My information from a mole in Wests Tigers is that they had 6 coaches short listed. They were all interviewed and then put through a series tests. After a few beers they assembled in the middle of Leichhardt Oval on the half way line. They were then questioned individually and as a group about their aspirations for the job, should they be chosen.

They were informed that some of the support staff would have to go as clearly they’d contributed nothing. With that, the decision was clear, Madge had to stay as the problem was solved. The other coaches were thanked for their interest and sent on their way.

The board told McGuire that they were right behind him and his job was safe.

Nothing quite like the ring of confidence that comes from a board telling you that they’re right behind you.

With that, the board and Madge, picked up their white canes and were assisted from the field with guide dogs by their side.

Paul, there’s actually a ton of coaches out there who couldn’t possibly do any worse than Madge. He’s a one trick pony who’s had his moments of glory. His used by date is past. He is clearly the major part of the cancer that besets the club. His blaming of his tools whilst berating all and sundry is a throwback to the days of dinosaurs. Has the vision of face slapping in the dressing rooms been released yet because that seems to be all that we haven’t seen yet from Madge.

Madge will get them fit as f*** for the first few games as he does every year. He just doesn’t get that the season is long and players teams need to be managed physically and mentally. It’ll just be a rinse and repeat of the last 3 seasons.

A guest role as a drill sergeant on SAS or an assistant coaching role may be what he needs to aspire to. If it is an assistant role then obviously it can’t be as “defence coach” as he’s shown no ability at doing that.

I can just see Madge talking to the players about defence:

Ok boys, when we don’t have the ball we need to work on “The Fence” , now let’s all go around the ground with our paint and brushes and work on the fence.

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result…….Absolute insanity for Wests to reappoint McGuire. He has shown in no uncertain terms the he does not have the qualities needed of a first grade coach at NRL level. The very basics needed are the ability to impart knowledge and the first job is to set a defensive platform that is the cornerstone towards being competitive and in time success. He has had 3 years of culling the squad he’d inherited and subsequently building his squad with players of his choice. One of a few constants has been his repeated blaming of players for not following his directions etc etc. He’s shown himself to be the quintessential poor tradesman forever blaming his tools. Wests are demonstrably poorer now than they were when McGuire took over. Their defence is all bar nonexistent.
Now we come to the situation where he’s been reappointed. The board decision leaves me in disbelief but that’s another story for another day.
Just to reiterate, McGuire has no place as head coach in charge of any NRL team. He had some moments of glory where he was given outstanding talent, made them rock hard fit and then subsequently when the hard work and seemingly constant blame game playing, lost his job. He’s clearly not a coach who can nurture talent and further, it seems to be that “quality” players don’t want to play under his stewardship.
Maybe a role as “staff” on SAS is a better role for the drill sergeant.

bjt……….I’m just looking at the job that Madge is doing. It’s at best very poor and at worst totally unacceptable.
He’s into his 3rd year and there’s nothing to suggest that he’s improved anything at all. In fact there’s plenty to suggest that things have gone progressively worse.
It’s evident that he’s not the man for the job………who it is i’m not sure but it’s clearly not him.

Absolutely correct.
He needs to go now…….not end of this year but now. They are just prolonging the inevitable. They couldn’t do worse with someone else. I looked at their draw before the season started and quite clearly they were always going to be in trouble early with little if any respite, given that by the time the easier games come around, the fitness advantage “The Drill Sergeant” may have had will have been caught up by other teams.

Why is it that most if not all people want to apportion blame for Wests performances on the players?
“Madge” is a career coach who seemingly realises that peddling the “we’re in rebuilding” is the best way for him to retain his job.
He has never shown any ability at all as a “rebuilder”. In fact, his style of management, coupled with amateur recruitment is the antithesis of what’s needed.
He can’t attract “good/very good” players as the one certainty with Madge is that the drill sergeant will flog you into submission. Couple that with his habit of dropping players weekly, it doesn’t instil a settled harmonious culture.
His recruitment or most probably his recruitment team and he, seem to favour cheap and nasty over any semblance of quality. Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that he seemingly can only shop for discards as the better players won’t go to him.
A bad tradesman always blames his tools.
The first thing a competent coach can and should address is the defensive platform. This is the bedrock on which teams grow. With that in place, the attack can be put in place. Defence is the best form of attack.
In the final 10 games of last season Wests conceded 26+ points per game. In a word…………unacceptable!
Madge didn’t learn anything as game after game they leaked points like a sieve. His ability to coach and impart defensive patterns was and is decidedly poor.
Fast forward to this season and you’d have thought that he’d have learnt something. No, more of the same with the inevitable dropping of players to reserve grade or whatever we name it these days.
The best thing that Wests can do is to bite the bullet, get rid of Madge and his cohort of assistants and recruitment team.
“Madge…..you are the weakest link, goodbye”.

Mushi, I agree that the cap is a cost control mechanism.

Ultimately we can’t allow clubs to spend themselves into oblivion because if we lose clubs we lose games which means less money being pumped into the game from sponsors etc etc.

At the same time we’re not the same as Football (Soccer if you need to call it that) around the world. Due to the length and breadth of it’s popularity and the amount of money it garners, the great majority of countries have no or at least little need for a salary cap. The richer clubs get richer and the poorer clubs do their best, whereas at the same time they benefit from the support and money that is generated.

In the NRL we have very limited money and need to protect what we have. The parity of competition is vitally important. We need the salary cap to be vigilantly adhered to, both minimum and of course maximum spends. As far as PTA’s are concerned, I find them a blight on the game.

