Wests Tigers Coaching Deep Dive with Adel Hage

breakdown of particular roles the guys have. We're going to do a bit of a masterclass on a tack, defense and contact, not looking at yesterday's game, but looking across the season, and what the boys make of some strengths and weaknesses of the West Tigers in those departments. And we'll end with one of our sort of favorite segments on this podcast, to buy, sell and hold. But Rob,

thank you for coming on. Mate. Just tell us a little bit about how it came about you doing a podcast with Adel this year, because I know it's very popular with the West Tigers fans.

Adele is absolutely the star of the show, and I think the fact that he gives that perspective from a coach's lens, and he's so calm and calculating and definitely the complete opposite at me of me, at least when we're analyzing on hyper emotional and he's just so suave and cool and he loves it.

done last night tonight after doing your pod. We'd made a commitment to doing your show eding we didn't want to let you down and thank you for starting a bit earlier, so we've got a bit of time to put a bit more content out there for West Tigers fans and Adele.

It's pretty relative to what's going on at West Tiger at the moment with our club in regards to sort of the area and sort of we're a little bit of a merged entity as well. Two clubs that have come together but which got a pretty rich history. They're also the Magpies. So I coached at Cyril Connell this year, which is the Harold Matthews team, and I had to make some big decisions to be honest at the start of the year in regards to a lot of that age group. One of the things you used to doing

is playing the hod age kids. I played a lot of the younger age kids this year because I thought that was the best development of the club. I did move on for a little bit into the being around the host Plus Cup team. We've taken a bit of a break from that at the moment, just from work wise and whatnot. So yeah, well I'm truly in trenchfer with the South Helgan Magpies. Love the club, love everything about the club. You know, a lot of really good

people involved in the club. So yeah, that's where I've had at the moment. Obviously spent five years of my life, the last five years of my life at the West Tigers, started more so coaching just a junior rugby league and then went to the Sydney Roosters in twenty seventeen. I think it was when there's a the SG ball was there for a couple of years with Adrian Lamb was our head coach for the first couple of years and

you learned a lot of him. And then through COVID I accidentally ended up at the West Tigers Harvey Norman side, purely because there was no other ragby league going on by the Harvey Norman competition was the only one that actually come back other than the NRL. So Adam Hargan was the general manager of football at the time. It was a close friend of mine and we sort of had a conversation. I come on board for the back end of that year, and that was really something different.

Bennie Alias was a hero for us. Not so much these days with the way he carries on, but you know, he was a hero to us, so I followed Bennie Ollis and for that I follow the West Tigers or the Balmain Tigers. At the time, I was banned from watching Tigers games a teenager at home because of the carry on and the way I love the club. And you know, put it this way. In my year twelve the back of my year twelve jersey, when you could put a nickname, I don't put a nickname. I just

wrote Tiger for Life. That was the back of my jersey. So I love the club so much, or was even one of those things. I was advised by people to not actually work at the club when the opportunity to come, because sometimes you sort of don't want to know what you will end up knowing. Yeah, always been a Tiger's fan all my life. You know, I'll be honest and straight. I don't consider Balmain and West to be anything anymore.

Like the end, it's the West Tigers for me. Yes, I support him with Bowmain and Tigers, but I'm a West Tiger.

back home. I just couldn't get over the fact that it was just rather blase joking around the compliments that he gave to Tanner Boyd and New Zealand and how they played, and then complimenting their style and their ructure to a degree, and it was almost like his compliment his compliments towards New Zealand, we're actually denigrating what we have at our own club, and you know the stuff about he's very honest, like he's actually one hundred percent honest.

He takes the blame for a lot of things, but the fact that he does say a lot of it's on me. And then you go back to previous press conferences, like, for example, a manly press conference where he says, oh, look, it's on me for tinkering around with all the positions.

Yet all that tinkering went on yesterday. Granted some of it could have been premeditated that it was going to happen, but I just find how do you establish combination and flow and continuity when you keep chopping and changing, and to be fair, made I feel sorry for the players.

I know Adele's a staunch defender of Benji, and you'll give him his opportunity to talk, but after yesterday made in that press conference, he's actually kind of lost me because I think that family first attitude, nothing wrong with that in life, but that family first attitude, as to me, comes across as winning isn't the primary focus, and he just gets on with it and it's like, oh, well we lost, we lost. But I know he loves the club.

I know he's trying his best, But from my end and from what I see on the field, I don't think he's capable of caning as to where he wants to get us to.

top four sign. Like if we're not going to acknowledge that, well, I get that the fact that I'm losing players, But if we're not going to acknowledge that they are who they are and they've got a really, really good coach, that doesn't take away from what Benji is, or the stage of his career he's at, or where how our results are going. But it does not matter to me

how a coach speaks in a press conference. I'll be honest if I was coaching a row used that as an example because the level I could or should be at, and I went into a press conference, which I do these things, I'm not going to always be genuine as to what I'm actually feeling and what I'm thinking. Sometimes

it's a little bit strategic in what I say. Sometimes it's also one of those things where I also got to understand my position and whether the things I say they are going to be taken out of context too much. Benji's being himself and I know we're going to touch on this a little bit later. I have no problems with what he said. I'm not a staunched defender of Benji. In the words of Rob, I try to think, I try to think I'm objective, and at the same time I put myself in his position.

