The Roar
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Taylor's tactics stifling young Tigers, boring fans

Alex Tricolas new author
Roar Rookie
6th June, 2015
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Will the Wests Tigers retain Tedesco and co? James Tedesco Aaron Woods (Photo: AAP)
Alex Tricolas new author
Roar Rookie
6th June, 2015
38
1690 Reads

A few weeks ago during a televised Channel Nine game, Phil Gould was banging on about the talent of the young Wests Tigers playmakers and about how they should be allowed to play their natural game. I’m sure he wasn’t talking to the viewers, but to Jason Taylor.

Love him or hate him, Gould knows his stuff, and he knows Taylor is suffocating the life out of these kids with this boring brand of footy. The football the Tigers are playing is one-up, boring, uninspiring stuff.

It’s not fooling opposition defences who just have to square up, make five tackles and then catch a mid-field bomb, and it’s boring the pants off the fans that pay money to be entertained.

The last quarter of the game on Saturday night, when the Tigers were desperate, they threw caution to the wind and almost pulled off a comeback. But it wasn’t enough. They had wasted most of the game playing the snooze-fest footy that has got them into this mess over the last six weeks.

It is a nothin’ doing strategy that now sees 2015 looking like another wasted season that will no doubt be spun by those responsible into a ‘rebuilding’ year.

For the Tigers, there were two highlights. One was the debut of promising youngster Manaia Cherrington, and the other was the sight of Chris Lawrence having a blinder at second row and breaking his try drought with two of the Tigers’ touchdowns. How coaching staff had not realised sooner that second row was the logical step for Lawrence is a mystery.

Over the last few years Tigertown has been busy tearing itself apart from the inside, and fans have bayed for the blood of everyone from the CEO to the ball-boys. As a fan, I’ve never called for a coach’s head. Not Tim Sheens, not Mick Potter. But this time, I feel that the appointment of JT was the wrong one.

Maybe they should have gone with Todd Payten. Certainly it was no secret that he wanted the job. He knew these kids. He got the best out of them, and they won everything under him.

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Not only that, they did it with the flair and excitement that Wests Tigers fans go nuts for. As Jack Gibson once said, winning starts at the front office. It seems the front office may have got it wrong again.

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