Pulling the Tigers' teeth: Part 1 - Is this squad as bad as they're showing?

The only detestable NRL game I’ve seen this season was Newcastle versus Wests. While there have been blowouts and mismatches, every game has offered something even if it was just the pleasure of watching a great attack firing, meanwhile most games have offered significantly more.

But the Knights-Tigers game showed two teams where neither was capable of letting the other lose.

Circumstances are not improving for Wests, so let’s look at how to improve performance within the current roster. This article, Part 1, reviews the current team while Part 2 will propose a structure and game plan.

My view of NRL teams circa 2023 is that there are three core truths. The truths do not guarantee a premiership but they do allow for each team to put up a fight and win enough games, and populate enough highlight reels, to keep the fans on board and spectators interested.

1. Every team has a roster capable of competing each week
2. When they don’t compete, the players are not being used to their strengths
3. The pace of the game allows effort to mitigate skill when well directed.

When reviewing Wests, they have a competitive roster which includes a few players welcome in any team: win a few games and the number welcome elsewhere increases. The Tigers also have effort covered: they are clearly trying, but they are trying as individuals. What they don’t have is players being used to their strengths.

Let’s take some time reviewing their players.

Luke Brooks

Despite the criticism, Brooks is a very good playmaker, but he is not being put in situations he is able to exploit. That word exploit is key to Brooks: he needs a defence that has already shifted, enabling him to attack pattern mismatch or isolate individuals. His pack has not given him movement and, when he does receive the ball, he is looking at a settled defence.

Luke Brooks. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

To be clear, unsettling the defence is not about yardage, it is forcing the defence to adjust, changing shape and alignment and forcing movement from cover defenders.

The best of Brooks in 2022 came when Jackson Hastings was the halfback and Brooks moved to five-eighth. This was not an accident: Hastings is a very dominant half who is always seeking to be first receiver. The effect of Hastings is for the defence to queue off his movements, resulting in movement and adjustment in the defence.

This gives the pattern shifts that Brooks looks to attack. Since Brooks was not the first receiver, he had the distance to recognise and pick points of attack.

When we cast back to the best of Brooks, we see the same pattern albeit in a different structure. Using 2018, he was awarded Dally M Halfback of the Year (Roger Tuivasa-Sheck won the Dally M) but played with Robbie Farah (mid-year signing) at hooker and Benji Marshall at five-eighth, both of whom are dominant spine players and shifted the defensive focus.

Brooks’ 2018 season was built on the run leading to line-breaks: his try assist total was not that impressive at 10 for the season. The Tigers of this vintage were noted for a high rate of passing amongst the forwards prior to contact. While not effective in and of itself, it may have created the defensive line micro-adjustments a player like Brooks exploits.

Wests need to be creating enough movement in the defensive line for Brooks to be able to exploit. Brooks needs enough stand-off that he sees opportunities. At the moment, all he sees is a settled defence tracking him. Without dwelling on Hastings’ departure, the Tigers need to structure to achieve discordance in the defensive line with Brooks in a position with the time to observe and attack weakness.

Apisai Koroisau

A lot of empty noise regarding Koroisau not starting in the early rounds. This was Tim Sheens following the current coaching fashion of two hookers while Koroisau is now 30 and nearing 200 games. The important part, overlooked, is the Tigers forwards had no idea how to play off Koroisau.

The former Panther’s key asset is subtlety out of dummy-half that unsettles the defence. He achieves a similar effect to Harry Grant, but where Grant achieves it through an extraordinary amount of movement in a compressed period of time, Koroisau achieves it through misdirection.

Kosoisau’s bread and butter is a body alignment suggesting a different action to the one taken. Some of this is run feint, most of it is shoulder, hip and head alignment suggesting a different pass target and timing to the actual recipient. While Grant pauses the defence, Koroisau causes momentary uncertainty which wears the defender down over time.

This works brilliantly in a Penrith structure where the players role through their tasks and trust their playmakers to get them the ball. For the Tigers, Koroisau’s deception is working just as well on the ball receivers as the defenders.

The best of Koroisau came with a partner in crime in the form of Isaah Yeo. From tackle two onwards, Koroisau always had one target in Yeo, who understood his game intimately, and line runners as secondary targets.

He does not have a foil at Wests: to date, Fonua Pole has filled the lock jersey. Pole is a young player but a prop in the junior grades so is still learning the craft of first grade. He is not a natural distributor so another victim of the semi-popular trend of playing three middles in the starting pack.

To get the best from Koroisau, Wests need to rack and stack line runners, tell them to ignore the shape they think they, run at their chosen hole and trust Koroisau to hit them. What good looks like is every ruck from tackle two has a minimum of two line runners in motion with both on the same side of the ruck: Koroisau plays subtle, he wants to pick between similar lines.

