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I feel like I’m supposed to talk about Wests Tigers, but to be honest I’m sick to death of hearing about the club.
The Tigers are an embarrassment to themselves and the game, but as far as things have gone already it doesn’t appear they are about to stop. Wests clearly have the capacity to embarrass themselves even further between now and the end of the season.
When it will stop, who knows? If you’re like me, it’s a case of who cares? But I accept there are a heap of Tigers fans out there who would be deeply upset by what is going on at the joint.
It would be more interesting if all of this drama was being played out against a backdrop of the Tigers being in the thick of the battle for a place in the finals, but we can’t even have that.
The Tigers are gone after their loss to Melbourne on Monday.
They might be on 22 points, only two outside of the top eight with 10 points still to play for in a competition where 28 could see you make the finals, but in reality they are so far removed from the finals race it’s not even worth talking about.
Seriously, what would be their mentality right now, given the fallout from the various dramas involving captain Robbie Farah, coach Mick Potter, chief executive Grant Mayer and commentator Gorden Tallis that is still happening?
Johnathan Thurston and his North Queensland Cowboys will probably give them a touch-up in Townsville on Saturday night.
Potter is a thoroughly decent man who doesn’t deserve all the rubbish he has had to cop. He has done a good job coaching the Tigers this year. After all, plenty of people were tipping them for the wooden spoon before the season began.
Everyone else involved, including, obviously, the club’s board of directors, has got a few things to answer for.
No doubt plenty of people watched Farah’s interview with Phil Gould on The Footy Show last night.
We had already been informed of some of the contents via newspaper stories, and the rest of it was simply more of Farah’s take on the whole situation.
What I’d really like to see now are interviews with Potter and Mayer in which each of them spill their guts.
I find it hard to see Potter coaching the Tigers next year, if for no other reason than things appear to have gone too far in the other direction. What the future holds for Mayer remains to be seen.
It’s going to be interesting to see who does and doesn’t survive the wreckage.
But that’s it for the Tigers. I don’t want to spend this entire column on them, not when there is a potential ball-tearer of a game to be played at the Sydney Cricket Ground between Manly and South Sydney tonight.
The first time I can remember going to the SCG was 48 years ago, when I was seven. Balmain played Manly in the preliminary final and the Tigers won, 8-5. Keith Barnes was kicking goals from everywhere for the Tigers and Bob Fulton was a teenager in his first season with the Sea Eagles.
I won’t bore you with any further details of my youth, except to say that it was great when you could perch yourself on the Hill or in the marvellous Sheridan Stand.
But progress is progress and the SCG has long since been updated, as the modern day demands. It’s still the SCG, though, the home of so many champions over so many decades, and if you haven’t been to a big league game there then tonight’s clash offers a great opportunity.
I can’t tip against Manly. They’re just playing too well at the moment. Even when they’re a bit off their game they just hang in there until they get it right again. They are clearly the most controlled side in the competition.
I don’t doubt that the Rabbitohs are playing well, but this is going to be a vastly different proposition for them than it was when they flogged Newcastle last weekend. The Knights are also-rans in this competition and played like it, with minimal intensity.
Tonight’s game should be a contest, but until I see something to convince me otherwise I’ll be tipping Manly against every team they play from this point.
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