{"id":313175,"date":"2023-07-02T07:06:53","date_gmt":"2023-07-02T07:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=313175"},"modified":"2023-07-02T07:58:01","modified_gmt":"2023-07-02T07:58:01","slug":"the-squabbling-that-is-destroying-the-tigers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=313175","title":{"rendered":"The 'squabbling that is destroying the Tigers'"},"content":{"rendered":"

The signs of the train wreck that is the Wests Tigers<\/a> became crystal clear at last year's joint venture Christmas party.<\/p>\n

I had a spy at the event – what should have been a happy and united affair – and what he reported to me immediately set off alarm bells.<\/p>\n

"In one corner were the old Wests blokes having a drink – in another were the Balmain die-hards," the insider told me.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Freddy's bold Sheens call after 'mashed potatoes' flogging<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Lyon defies calf injury to bat in heroic Ashes scenes<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> F1 driver's desperate plea after teenager killed in crash<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

"I went over to the Wests blokes and all they were doing was bagging the shit out of the Balmain contingent.<\/p>\n

"Then I had a drink with the Balmain guys and they were abusing the crap out of the Wests guys – even more."<\/p>\n

And that, ladies and gentlemen, sums up the Wests Tigers.<\/p>\n

The club was formed in 2000 as a merger between Balmain and the Western Suburbs, and yet some 23 years later, the petty jealousies and rivalries between the two factions remain.<\/p>\n

When Tim Sheens<\/a> first came to the club in the early 2000s, he had power and influence that he isn't given now.
He managed to unite the disputing factions and won the club a miracle premiership in 2005.<\/p>\n

But it's been all downhill since. The club hit rock bottom in Townsville on Saturday night.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"NRL<\/p>\n

Factions in the club want Sheens gone now, along with his assistant Benji Marshall<\/a>, who has yet to coach a game but is pencilled in to take over in 2025.<\/p>\n

The chairman has little idea what is going on within his own club while the chief executive has no notion of how to stop the squabbling that is destroying the Tigers from within.<\/p>\n

The recent appointment of the astute Scott Fulton as recruitment manager should help the Tigers improve in the long term – but even that was handled poorly, behind the backs of Sheens and Marshall.<\/p>\n

The players can feel the vibe – they know the club is a rabble from the top down – and are playing accordingly.<\/p>\n

Stream the NRL premiership 2023 live and free on <\/strong><\/em>9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

It's a mess that no one seems able or willing to fix – and the poor Tigers fans are the real losers.<\/p>\n

The one consolation, is they have Benji's flick pass and the miracle of 2005 \u2014 ironically against last night's destroyers the Cowboys.<\/p>\n

No one can ever take that away from them.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The signs of the train wreck that is the Wests Tigers became crystal clear at last year's joint venture Christmas party. I had a spy […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":313177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=313175"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":313179,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313175\/revisions\/313179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/313177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=313175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=313175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=313175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}