"Annoyed" Maguire blasts Tigers

Wests Tigers will likely have to win six of their remaining seven games to secure an NRL finals berth, and coach Michael Maguire has blasted his players now their September hopes hang by a thread.

The Tigers are languishing in 13th spot after falling to Canberra on Saturday night, their third straight loss, and are expected to need to win six of their remaining seven games to play finals.

Maguire is his first season at the club and didn’t pull any punches assessing their campaign, admitting things had to change immediately.

“We’ve got to be a lot harder as a team, it’s as simple as that,” Maguire said.

“We’ve been talking about patches over the last couple of months and it seems to be a recurring piece in this team at the moment.

“I’m pretty annoyed with having to be in that situation (on the ladder). We shouldn’t be in that situation, as simple as that. If we’re going to change as a club we need to harden up as a group.

“I’ve seen some really good stuff since I’ve been here and we’ve got a bit of a habit at the moment where we just give games away and it’s not acceptable.

Maguire said “everyone” when asked who in particular he wanted to see improve.

“It’s about making sure everyone is accountable and I’ll look at the youth coming through, give people opportunity,” Maguire said.

“We need look at how players are going to continually get better as a club because at the end of the day we’ve seen signs of some good play but we need to be more consistent in everything we do.”