Ideally, some effort would be devoted to developing a partnered distribution target, a run-pass threat who Koroisau can team as the Tigers’ version of Yeo. Luckily, Wests have such a player but more on that later.

David Klemmer

The interesting thing about David Klemmer is that, as the game as accelerated and he has aged, his build has become increasingly leaner. While his output and effectiveness has remained high, he is no longer the eye-rolling angry man that is a little bigger and a lot scarier than most forwards, today’s David Klemmer looks grumpy rather than mean.

David Klemmer. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

2023 Klemmer will still try and be the alpha but it is no longer his forte, today he needs to be the high productivity forward that puts in a strong 50 minutes, makes his tackles and generates fast play the ball. The 2023 KPI for Klemmer is one strong line engagement in every second set, with success measured in finding his front and a quick play the ball. That’s all he needs to do to be a better than average prop and an effective part of the team.

Isaiah Papali’i

Isaiah Papali’i came to prominence through hard line running on the Parra edge. Mike Meehall Wood has previously questioned whether Papali’i is a good player benefiting from the Paramatta system rather than an exceptional player. I agree with Mike’s assessment with the caveat that there is no reason the Tigers can’t shape an edge to Papali’i’s liking.

Edge running benefits when the defence is adjusting. Parramatta set up their edges on the back of Reagan Campbell-Gillard and Junior Paulo compressing the line through the middle, meaning the defence needs to spread at pace to address a wide runner. Most edge running is outside-in whereas edge lines at Parramatta are often inside-out, with the edge runner slipping the tackle rather than seeking to off-balance to the inside.

The challenge with the Parramatta system is that it places the edge runner in a different position relative to the ball distributer and places different positioning requirements on the centre and winger. However, these are not insurmountable and are just training drills.

John Bateman

John Bateman has proven himself a genuine point of difference player during his abbreviated Canberra stay, was a big part of the Raiders’ 2019 Grand Final push and picked up the Dally M Second Rower of the Year to boot. 2020 wasn’t as much fun but he has already shown glimpses of his best in 2023.

Bateman at Canberra was part of a pack with Josh Papali’i, Josh Hodgson, Iosia Soliola, Elliott Whitehead and Joseph Tapine: a bunch of forwards that got the job done in a mostly traditional manner which gave Bateman the room to be unorthodox.

The Englishman selects moments when he takes control of a match. He will run his lines, make his tackles and support his playmakers, but when given room and opportunity, he does John Bateman things to set up a try or make the god-mode tackle. Sometimes, it looks like he just gets tired with what’s happening around him and decides to change things up.

(Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

So, to get the best out of Bateman: give him a structure he can play within and just accept he will write his own script when he wants.

Adam Doueihi

Adam Doueihi has consistently been the Tigers’ best attacking threat across the last two years, with a lot of it coming down the right side. Douiehi’s style is to primarily run and pass, with a strong bias towards engaging the line followed by a short pass, which makes him vulnerable to interception against awake outside backs but also effective at feeding hole runners while in contact.

The problem with Doueihi? When playing in the halves, what he does is similar to Brooks and he is not equipped to be the primary first receiver nor game manager. Oh, and there is this little issue with his tackling reliability. Doueihi is part of the best Tigers 13 and by some margin. He must be in the team, he certainly is not a fullback and he needs to be on the ball or he is wasted. He also can’t be the halves partner of Luke Brooks.

Alex Twal

Alex Twal is a Melbourne Storm player wearing black and orange. He is not a particularly skilful player and doesn’t really bend the line, but he is high effort, follows instructions and bleeds for the team. The reason for mentioning Twal: he is the type of rank-and-file player filling Melbourne rosters.

Twal won’t win Wests any games but he will lay the platform. Twal highlights that the Tigers have some of those meat-and-potatoes players needed in a competitive outfit.

The rest

The rest of the roster is a solid first grade assortment that are adequate for the purposes of a competitive squad. In the forwards, there are some young players with some potential such as Pole, Stefan Utoikamanu and Shawn Blore while Joe Ofahengaue is Pole’s predecessor in the prop pretending to be a lock role.

The backs are a little average on the skill stakes and a little less than average on the tackle but do offer lots of something that is very useful: speed.

Charlie Staines, Brent Naden and Dane Laurie are all express and it is a young outside backs roster with most in their early twenties while Naden is the old man at 27. There is a ‘sameness’ to all the Wests outside backs, they won’t win the power game but won’t lose the beach sprint.

Summary

So that’s the material we have to work with at Wests as well as the problems we have in getting them to fire. What is clear is that there is some talent and four or five very good players, which is enough to set up a competitive team in most NRL franchises. What is also clear is that it isn’t working at the Tigers.

In Part 2 we will look at whether a competitive structure can be built out of the current misfiring team.