yesterday anyway. I mean, we still could have been a little bit better in that day, but they didn't score many points, nor did we, and it came down to a Luke Metcalfe penalty goal from about forty meters out to win the game that day. So if I compare it to round four, we're regress. Now. There are certain reasons I think we're have regressed. I mean, obviously, Lochland Galvin was a focal point of our team and was probably, you know, the main man in terms of trying to

create attack. So we don't have him anymore. So if we've built our whole preseason around Lochland Galvin and Jerome Lewie, being in the harves and suddenly that guy's gone. I understand it takes a while to improve what bothers me from yesterday, Eddie, in terms of talking about whether we've

progressed or regressed, that's our best forward pack. Like when we looked at that team and spoke about it on Wednesday night on our show, that was the best lineup I thought we could have named, given that who we had and who was available. So for that team to get basically belted yesterday physically, not win the collision, not win the ruck, as Joel Helms always says, lack of physicality,

that really disappointed me. And like I said, you know to Adele privately, obviously they were missing half their spine in Metcalf and Nicol Klockstad, but they're also missing Mitch Barnett, they lost Rock Oberry through the game. They just seem to know what they're doing, and we are still searching for our playing identity, Eddie, and I feel if Benji, I know, Benji's got to be himself, but Benji should

know how we want to play. He knows who we've got, he knows how we want to play, and we're not there. We don't seem to have our own style. Yet he mentions it quite often, whether he's telling the truth in press conferences or not, that we're still trying to search for our own identity, still search for a way to win and how to win. And I think by now he should know what we should be doing, what we shouldn't be doing. And I don't get any confidence from

what he says in the press conference. Granted, I really don't care what he says in the press conferences as long as everything's going better on the field and.

And then the last thing is probably something that he hasn't been able to I guess translate into his current thing as a coach. But he's got the football like you. I meant the end of the day, he's got the football ability like no other. There is this notion that great players don't make great coaches. I don't necessarily think that's true. But he's got that football in IQ, that's his strip. They're the obvious ones without being on the inside.

precision in the corner. But generally our given Benji such a great attacking player and the guy that could strip numbers from any defense, it's upsetting to me that he can't translate how to how to you know, how to get that to the players, how to teach them to actually do it? And that's what coaching is about. It's about teaching players how to do it. There's no point Benji,

you know, running shape of training. He needs to be able to explain to Loui and Latu and how to do this and be really x's and those and specific about how to do things. Sometimes I've questioned some of the team selections. Obviously, you know we don't know what goes on during a game, but your question the interchange. Sometimes, particularly when some bugs haven't got out on the field, I can accept, like Adele's pointed out to me, that a back or you know, a hooker or something doesn't

get a run. But when a middle you know doesn't get on the field at all, I mean that there's something wrong there. It's either a lack of trust in the player or he's got the selection wrong. But no look for me. For me, it's a it's a it's a fail right now. And I put it this way to Eddie. We've got three players that were incumbent premiership

winners in Happy corus Our, Jerome Leui and Tito Taruva. Now, if I go back to two thousand and six, and I know they're different players, but put those put players from those positions, such as Robbie Farrow, Benji Marshall and say Pat Richards, who'd be the three equivalents in those positions. If I took them out of the West Tigers in two thousand and five and put them in the team coming last in two thousand and six, I don't think

they'd come last. Okay, so we've got basically a quarter of a premiership winning side sprinkled with some other talent there as well. We should not be wooden spooners. We shouldn't even be in the fight for the wooden spoon And to be fair, if we'd have won the games we should have won, we wouldn't even be talking about this right now. We should be in the middle of the pack, but we're not. And it's such an even comp you see too. That's what's most frustrating about it.

This is probably our best chance to make the eight because the top four have separated themselves and we should have been in that fight from fifth to eighth and now we're basically in a fight for the bottom four.

orangein period. You know, I'm sure they break it down into that sort of stuff and try to target certain things. You certainly look at that period we lost six in a row and that's a massive negative and that that would put a lot of pressure, will take the confidence out of you. Sometimes it really takes its toll. But yeah, I'm sure they'll have targets or they'll have expectations. No doubt. They do change though during the year as well, both

positively and negatively. I mean, if you have targets that are trying to be fifty percent, i'd say seam of the Camber Raiders, I recommend their goals will change halfway through this year, haven't they considering what it was to start of the year. So it's one of those things where you do have targets and you do have expectations, but they can change depending on circumstances as well.

