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PRICHARD: Thanks, Jason Taylor, for not playing the blame game

19th April, 2015
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Will the Wests Tigers retain Tedesco and co? James Tedesco Aaron Woods (Photo: AAP)
Expert
19th April, 2015
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The restraint Wests Tigers coach Jason Taylor has shown in his reaction to unfavourable decisions by match officials is one of the most refreshing aspects of the first seven rounds of the NRL competition.

There are some other coaches in the NRL who could learn a lesson from him.

Taylor refused to blame the referees for the decision to disallow a try with four minutes to go that – had it been awarded – would have almost certainly won the game for the Tigers against Canberra on Sunday.

It was ruled that Robbie Farah had gained an advantage by running behind Keith Galloway along the way to grubber-kicking for a try to Luke Brooks.

Whether the decision was right or wrong doesn’t affect my point, which is that Taylor accepted the ruling rather than try to use it as an excuse for a loss.

Some other coaches would find it terribly hard to accept a ruling that cost them a game like that, regardless of whether it was the most obvious thing on earth that the decision was right.

“That’s the rule,” Taylor said at the post-match media conference. “You can’t run around your own player and gain an advantage. The fact we scored a try at the end of it, I suppose that’s an advantage, isn’t it?

“We don’t practice running around behind each other. For me, that was a sign we weren’t playing what we practiced. We’re clearly still a way off in relation to how we play and where we want to be as a team.”

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It is obvious from the way Taylor talks that from the moment he took charge of his mostly young team at the start of the pre-season he was determined to make them own the result.

The players – and we’re talking about a side that has very young players in three of the four ‘spine’ positions – had to be accountable and not use anything that might happen that was out of their control as a crutch.

It might seem a straight-forward and sensible approach – and it is – but how often do we see coaches blame something other than the mistakes made by their players or themselves for a loss?

Way too often.

Taylor is teaching his young players good habits that will inevitably make them better able to handle adversity than those who see and hear their coaches look for excuses.

The Tigers led the Raiders 22-0 after 25 minutes at their spiritual home – Leichhardt Oval. There shouldn’t be any set of circumstances under which they could lose from there.

But they did, 30-22.

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The Tigers got a bit soft in defence approaching halftime and instead of going to the break with a whopping lead they were up only 22-12.

Canberra had discovered new life when they should have been strangled. They ended up scoring 30 unanswered points.

That just shouldn’t have happened.

“An NRL game goes for 80 minutes and we’ve been talking about that,” Taylor went on to say. “We want to be more consistent across the course of that 80 minutes. As a club and a team we identified that at the start of the year.”

Taylor was the same after the Tigers had lost to the Warriors in the previous round. He refused to use a couple of controversial decisions that went against his team as an excuse.

Later on Sunday night, after the post-match media conference, it was reported that the referees had erred by giving the Tigers only five tackles in a set in the 78th minute.

The Tigers trailed 24-22 and possession was turned over after Chris Lawrence went to ground with the ball, rather than the Tigers kicking downfield.

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Referee Henry Perenara raised his hand after the fourth tackle to signal that the last tackle was coming up, but obviously Lawrence may have been unaware of that.

Canberra went on to score another try.

I don’t anticipate Taylor using that as an excuse either. When you lead 22-0 at home and you fail to go on with it, pointing to things that went against your team in the dying stages of the match doesn’t wash.

The Tigers should never have found themselves in that position in the first place. If they blame themselves for what happened, they’re more chance of learning how to prevent the same thing from happening next time.

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