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Opinion
Wests Tigers entered Round 19 in last place on the ladder and with stand-in coach Brett Kimmorley sidelined due to COVID-19 protocols.
Yet they looked set to pull off the upset of the season when they scored two late tries to take a 26-25 lead over North Queensland with one second remaining.
They thought they had it secured when Daine Laurie caught the short kick-off by the Cowboys on the full, only for captain Chad Townsend to challenge an escort that was initially not picked up on the broadcast.
Upon the Bunker reviewing the footage, it was deemed by video referee Ashley Klein that Asu Kepaoa had impeded Kyle Feldt in the chase for the ball, and thus a penalty was awarded to the home side, giving North Queensland the chance to win it after the final siren.
However, fans and commentators saw a completely different view of it, with the replay suggesting that Feldt had intentionally run into the back of Kepaoa to draw the penalty.
The penalty conversion from Valentine Holmes was successful, giving the Cowboys a 27-26 victory.
Ultimately, it was the two missed conversions of those two late tries by Adam Doueihi that cost the Tigers in James Tamou’s 300th NRL game, which came against the club with whom he was part of their 2015 premiership side.
Despite the heartbreaking defeat, it was still one of the Tigers’ best performances of the year as they took it up to Cowboys, who will play finals for the first time since 2017 and remain on track to secure the coveted double chance with which comes at least one home final.
It will also be the first time the northerners play in September in the post-Johnathan Thurston era, though the club also did play finals in 2004 – the year before he moved to Townsville but not before featuring as a utility player in the Bulldogs side that won the premiership.
And with the Brisbane Broncos also enjoying a season of resurgence this year, it’s bound to be an exciting finals series for rugby league fans in Queensland as the prospect of an intrastate final, possibly as early as week one, looms.
In recent years, fans had been so disenchanted by their club’s poor performances that they switched to supporting the AFL’s Brisbane Lions in search of September joy.
The Lions are also doing so well to the point that Queensland could once again become Australia’s premier sporting state, as it was in the 1990s and noughties, during which the Broncos won all six of their NRL titles while the Lions won a hat-trick of AFL flags between 2001-03.
As shattered as they will be, the Wests Tigers will have to pick themselves up both mentally and physically for what will be another uneasy task when they face the resurgent Broncos at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night.
With a six-day break before then, it would make sense for the club to spend the week in Brisbane, as the Roosters did earlier this year after playing in Townsville and Brisbane back-to-back.
Despite their poor season, the Tigers will be buoyed by the fact that they’ve won their past three matches against the men from Red Hill, including a 48-0 hiding at Leichhardt Oval in 2020 and a 42-24 win in the corresponding match last year.
Tesi Niu of the Broncos. (Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)
The controversy behind Sunday’s result in Townsville could rage on should they end up claiming the wooden spoon for the first time in club history.
The joint venture has struggled this season, with only three wins, and last month dismissed coach Michael Maguire who had overseen a regression of the club’s on-field fortunes after the club fell agonisingly short of a finals berth in 2019, finishing ninth on the ladder.
The club finished 11th in 2020 and 13th last year, and now sit in last place instead of the 15th they would’ve been had they won.
The club’s soon-to-be 11 years without finals is currently the longest by any club, and also the longest by any club in the NRL era.. They have only played finals football three times – including this season, that’s a 13.63 per cent strike rate.
During this period, the club has seen several players leave for other clubs in pursuit of regular finals football, the most prominent example being James Tedesco, who left at the end of 2017 and played in two premierships for the Roosters in his first two years at Bondi Junction.
Another is Josh Addo-Carr, who after leaving Concord played in the Storm’s 2020 premiership before returning home to Sydney to join the Bulldogs in 2022.
But just imagine for a while the furore if this had happened in the final match of the final round, with the Tigers playing for a first finals berth in what seems like an eternity?
Such a loss would’ve had the potential to set the club back for many years, as was the case in 2007, 2016 and 2019 when the club lost must-win matches to get into the eight, instead finishing in the all-too-familiar position of ninth.
Though the club also finished ninth in 2004 (its fifth season as a merged entity) after losing their final three matches, it was, at the time, the club’s best ever finish until it was eclipsed by their premiership win 12 months later.
In the final round of the 2007 season, the Tigers led the Knights by 24-12 with seven minutes remaining but conceded two late tries, as well as a penalty right at the death, to lose 26-24 and have their season ended rather abruptly, finishing ninth on percentage.
Heavy losses to the Raiders and Sharks in 2016 and 2019, both at Leichhardt Oval, also proved fatal.
The Tigers have approached the NRL for a formal investigation into the controversial finish to Sunday’s match, which, if in the extremely rare event that it is overturned, would be a first in rugby league history – but not in Australian sport.
However, the replay showed that Soward had backed into Eastwood instead of making a legitimate attempt to chase down Idris.
Then-Bulldogs coach Kevin Moore was quoted as kicking off his post-match press conference with this question: “Hands up anyone in this room who thought that was a try?”
It remains to be seen what the Wests Tigers get out of their formal complaint to the NRL.
Regardless, the club will want to lift for long-suffering supporters, who have not seen their side win since Round 11, and give them something to be proud about as their season from hell starts winding down.
While finals football still remains a long way off, the Tigers can cause nuisance value and derail the Broncos’ top-four hopes, while they also have to face the Sharks, Roosters and Raiders in the run home.
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