the eighth. So just set your goals as high as you can and don't put any expectations. Like if Benji was to acquire a few more good players in the off season besides Kay Pierce Paul if you rate him as one, and Salen May who looks like he's going to be a really good asset to the club based on what he showed him Cup yesterday. There's no excuses. Just because we come seventeenth last year or potentially seventheenth this year doesn't mean that we should accept sixteenth or

fifteenth just because we came last. There have been teams, you know, like the Rouses, you know back in twenty ten, that were Wooden Spooners in two thousand and nine and they made the Grand Final the year after. So I don't think we should set the bar so low, Eddie. But it really just depends on the cattle. If you know, we get a good run of injuries next year. There's lots of factors, you know before you really judge on

what Benji should be doing or shouldn't be doing. But yeah, if he's not thinking finals thinking, you know, coming twelve is just a lot better and that's a good year. I don't buy that twelve is still a failure. We complained when we used to come ninth every year. Ready, so the glory is rob nine. Yeah, it turns out they were. The glory is we were like really depressed,

weren't we? But yeah, I think if you're not playing finals, mate, and I don't even want to make I don't want to even come Ethan just get belted by thirty in week one, like you make the finals, you want to make an impact, So hopefully we can do that next.

and John Morris, and then you've got Aaron Paine. Do you want to maybe break down from me what you think those guys specific roles are within thein the team at the moment.

I understand, he's really good at that. And what it does is it's one of those roles where I think the old school rugby league fans sort of sits there and sort of frowns upon some sort of role it's been created. It's not a role, it's been created. It's actually pretty common. And what it does is it actually focuses on the small parts of the game that you can't actually coach, but you sort of highlight to the

players more so than anything. And then Aaron coaches obviously inhas Cup coach, but what he does is all of our transition coaching. So guys that are not playing first grade, he'll be working with them on their development and giving them all their feedback. So even guys that potentially are playing, especially with that club played Rob, Massy Cup, all that stuff. He's in charge of. Guys that are playing Flag that

are on top thirty contracts. You might have someone like a Macassini who's a development player or I'm not sure he's a development player, or even the train and trialist. They're currently playing at the club. So who will go after those guys? So that's from what I understand, the current model they've got at the moment.

trust the people he's got around him. It does concern me that it always seems to be that West Tiger's people are there only and maybe we need someone from the outside looking in, but we're not inside those walls. He so it's really hard to hard to judge that.

But I will say if we do fail, the problem is that, like Benji needs to be able to say to whoever it's happened on the shoulder and say, guys, you know you're not the right people, because ultimately it's going to cost Benji his job if his mates aren't doing their job properly. So I think they're all responsibility.

experience that Benji did. And if anything, I'm going to say I think Benji was probably a little bit better player than Ricky Stewart, but same sort of character I was not say for a character, same sort of characteristics that he's taken from his rug from his football career's

taken into his coaching career, same as Ricky Stewart. The difference was Riggy Stewart got given from what I remember, Shane Flanning and Ivan clearly, John Carr, right, Dean pay and there was one more and I can't remember who it was as his assistant. So he got given a massive team and he had Phil Good. That's what Benji should have been given, and he should have been given

that with no questions asked. You know, and if you if someone approached me today and said I want you to go coach at the NRL West Tigers team, the hardest thing to do, as a guy who hasn't been coaching at that level is for them to bring a Jason Demetrio or David Ferner or I'm just throwing names out there, Brad Arthur to be my assistants. Because at the end of the day, what I know is if I don't do the job, there's already made replacement there.

So I can understand how that would be tough me personally. I love that challenge, so I would want it. Have I been given assistant coaches in the past. This year I was given assistant coaches I never met. What you do is you work with them. You give them your trust. You don't They don't need to earn your trust. You're a head coach, You're responsible. Part of the challenge of being your head coach is being able to look with everybody.

It's the same as players. You inherit players, and I'm saying, you know recruitment officers signed players at clubs that you don't want to be there. The easy option for me is to say I didn't appoint you, I didn't assign you, so you're good for me. I think the challenge needs to be as a head coach and be able to work with everybody. But then if those people can't do their job, you can be comfortable up and tell them they can't do their job as well.

they are it despite being five Grand Final mates. He could possibly see Toydy Payton is some sort of threat or already made takeover. Where would you sit on someone like Todd Payton coming in? Maybe he as an assistant coach.

we seem to lack that attacking skill. So at a minimum, if he can help our attack, and if he's got that, if Benji can trust him enough to know that he's not going to get undermined by Todd Payton, then I don't see it being a problem. Adele's mentioned on our podcast Eddie that you know, like the head coach could go and then he could take over. I'm of the opposite belief. I think if Todd Peyton, for example, came to our club and we still failed miserably on the field,

I don't see why he should. He should just be the next coach. I think you get rid of everyone, So I don't understand that logic. I know it happens, but I just don't get the logic behind that. So I think you're under as much pressure as an assistant coach. So hopefully, look, if Todd Peyton does become available, I'd love him to be at our club. I mean, he has some success with you know, with the younger kids. He underwe any ones or whatever it was back in

those days. So yeah, if he's available, I'd certainly want to have him on board. But again, will Benji be happy with that? All he see that as someone's about to come in and take over from me.