Wests Tigers appear to be the only club as far as I can tell who show zero desire to be anymore than one of the numbers. It seems as though Madge, being a career coach realises that the rhetoric of “lets be competitive and build a good culture ” will keep him employed and employable. His record has shown that unless he is given a good/great roster his coaching skill set of getting the most out of his players through “army drill sergeant” fitness and organisation just gets them to be the best that they can be. Wests Tigers are doing the best that they can. Their ability seems to be at best 9th. They’ll have another year of being bashed and bullied and finish about the same again. They don’t seem to chase and most certainly don’t get great players to the club (Harry Grant is on loan only).

They seem to be the best example of a team wanting to underspend the salary cap. Good management and bad management are part and parcel of business life (and NRL is a business) Every club apart from Wests Tigers seems to show a desire to spend on the type of player that will possibly get them to a premiership or at least be a contender.

My understanding of a salary cap in sport is to attempt to have some sort of parity year in and year out. In this way you continue to engage the fans.

Now if we allow teams to hoard money to spend in later years then we may as well not have a salary cap at all.

As it is we have TPA’s which by and large circumvent the salary cap anyway. At least enforcing the salary cap with the obvious maximum but also with a minimum spend keeps the spirit of the salary cap intact.

Either have a salary cap as i’ve indicated or just don’t have one.

You can’t be a little pregnant. You’re either pregnant or you’re not.

Gold gold gold

Apparently Wests Tigers are trying to do a landmark deal, swapping Maguire for Bennett. There seems to be a sticking point with Souths……they don’t want Maguire to ever set foot in their club………unless he’s playing the pokies.

A bad tradesman always blames his tools. Not to say that Maguire is a bad coach but there’s a stench emanating re his capacity to change himself from the coach who got sacked from Souths.

Maybe he’s just an average tradesman.

Journeymen tend to play 130 games. They’re just like the proverbial “mother in law”, they stick around.

Nothing landmark about players being loaned in world sport. In a swap deal that suited Melbourne he was “gifted” to Wests. The Storm wanted Harry to gain some experience week in week out in top grade due to having two “Smiths” in front of him.
Great business by Melbourne in their landmark deal as if “Harry” continues to improve and display the form he’s showing, they get him back and if he doesn’t then they punt him.
Wests on the other hand are like the proverbial prostitute, used and abused and a cheap a.r.s.e. one at that.
Just read that Wests are on the lookout for Jason Saab. As though they need another “bargain basement” back. They need another back as much as Quasimodo needed an extra one.

To no one in particular and to everyone else………….V’Landys is about to have to come to grips with a greatly reduced income from the SOS series. Given that it’s the cash cow that the NRL are dependent upon year in and year out, the ramifications are going to be massive. As i’ve previously said V’Landys has always looked short term in his role with the NRL (maybe he felt he had to) and somewhere down the track over the next few years, numbers of teams and or salary caps WILL be reduced.

Roger, I have done research and as stated by you the big money signings and offers are from past coaches.
Maguire and his recruitment team either don’t want to spend money, can’t spend money because club has none or no amount of money is attractive enough for major signings to come to the club………..probably a combination of all.

Just looked up Nofoaluma in a thesaurus and it said…..”Journeyman”….considered competent and registered to work as a fully qualified employee of an NRL team.

Nofoaluma has been playing for 7 years and is just a journeyman. Plenty of journeymen are assets to teams but he’s never been and will never be anymore than that.

Burwale, Madge seems like a one trick pony. Bully and push and push and push. Players will buy into that if they’re winning. As soon as they’re not the story changes. After Souths won their most recent premiership things started to fracture and eventually Madge was sacked.
Two seasons with a lack of success will see the Madge magic seem stale. I for one don’t associate success with honourable loss. Lets be competitive but still lose……..doesn’t have a good feel to it.

matth

Wests are not building anything whilst they go the budget route. The only reason they have Harry Grant this season is they were gifted him as a swap. As soon as the season is over it’s adios Harry.
As you’ve said, swap deals are dependent on Grant returning to Melbourne…..and he will.

When Maguire had Wests training last season during the semi finals (when they finished 9th) it was evident that he was riding for a fall. Looks like a 9th or 10th place finish this season. Wonder if they’ll be training this year during the semi’s or will the players tell the prize prick to copulate himself.

Let me get my head around this…………When an NRL player signs a contract is he expected to honour the contract?

It sounds like DCE signed a contract and didn’t honour it. He is an NRL player and therefore does or doesn’t need to honour his contract?

Now, as far as Latrell wanting to test his value in the marketplace, it wasn’t that he just wanted more money, it was his desire to play fullback and not centre…………..I take it that fullbacks and centres get the same money.

Spruce, thank you so much for articulating this matter so well.

Within the last week Q+A on the ABC broadcast a wonderfully insightful program re racism in Australian sport…………….to anyone who hasn’t seen it, please go to catch up tv and watch.

Bruce Djite who is now Director of Coaching at Adelaide Utd (A League) hit the nail on the head when he said it was imperative for indigenous representation on board and hierarchy of sporting clubs. He further goes on to say that with that, change will occur much quicker.

An Inconvenient Truth…………………..

(1) NRL shouted from the rooftops that they’d be first code back in Australia

(2) They’d signed great broadcasting deals

(3) Massive viewers for round three

(4) Massive viewers for round four

Two out of four ain’t good.

Basketball??

Crosscoder, I don’t mind people being myopic at times but to say that NRL through it’s SOO games has the biggest tv audiences of all Australian sporting teams is incorrect.

When The Socceroos play a World Cup match the viewing audience are significantly bigger than SOO.

Rugby League is the number 2 code in Australia, the country where it’s played the most.

Understand and accept that Rugby League is a thoroughly enjoyable game to watch as is Australian Rules, Soccer and Rugby Union (i’m only referencing the major football codes in Australia).

NRL will never be the number one code in Australia. It will never be a truly international code. It is a code played primarily on the east coast of Australia.

It is what it is, nothing more and nothing less.