You can argue all day long over who is right and who is wrong in the Wests Tigers fiasco.
However, despite the blow-ups, finger pointing and attempts from various media outlets to magnify the trouble, nothing has happened and none of the major players acted any differently to how we would expect them to act.
When there is no gap between the public face and the private self, us fans start wonder where the story was.
So Robbie Farah is an intense dude who demands the respect that he doesn’t always get. No surprise’s there. Gorden Tallis is emotionally raw and stands up for what he believes is right. Bingo.
Mick Potter comes across as stoic and considered. Tick, tick. And as for late entrant to the controversy, Steve Roach, well, there was a reason that Warren Ryan would replace him towards the end of close games back in the 80s.
We loved his ill-conceived outbursts as a player so we can’t really complain when he does the same now. As for the hemming and hawing of the board, that’s why the NRL are bringing in their own people and it’s very difficult for a CEO to do anything when his bosses are lame ducks.
Sports people tend to strike problems when their actions are inconsistent with their public persona. Tiger Woods is the poster boy for that, but it exists on a smaller scale as well.
Can’t quite put your finger on why you don’t like a particular player? Chances are its because there’s a gap between how they project themselves in the media and what we see them do on the field.
Willie Mason will say outrageous things on TV, but no-one cares because it’s Willie. When Josh Reynolds or Greg Bird do something grubby we aren’t shocked or confused, it’s who they are.
However when Cameron Smith presents as a politician on camera, it’s incongruent with his ferocious and sometimes viscous competitiveness on the field. Paul Gallen is heading in the same direction. We understood when he was thuggish on and off the field, but the attempt to transition him to a statesman of the game makes him a very confusing spokesman.
So even if it was consistent with his character, should Tallis have said anything? Probably not. Should Farah have done an interview with the GM from another club? Probably not.
Should Blocker have given inflammatory quotes to The Daily Telegraph? Probably not. Does any of it matter? Nope. The Tigers will still miss the top eight and it’s unlikely that Potter will be the coach next year.
But then Saturday happened.
When the Wests Tigers lost 64-0 to the Melbourne Storm in 2001, it gave the fledging joint venture a big dose of reality and it made former international John Simon quit the game. The current troubles at the Tigers provide a convenient excuse for the 64-6 result against the Cowboys, but the reality exposed by the defeat was that several members of the squad have a large gap between what are expected of them as first grade footballers and what they are able to produce.
Is this a coaching issue? Not if the coach isn’t involved in recruitment as we are led to believe. So if it’s the CEO that’s making these calls, fine, but he needs the support of the board, the coach and the captain.
Until all four of these positions are aligned, then the biggest problem the Tigers have to worry about is the one developing with their fans.
For us fans are loyal people, but only as long as the gaps on the scoreboard don’t stay too big for too long.
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