especially if there's fresh ideas. So for example, if the Panthers and I know they will go really, really well, Cameron Surroualdo was always talented and spoken about just as highly as I've been. Theory sometimes your assistant coach, even in the good and the bad, can be the difference between you're improving or you're not improving. I have no doubt if Cameron Sarreada stayed at the Panthers and took over from Ivan, I actually think the Panthers wouldn't be

even better than what they are right now. The other thing from that perspective is if it also depends on who the coach is. If it is a Brett Hodgson or a John Morris who hasn't had the same type of experience as a Todd Payden has, well, then potentially I probably go along to what Rob just said there. Well, you can't really make that change. But when it is someone who I actually think they go pretty well to Cowboys, I don't think it's anything to do with Todd Payton,

watching his coaching some of the things he says. He's actually one of those good ones that excuse me. When he speaks in press conferences, you can tell he's being really honest and he's very raw. There's no strategy in what he says to the extent where he'll call everybody out if they need to be called out. He's also shown that he can make some really big decisions. The reason why the Cowboys aren't going well, that's a very good question. I want.

at junior Rep level because it's different. You're at junior Rep level and I'll be honest as open as I can be here. Sometimes my assistant coaches and then you get at that level sort of don't have the experience and don't have the same ability, so sometimes your assistant coaches can have an impact. I don't know this information

a fact. To me, it almost looks like that. The reason they're doing it at the moment is Benji is delegated game day interchange and all that sort of stuff, and one of the game day coaching to his assistance, which is pretty common across the league. I know Craig Bellamy barely does any of the x's and o's and the innertre inter change in Melbourne, so he's one example.

Wayne Bennet doesn't do it itselfs So it is pretty common, but from my perspective, I can't understand at that level way they ever want to be on the sideline.

and everything wanted to go through him. So the fact that rich I wanted to micro manage what players we got and didn't get and it was just him and Benji, I think that's an easy, easier way to get your roster right because obviously, you know, if like we saw the disagreements with Benji and Fulton over over different players and what have you previously, so there it helped to

get a football manager if you could trust that person. Yeah, but again it just I just want our players to have that system below first grade where they can develop, where they understand what the first grade team's trying to do and the players just play to a system. And you know, like we saw yesterday, when you know the New Zealand are missing their main guy, they're half back, the next blow can come in and just do his role and understand it. And that's what we need. Below that,

we need to find our style. And then I just hope we set up the platform below first grade that that's where we need the help, Beattie, That's where I'd like to get the professionalism, the assistance the guys with experience below that, not the young guys. We want the

older guys that around for years that can devel. We need to poach the blokes that are whatever they're doing at Penrith, Mate, we need to poach those blokes because they've just got that way of just getting the best out of their kids coming through and by the time that he first grade, they're ready to go. So I'd be more focused on getting the Pathways right as opposed to just getting a football manager.

that were sort of doing that role. Then they obviously have to separate one because they didn't get along, and then obviously it's going into this model. It's funny. I actually sent rob a a podcast today of Steve Gillison David Riola, who a two prominent player managers. And one of the things I'm talking about, without dropping names, I'll talking about how certain clubs with the recruitment and how it's important with the recruitment and all that sort of stuff.

Certain clubs have five six people in their recruitment and we're talking about how one club batterly and one official person working in their recruitment, and that's our club. We've got Shannon Gland does the role. But even from that perspective, Shannon glan has the role, but he doesn't have the role from an NRL perspective where he can you know, he makes the final decision around recruitment and all that

sort of stuff. That's where our resources need to come in and like I said about Benji in regards to coaching, there is so much more. And look, this is me presuming I can't say this for fact. I think Richo has made it a conscious effort because we've heard him saying now on multiple podcasts and multiple interviews that it's about making profit this year for the club and showing that and the way to do that is by cost

cutting in jobs. And I get it. In the short term, it's not going to show anything on the field because probably resources wise, but we don't have ahead of Pathways anymore. We don't have anyone on our beside Channon recruitment team. We do have Bronson Harrison is our bell main junior rep coordinator. Shannon Gland doesn't do West anymore. I'm trying to remember who I think who does West right now.

I'm not sure who it is, but yeah, still, we do have a general manager at football, but his role as not it's not your Gus god role, it's not your Frank Benisi role. It's more of an administration role.

What have you made of the sides of this year generally.

that we're not more appy centric. You know, Appy's hardly run for any meters in the last few games that he has played, and we've got, in my opinion, the best hooker in the competition. Galvin leaving mid season obviously didn't help, as I touched on earlier with you, so you know you've gone from basing your game plan around Leui and Galvin. Now Galvin's not there. You can't just fix that in five minutes. Granted I love everything that

La too faint who's bringing to the club. I just think we've never had a problem getting from our try line to the other end, and our kicking game is not bad. It's just literally, Eddie, when we get in that red zone, we're just like a deer in headlights. So I don't know how to fix that. I'm not a coach. I'm sure it all has better ideas in terms of that, but given we've got one of the greatest playmakers in history, I just don't get how he can't teach that because he's got capable players. It's not

like he's got bums there, mate. He's got a four time premiership winner as his captain. Before he left, he had the hottest young prospect in the game arguably, and now he's got another brilliant prospect too. In my opinion, in terms of halfbacks, he's only probably second to Young Katowa from the Dolphins in terms of what they're potentially capable of being. So he's got great players there. He's got Buller at fullback, he's got great finishes in Taruver

and Skelton. Tower's found a leg this year. I don't know why we can't score in the red zone, mate, just other teams seem to be able to strip teams of numbers so easily. I watched that Saint George Ruce's game Saturday afternoon that was quite late, the five o'clock game or whatever it was, and the first five tries we're just basically stripping teams of numbers and scoring and it looks so easy. So again, I don't know how

that all works. Adele would know better than me, Eddie, but look it's it's probably a pass because we get to the quarterline reasonably well, but once we get there we seem to lack a bit of creativity.

