, after 38-odd minutes of keystone cops footy, the mighty Tigers turned water into wine and defended two sets in a row for the first time the entire game to thwart the Raiders and force them to head to the sheds ahead 42-0, wondering just where this spirited fightback from the Tigers had sprung.

Say this for the Tigers, few teams are prepared to attempt heroics quite like them.

The only ones more deserving of a Purple Heart were those sad souls who paid $50 to stand on the hill in light rain to watch what these men, professional athletes supposedly, dished up under the glare of the television cameras.

The Tigers were charging blood money.

The question that started well before halftime, sparked by many already trying to get a headstart on the rush of traffic by leaving early, was where do the Tigers go from here?

If sacking Michael Maguire mid-season was the necessary step to go forward, why weren’t incoming coaches Tim Sheens and Benji Marshall put into the job immediately?

A 42-0 scoreline is posted on the famous Leichhardt Oval scoreboard at halftime. Picture: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images

Instead, the Tigers wasted the second half of this season by changing nothing, from what could be seen, while Sheens sat high in the grandstand nursing a migraine at what he was seeing and Marshall was off holding coffee meetings.

Just a few weeks ago my Tigers operative was saying how Marshall’s influence was already being felt.

His ability to get the likes of James Tedesco and Mitch Moses on the phone to talk about getting them back was something the club had not had lately.

It didn’t seem to matter that for 40 cents I could make the same phone call.

And get the same answer.

The Tigers have celebrated the Sheens and Marshall appointment as a massive positive for the club, and they might well be, but one school of thought is that by trying to avoid the stink of this failed season they have put the rebuild back at least six months, possibly more.

Certainly there has been a delay in standards of at least six months.

The Tigers' brains trust of Tim Sheens and Lee Hagipantelis look on Leichhardt Oval. Picture: Fox League

Marshall quit his Fox League television show in July to get an early start on next season. He wanted to hit the ground running, he said, when training resumes on November 1.

What he has done, though, remains to be seen.

He has been notably absent from many Tigers’ games, though.

And with such little change in the roster from this season to next there is a question why the new work that needs to be done, and there is so much to do, could not have begun immediately with all that free time available.

The Tigers have actually got worse after Maguire was sacked.

The club has shown no signs of turning it around, making you wonder if it was the coach at all.

The only two notable recruits next season are Api Koroisau and Isaiah Papali’i. Both were signed when they thought Maguire would still be coach, one of whom now doesn’t want to go anymore, and neither seem likely to be able to effect the change on the group that needs to happen if they are going to win more than they lose.

The Tigers might be the test case for change in the NRL.

Retiring Tiger James Roberts is chaired off the field by Daine Laurie and Brent Naden. Picture: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images

While Sheens and particularly Marshall were sold as fresh voices to attract new talent, a belief held around the club, a different reality is becoming apparent.

Wayne Bennett and his new Dolphins franchise have highlighted the difficulty of recruitment in the modern game.

Bennett has failed again and again to land the marquee signing for his new club, with Cameron Munster now the only big name player coming up for negotiation on November 1 able to fill the Dolphins’ promise of landing a big name player.

The Tigers have copped the tip and quietly entered the race for Munster’s signature, knowing the only way to turn their direction in any sort of real time is to land a marquee player with considerable talents — but at a cost which will bend their salary cap completely out of shape.

Which is what started the decline in the first place.

Once again it shows the NRL needs to revisit a draft to spread the talent within the game.

The RLPA will argue a draft is illegal, defeated in court back in the 1990s, ignoring the well-known truth that salary caps were intended to work in tandem with drafts, and that one fails without the other.

Outside of that the only way left to rebuild is to invest in juniors, a rebuild that from the time it begins never happens quick enough to save the current coach.

Given Marshall is about to begin a five-year stint, it is a sobering thought.