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Opinion

Why Harry Grant must not stay with Wests Tigers

Placepunter new author
Roar Rookie
1st August, 2020
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Placepunter new author
Roar Rookie
1st August, 2020
44
2156 Reads

I’ll cut straight to the chase.

He’ll never win a premiership with Wests Tigers and will even be lucky to play in a finals series. A player who shows the potential that he seems to have must have a great desire to be part of a winning team or at the very least a top-line contender.

Wests Tigers don’t have the cattle or the coach. Now I know that I’ll have some or even a lot of people disagree with me regarding Michael Maguire, but hear me out. He has shown himself to be a disciplinarian with a fire and brimstone style attached.

This type of approach works decently and for a period of time if you’re having success but soon turns tiresome if and when there’s no success. When he won the premiership in 2014 with Souths he had the luxury of some top tier players (I’ll run through some names in two groups and I’m sure there’ll be some disagreement).

Top of the line: Sam Burgess, Greg Inglis and Lote Tuqiri.

Very good: Luke Keary, Adam Reynolds, John Sutton and Dylan Walker.

In the following three years they finished seventh, 12th and 12th (followed by coach Maguire being sacked). Seemingly when the going got tough and the success wasn’t there, the taskmaster’s rhetoric fell on deaf ears.

Now let’s look at Wests Tigers.

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Top of the line: Harry Grant (possibly).

That’s it, all the rest are journeymen, coupled with some budget youngsters. Two years of Maguire and no semi-finals (reading my crystal ball for this year) with no apparent likelihood of improvement next year.

Aside from Maguire, there are severe question marks on the recruitment team. They seem to chase castoffs or at best cheap players as evidenced by their squad. Whether it’s a fault of the recruitment team, the coach or just the club having no desire to spend money, I don’t know.

I’ll use a saying made famous by Ken Howard and “bet London to a brick on” that Maguire’s time is up by the end of next season. Whether it’s the sack or the merry go round of coaching appointments, time will tell.

He seems to coach in a manner where a loss isn’t such a problem as long as it’s an honourable one. Whether he or his recruitment team are choosing the cheap player route, it shows a total lack of want to be successful (unless an honourable loss is).

I for one don’t understand why Maguire is getting kudos for being in ninth or tenth position.

Once again I’ll use a saying but this time it was made famous by Molly Meldrum: “do yourself a favour” Harry and don’t sign with Wests but go to a team where you can have success.

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