assume they're talking about with the ball. Is that almost like a backhanded criticism to say they sort of you know, when they fall behind, they start throwing the ball around, or how do you how do you sort of read that?

think our attack isn't too bad. It's not pretty, but it doesn't fundamentally base what you do as a team of results. Wise. Look, I don't take much notice of what other people say about us because we've won three wooden spoons, Like nothing is genuine that comes out of other team's mounts. So you know, I think they try to be respectful, but at the same time Mike gives them backhanded compliments or even some backhand pieces of criticism. But I don't really worry too much about what other

teams say. It's a really good question you ask in regard to our style of football. I don't think we've been able to figure it out, and I do think there.

on the field. I think he is better when he's got a little bit more rumor, as all players do, and gets into that second receiver role. I certainly think lats who can help him do that. Excuse me, but yeah, I think moving forward he has to be he has to be the six. But geez, a lot of money to be paying for a six, So you'd want him to start producing a little bit more on the field in terms of results, in terms of you know, try and see something. You know, I keep mentioning Galvin's name.

Galvin left the club a couple of months ago, and he's still got more try assists for the Tigers than Luli has this year. So you know, it's quite damning in that way if you if you're just looking at it statistically, But again, you see how hard he tries. Generally. I think he was suffering a little bit of an origin letdown yesterday. I mean, given he had a fair bit in terms of the contribution to our failure in Game two and Game three, though we did have some

good moments. Yeah, he was definitely on a bit of a downer yesterday, But normally he's really upbeat, he's really driving the team and it's funny, Eddie. We've got co captains in Romey and Happy, but when I watched the Tigers, it looks to me like Roamy's team. I don't look at Appy as the captain anymore because that's how much influence I see Roami with barking instructions, and I just feel like Appy is more of a what's the term, like he's just been given the captaincy as a like

a little bit of a royalty sort of thing. But really the main guy is Jerome Leui do you mind?

Darren Lockier. Darren Lockey was a six, but he ran the theme, puts the ball more than anybody, even at someone like Camera Munster. He gets the board just as much as Jerome News does, but obviously Jeromews brings a different dynamic to the game from their perspective. I don't want to be perceived as someone who comes up with excuses, but I have no doubt in the world that Jerome coming in so late. Then on top of that Origin, then on top of that Galvin, then on top of

that even Lato's issues with injury. You cannot expect, doesn't matter who you are. Even Nathan Cleary had to struggled with started this year when they're chomping and changing Halds with him until they put Saloni there and he's played week in week out. You cannot expect someone, it doesn't matter what level you're at, to be able to just go click and that's going to work. And I know it's easy for us. And I'm going to have the

Red Holt crack. And then when I get on the West Tidle of my podcast tonight, I'm going to have a Red Holt crack at our fans at the moment because some of the narrative and the conversations around your own to me are really really disappointing. He had a bad game yesterday, Absolutely no doubt about that. You're entitled to have a bad game. I think footballers are in general, are entitled to not play well a couple of times.

I think some of the narrative around his origin performance are disgraceful, some of the blameing in regards to that one kick, Like if you're a team, am I allowed to swear on this video? Or like if you can't defend a effing set of six because of one seven seven tackle set? And people in the media want to sit there and rip into one blow about one seven tackle set, Well, you did say, kidding yourself, like he's been made the scapegoat at all, and it's just terrible,

Like it's so poor. And I think it's because he plays for the West Tigers, which I don't blame people for criticizing our club and making fun of us. We won three wooden spoons. I think you're allowed to make fun of people who are failing at a professional level, and that's what we're doing. I think in the long term, Jeromes is exactly what we need. Do we need the pieces around him to be just as good and better, Yes, But the number one thing we need is a competitor

in our team. Someone to set a standard from that perspective, and that's what Jerab does.

West Tiger's related. That was like an arm wrestle where your new South Wales and I'm Queensland and you got me three quarters of the way down in that early tussle, and he was the first thing that went wrong with that kick, and I know it led to a seven will set in the penalty and they got to Neil. But these are the moments, like how many games do we need to score? When we score first, we generally win,

you know, except for yesterday. But that's so important in Origin to get off to a great start in the decider. He had a bad starting in game two in Perth. I mean that first trisis it was lucky to hit his foot and he had a terrible first half. He certainly made up for it in the second half, but the guys won four premierships. At what stage is he meant to click for us, like he knows what to do, Like what what stage do we get to see him

in a cohesive unit with our club. I accept what you're saying about Galvin and origin and interruptions and a new Young's Halves partner and all that, but what are we supposed to do? Like, so, where is it going to be? Middle of next year? Is it going to be in year three? Can you answer that formula? What's what's the right timeline?

forecast what was going to happen with Galvin. I still have no doubt, and I think rich I remember Richard saying it in the preseason. The fact that he come in in January is not ideal. I actually tried to google a little bit earlier to see if someone are

playing this year. But when you get a full pre season in which he's not been able to get with us, especially coming to a new team where you're dealing with young kids, a new combination, you know, obviously yes he's got the combination, but happy that that's all he's got. He does not know anybody else. It's not easy to just walk in and go click. If him and Galvin, let's just say, let's just use that Galvin as hypathetic.

