‘We should have won’: Tense end to Benji presser as Tigers coach refuses to answer question

Benji Marshall was frustrated his Wests Tigers side found a way to lose to the Knights and one question left him shaking his head.

Benji Marshall was frustrated his side found a way to lose to the Knights after dominating the contest for most of their 10-8 defeat and one question left him shaking his head.

The Tigers led 8-0 heading into the last half-hour, but two late tries to Fletcher Sharpe and Greg Marzhew saw the Knights secure a comeback victory in a scrappy and fiery affair.

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Marshall chose to see plenty of positives from the performance, but his press conference alongside Jarome Luai still ended in awkward fashion.

Marshall was visibly frustrated with one final question that ended the presser with him shaking his head.

He was asked: “Benji, you said there were a couple of key moments that lost it for you. Can you elaborate on which points there were?”

“No,” Marshall said, shaking his head.

Jarome Luai and Benji Marshall.

Earlier in the press conference, Marshall said he believes his team were the better side for most of the game, but couldn’t get the job done.

“There was two things, we were obviously disappointed with the result,” Marshall said.

“I’m proud of some of the things we can take away from that game.

“I thought we controlled the game for most parts of it and we let ourselves down with a few things.

“But all in all, all the things we want to be better at there were definite improvements, so we’ll take the positives away, it’s Round 1, we would have loved to win today but we’ll go back to work hard for next week.”

Marshall was impressed by his side’s effort and commitment, but conceded his side needs more polish in key moments.

“I thought the energy with our defence was fairly good,” Marshall said.

“We defended our try line there probably six or seven sets in a row where we made errors.

“That was a pleasing sign, I thought they fought really hard on our try line defence and then just moments in the second half we probably would like to have back again, but in saying that we can’t change the result now, but we can work hard again for next week.”

Terrell May was arguably the best player on the field for the Tigers with 150 metres and 28 tackles and Marshall defended his charger as misunderstood.

“That’s why we signed him,” Marshall said.

“I think Tarrell is a bit of a misunderstood guy and when you get to know him he’s so smart when it comes to footy and that.

“I think all the talk about him not actually loving footy was pretty false because he actually loves it.

The Knights won a scrappy affair against the Tigers. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

The only thing he said was he put his family before footy, which you can’t begrudge him for.

“I thought today he stood up and showed he’s not mucking around coming here. He wants to lead the way and be our leader in the forward pack and he was good.”

May played 66 minutes, but Marshall believes that was just how the game turned out and he wants quality over quantity from May.

“We planned to try and get him through the first 40 which he did,” Marshall said.

“He got through pretty good and then bring him off and put him back on at the end.

“The minutes is irrelevant. It’s just the quality that we get out of him. We don’t chase stats or minutes. We want quality from him. I thought he showed signs of some good things for us.”

New Tigers skipper Jarome Luai was full of praise for May’s performance.

“He was awesome tonight,” Luai said.

“I drove in to the game with him and he was really keen to play. He was just chewing my ear off, so the way you played really shows what he’s about this year and we’re going to need that from him.”

Marshall praised all his star recruits, but lamented his side couldn’t find a way to win a game they deserved to win.

“All our new guys were good,” Marshall said.

“I thought Jack Bird, Royce Hunt had some really good touches, bit of a crowd of favourite out there. Skelton was really good.

“There are some good things. It’s hard to hide the disappointment because I thought we should have won.

“But again you’ve got to take the result out of it. Did we improve? We did but we should have won.”

Marshall singled out Skelton for extra praise.

“We bought him here for a reason,” Marshall said.

“His caries out of yardage are really good for us and he’s trained really hard to get himself in the team, so we love having him.”

Luai released a raw of emotion when he got on the field and revealed a sense of relief after his long awaited first game for the Tigers.

“Just a raw emotion, sort of comparing it to when I actually debuted in the NRL, sort of felt like that,” Luai said.

“It’s been a big pre-season and that emotion just all came out getting the opportunity to lead the boys out.

“I’m a bit anxious leading up to this point, a lot of chatter on it, but definitely good to get the first hit out with the boys. A lot of improvement but proud of how my boys went.

“A little bit (of relief), that first game is done now, now I can just zone in on how we get better as a team moving forward.”

Despite the loss Luai was proud of his side’s toughness, especially in defence.

“I think in particular that first half we showed a lot of resilience there,” Luai said.

“They had a lot of ball back-end of the half and we did a good job to turn them away.

“Like coach said we lost a few moments in that second half which we need to be better at.”

There were some good signs for the Tigers with Luai’s halves partnership with Lachlan Galvin showing glimpses of what’s to come.

“This is the best training we’re going to get is putting games together and getting that experience,” Luai said.

“It was our first big test tonight and we’re not quite there yet, but we’re going to be there.”

Originally published as ‘We should have won’: Tense end to Benji presser as Tigers coach refuses to answer question