If we are in the sane Harves combination all year and we got to this stage, i'd agree with you wrong. But I think I look it. I actually looked it up the other day. Record when Galvin and Luil are our halves, it's above fifty percent. Now we can start sitting that standard with him and Lato and see where how they go.

the field. And particularly that game against Canberra when Latu Feynu came on as soon as Jerome Leueye got wider. I mean he did some great line breakers this, you know. I think one to Adam Dewey Wonder SAMUELA feyn who, like I just think he needs a little bit more room. I'm not sold on his kicking game, mate, I thought that. I mean again, I'm probably I've still got yesterday's kicks

in mind. It's not that they were bad, it's just they were what's the term impotent, Like you see Adam kick a ball like he can boot the crap out of it. I just don't think he's got the strong enough kicking game to be that dominant halfback. I think he's more suited to being a six, more suited to

being a second receiver than being a first receiver. And we've tried to put him into a space that he really didn't fit into, and from what I've seen so far, I'm sure he's capable of being a really good seven, but from what we've seen this year, I don't see that mate.

But just thought of Isaiah yo penrith. And please don't confuse me for saying Adam do's Isaiah yoh, But I thought could that potentially help Jerome Lewi just get him a little bit wider left and having that central guy in Dewey orchestrating a bit more from a great coach perspective.

unlocks a little bit of what we do. Look he's doing that guy, well, I think that's up to do it. If he wants to play the role. You know, it's something that could happen. It's just about whether he wants to do it or not. I've been around long enough now in the last couple of years, watching his team very closely to know that Adam has his ups and downs, and especially his challenge has more been around defense and his application of his defense. This year, it's improved. And

if anyone doesn't acknowledge that, or they're kidding themselves. And I think Adam is in the same boat as a lot of other players, where people either criticize him, don't like him and criticizing or don't say a word when he's playing well, I don't think he's our halves solution

in the long term. He might be able to fill a gap in the meantime because I actually potentially think that, you know, if Latu's got the attitude, we think, potentially you go back to putting Latsu at thirteen while he's building his game and playing that role off the bench

that he was early in the year. But they're the sort of decisions you get paid for as a head coach to make, and you live a name work and you know that when you lose, you're going to get criticized for it, and when you win, no one's going to he's going to compliment you. They're still going to wait for you to lose, especially in a position we're in. But yeah, it's something that I'm sure the club looked at.

I mean, considering Benji made that move in the second half on the weekend, I think it's something that I think my perception of that and I said it on the podcast last week, is I think why he made the move is because I think Taylor made will be in sooner rather than later, and I think Adam's in our best seventeen So I think Adam will go to the bench and we'll come on and play that fourteen roll.

way you can do it. I don't think there's anyone out there that you know you're going to sign a Cameron Murray or Isaao. They're not coming off contract.

And when I when I say middle forward, I mean a genuine destructive middle forward who can find that front, who generates good line speed, who has a little bit of intimidation and a bit of fear factor. I think our forwards all play very very similar. Obviously, I think we tried them in Roy's Humber. That experiment obviously hasn't worked. I think in genuine hard running middle which is not available for next year unfortunately.

of pace. And yah, I just think even when you look at our forwards, I think some of the other club's young forwards coming through, they just seem to have this prototype of big six foot three, six foot four, young big Polynesian boys and we don't have all that coming through. So I don't know if it's who we identify or what we're doing, But yeah, other clubs seem to have more natural, naturally talented players or physically talented players than we do.

three other clubs. Do we have a specific defensive system and what have you made over all of the team's defense this season.

it doesn't make sense. You look at the staff to teller when it was the stuff to its Chanelle Harris of Entitroy and staff to Teller's decision making a correct defense if the system would never allow Senator make that decision. So either the players just cannot implement what the coach's system is or the system is broken. The hard part for us is we don't know what the truth is.

It's got to be one of the other. It's not even in between them that it's got to be that there is a good system or there is a system going to need to be a good system as there is one, but it keeps getting broken by the players because I am seeing so many insistencies with the decision making we are coming up with, especially on our edges.

We are middles of the defensive system. Middle Wise, the onely thing you really can focus on is things like tackle control, principles around a defenders, principles around market work, all that sort of stuff. Unless you're hearing things and you actually can get access to the players on the field, you can't actually really tell too much about your defensive systems and around the middle of the field. But I

have no doubt how defensive well. Defense doesn't have a consistent system and the principles get broken too frequently in my liging.

be able to. Skelton doesn't neither one or the other. So he's sort of in between making the right decision or making a decision. I think he just struggled with that. It's funny I see a lot of our band talking about Tui Tupo, who's in the cup. Very similar. As a winger, you've got to be good with understanding the defensive system, the defensive principles, and being good at making decisions.

That's where Adam do. He has been really good for us at left center because I think he's done a really good job and reading defense and making good decisions. He's been let down by his winger way too much.

how our pack is. We're certainly getting some good output from Sioni Feinu Ballet is a great player. Though we didn't have a good game yesterday, there's enough there to work with. But just seeing the way that pack was manhandled yesterday by New Zealand, who are arguably missing their best forward in Mitch Barnett, that was really disheartening for me. But I guess overall you give it a pass. But I guess I'd rather judge it in another seven or eight weeks from now, Eddie than right now.

the balld on because they're really good at it. Go watch every time it can kicks the ball down the field, and watch the first tackle, and watch what the emphasis is on what the defensive side does, and then watch what our team does. We tackle. Okay, our job is to It's almost like our players all they care about is getting it, trying to get to the guy on the ground, the guy agree you look at to a picky yesterday, how many times he bumped the first man.

Our dual contact is not there. Our kickchase application is so poor, Like there needs to be so much more work on kick chase. It's where it starts for us. Then if you can win tackle one, usually you're a chance of winning tackle two, which will have a big impact. And I just think our wrestle work is not good enough. I know the club has a wrestle coach. I know who the wrestle coach is. He is very highly regarded, So you know it's potentially from a resource perspective, They've

got the right person there. Potentially, I don't know. I don't know him personally. I just know who he is and how he's regarded around the league. He used to be at Canberra, previously worked under Ricky Stewart, So potentially you turn around and go well, other players capable of doing it. I'm not sure what the solution is to that, because to me, it's almost you sit there and work on that till it becomes perfect. If you cannot win tackle one and two defensively in a football game, you

will not win football games. And I think we've proven that this year. It's been a big reason why we have not won football games in my opinion.

Are they on the way out? Buy sell or hold?

But look, as far as I'm concerned, as long as you've got the right coach and who's done the hard yards on the apprenticeship, believes in what he's doing, I think that's all that matters now. And I think we're going to go towards younger coaches now. It doesn't affect us, guys, but I would be so excited to see the Gold Coast get the Walker brothers because I know they were doing so many radical things six and seven years ago and they haven't coached for a while now. But if

they do end up getting that Titans gig. That's the sort of thing that would excite me to watch a team like that and see what they come up with. I think everyone just copies everyone else now, like most people have follow you know, copying Penrith obviously because they've won four Premierships in a row and can it's just another version of Penrith at the moment. And I think, you know, we need someone to rejuvenate the game and be a little bit more revolutionary and come up with

something new. So yeah, I think the old coaches are out data, but they've certainly got a place in the game still.

But I was listening to Phil Good and I can't stand the guy, but I do like listening to him, and he was talking about trying to get clubs off the bottom of the ladder, and he pretends that he loves the Tigers and blah blah blah, but he was saying, basically, when you're in the bottom, you have to improve your attack first, and you buy trying to buy players that can hit the scoreboard for you, and then you can improve your defense. Does that make sense or not.

So I'll flip it back to the NRAL if you if I'm a West Tiger's coach, I look at what position we need. And the funny thing about that is you're actually building your attack for us, because I would go by a lock. I think the habits you can build in pre season will improve your defense and the application the players put into that. But yes, your attack needs to become better.

to have an ego. And even if you look at the guys that aren't as young anymore, like your Dylan Edwards and your Isaiaeos, they've just always looked like respectful people and they've never had egos. They were really young ones and they never busted to get out of clubs or do anything differently. So yeah, I think it's about

the environment you create. And look, there's nothing wrong with trying to please your players, but I feel like, you know, from what we see, with what we've seen with Galvin and Tallon, we're just letting people get their way, and that's something that I think all were Tigers fans are frustrated with. And I've got no issue with letting them go. It's just trying to get something in return for them,

whether it's a player. I don't think getting one hundred and fifty one hundred and sixty thousand means anything to us. We don't care we've we've got, you know, big salary caps. We keep hearing how much money we've got in the pool, in this war chest and everything. It means nothing to us.

We just want to get wins. So I just think it's about setting having a good environment and you know, teaching young people to be respectful and making them work hard and just yeah, just I guess the generation is entitled Eddie. But I think if you create the right environment at the club, you can get rid of those egos. And look, I think the test will be in terms

of what you've just mentioned. Now, let's judge Lockie Galvin where he's in eighteen months from now, in terms of how he acts on and off the field and what his performances are like, and if he does put his head down and do the hard work, then I guess you could say, well, he's gone all a better environment than what we have.

Like even his bad passes turned into gold at the beginning of the game. But he just kept pushing and pushing and pushing, and then to push the pass that he did at eighteen mil up, you know, twenty meters out from the line to kickout. I mean that turned the whole momentum of the game. So he'll learn from that, Mate. He's only young, and he's a talent. There's no and there's definitely a bit of sour grapes from me. But let's just see how he is in eighteen months from now.

And also let's see how talent to Silver is and see if Jason Rowles, you know, keeps him ground and if they do that, then you'll say it's the environment that's not the player.

to Melbourne, they are intense and don't stop. You know, they're always you know, you go to the Roosters, their coaches have silk, their silks, you know, it's a reflection of the personality of the coach.

lost me a little bit that way. Plus the fact that he went rather silent through that whole Galvin period of him about to go or soon to go, and then he went. And I know there were legal ramifications and all that sort of stuff, but I felt like the Richo we'd seen prior to that situation would have come out, been on the front foot, done a ten minute behind the roar, or whatever the case may be. Or send an email out to members and put us at ease, and I just felt like I just started

building a lot of doubt. Eddie said, look, he's always going to have my backing mate, like I even I'm not seeing Banji anymore, and Benji will always have my support and I'll be cheering the team. Will the cows come home? But in terms of whether I believe in rich, Oh, I've just lost a little bit of confidence.

mean not yet, especially with the galvan one. But I've always talked about the fact that I think that if you didn't sign up he now for the next two years, it means you're needed a stop gap solution until I think the better hooker for us is Jared Hayward would come through. So I think it's the perfect signing and the timeline sort of works.

We're playing games at paramatter against paramatter. I don't care about the corporate facilities where we're giving away two competition points when we do that. So you're not going to get short answers out of me yetie, And don't let the bell so easily with the whole stuff, ok mate, Because of course we because we do play to Benji's personality. Mate, He's a natural at everything he does and there's not

much hard work put in. That's how that's our seem. Okay, I'm going to I'm going to fire him up.

only replace them with Tailor May. In some ways, Adele all loved this. In some ways, you can probably defend Benji given that we've got a really crappy roster, but who created that roster? Like Benji's been there going on three years now since he got employed as an assistant.

the course coming your way. Still doesn't mean I'm not going to rip into them.

work on in the offseason. So actually, even if we're when we're totally out of the race for the finals, which it looks like we are now, I would give him a game regardless of how well the centers are in the team the previous week. So for example, if Taller and Tailor may have had blinders, I don't care. Just move one of them or shift one of them, give Macasini a taste and then go from there. But yeah, they look, we've seen it for so long, Like Tallon played a couple of years ago, We had to play

for Letty a couple of years ago. We've tried so many guys and you know, unfortunately, whether our fans want to believe it or not, and it's really harsh Eddy, we destroy careers sometimes. So we've got to be a little bit better and a little bit more concerned about, you know, the player's development, instead of just rushing him in or playing him injured, or playing the long minutes just because we're desperate for wins. There's got to be a duty of care that's a little bit better from our club.

before we even consider him for first grade. Tailor May hasn't even done a full preseason yet, and just because he's scored three tries in Cup, we're going to throw him in like like Lob scored three tries a week before. We're not We're not certainly going to put him there. We've got to respect for Cup being what Cup is. And I just think other clubs don't do that. Mate, they don't.

the league. It does. It happens across the league. The difference is us, as West Tigers fans, we focus on our stuff and again we're damaged by the fact that we've won three Wooden Spoons. But there is guy playing for other clubs right now who would not get a game at any other club as well. And I'm talking about clubs that are struggling. I'm not talking about clubs at the top. When you're at the top, you don't need to, but when you're in our position, you have to.

And it's not a negative and those guys you're talking about is when we've been back, and we've been back for a very long time.

you know, is on the way out. And again, someone like a Ryan Madison who everyone hates. I get that, but that type of person that's played plenty of games, and instead you've got to put Kit low Lee on the bench and you know he's not ready for it. Like there's guy, there's just no in between. With our clubmate, we've got really good, top quality players and then got you go from the penthouse to the basement. There's no middle of the road players there.

an RL level. He never was. Kiit Lowie did the same thing, like he was a good player at Harold Matts. If you're going backwards from Harold Matson going up, I'll see you another one. Heith Mason's another one. To me, he's actually got worse every year. Well, I watched Heith Mason player schi ball last year. He's Mason couldn't dominate ant ball game. So I'm sitting there going whereas Talon did. So I'll give Talent the credit he did. On Talent

went back, he dominated Luke Ouri. When he goes back dominates. These are the sort of differences between the guys that can play an RL. When guys go back to the lower grades and your Filetti's and they can't do anything and they're not having an impact. They're not in rol players. They never were. The problem for us is we have this notion about building from within. We fallen a victim to a Harrell Matt side that won one comp. Well

done to them. A lot of teams win one comp and we thought, what we'll do is we'll turn that into a golden generation. It was one competition and that's what we decided to do. And off the back of that, we actually ended up playing Rocky Galvin at six, who was the actual back roller in that team. So it's not even a consistency of what that team looked like. So I will agree with you we have guys that

shouldn't have ever belonged in first grade. But to say that that's our fault that we played them to early, we never had a choice. Unfortunately, Well is.

we've got Latu. Who would it be? I'll give my answer first. I thought about Gareth Ellis giving our lack of back rows, but I'm still going with my man Scottie Prince Rob. Who would be for you?

and we'll have you. But my second choice was Gareth Ellis because he was a man mountain and he I know we had a lot of good forwards in that pack, Eddie, but he carried that pack. So if I had the choice of one of those two, it'll be one of them. But yeah, Benji just fixes our problem this week at Leichhard Oval against the Titans.