By Dan Walsh
Between Phil Gould and Shane Richardson, there isn’t much that two of rugby league’s greatest survivors don’t know about rebuilding, renovating, or flat-out razing an NRL club.
A few weeks ago, the Wests Tigers made their 51st roster move since the start of the 2023 pre-season when they landed Terrell May – arguably the most improved front-rower in the game.
Gould had seen enough. The Bulldogs boss took to social media and declared the Tigers may be coming off a third straight wooden spoon, but now boast “a top eight NRL roster”.
In Benji Marshall’s words, “the club’s been flipped upside down”.
Marshall’s progression in the Tigers coaching succession plan was fast-tracked two years ago, with the joint venture’s greatest player taking charge from Tim Sheens in November 2023.
Just seven players now remain from the 2022 season, Marshall’s first and only as an NRL assistant coach – Adam Doueihi, Alex Twal, Fonua Pole, Alex Seyfarth, Starford To’a, Brent Naden and Justin Matamua.
Four-time premiers Penrith, by way of comparison with possibly the greatest benchmark in modern rugby league, have regularly farewelled stars and promoted largely from within their prize-winning nursery. Thirteen players remain from the Panthers 2022 top 30 squad, with 33 ins and outs in their rosters since.
Much was made of Gould and new Canterbury coach Cameron Ciraldo flipping their entire top 30 between 2021 and the start of this year when Raymond Faitala-Mariner left.
The Tigers are entering a similar ballpark, particularly since Richardson took charge as CEO a year ago.
The best part of $3.5 million has been spent on Jarome Luai, Sunia Turuva, Royce Hunt, Jack Bird, Jeral Skelton and May for 2025 – the shiny, pointy end of non-stop wheeling and dealing over the past two and a half years.
Wests Tigers coach Benji Marshall and CEO Shane Richardson.Credit: Wests Tigers
With South Sydney the latest club to be offered John Bateman (with the Tigers willing to pay a portion of his estimated $600,000 salary), another back-rower sits atop the Tigers’ wishlist should his exit open up a top 30 spot.
Richardson was in a bolshie, “right now we’re undefeated this season”, mood at last week’s announcement of the biggest sponsorship deal in club history.
And either side of raising eyebrows by declaring “we’ve got the best spine in the game”, the veteran of dramatic rebuilds at Cronulla, Penrith, Hull FC and South Sydney was asked exactly where he thinks the Tigers’ extensive overhaul is at.
“We’ve got a three-year plan on where we want to be,” Richardson said.
“Every roster we create is about winning the premiership. Nothing else. It’s not about becoming competitive. Every club I’ve been at, you can’t do it straight away and every club has been on the bottom of the ladder.
“We need 17 players that can win us a premiership. Are we there now? Maybe not, maybe. We’ll find out when they run on the field. But certainly, we know what we require and what positions we require to win a premiership, and what positions some of our juniors will fill in that 17.
“I always say you need eight juniors [in a successful side], and I reckon we’ll have them, they’re your cream. There’s no doubt we’ve got the cream.
“We’ve got the best spine in the game and a backup spine as well … We might not need to get extra players, but we know what we need.”
Star recruit Jarome Luai will join a Wests Tigers spine featuring Api Koroisau, Jahream Bula and Lachie Galvin.Credit: Getty Images
Long-suffering Tigers fans have been sold their share of spiels before. Recruitment and retention aren’t going great if a club hasn’t played finals in 13 seasons.
Marshall has helmed dozens of roster calls since being anointed as Sheens’ successor. The Tigers have farewelled stalwart Luke Brooks and rising prop Stefano Utoikamanu, released marquee back-rower Isaiah Papalii early and watched Tommy Talau, Shawn Blore, and to a lesser extent Daine Laurie deliver on their potential elsewhere.
Early releases for the likes of Jackson Hastings, Joe Ofahengaue, Ken Maumalo and Zane Musgrove have led to the joint venture paying six-figure portions of their salaries at rival clubs, while David Klemmer was landed thanks to Newcastle doing the same.
The Tigers will almost certainly have to chip in to move on Bateman and Jayden Sullivan (earning around $500,000 a year), who is surplus to requirements with Luai, Lachlan Galvin, Latu Fainu and Doueihi on the books.
But significant investment in poaching Latu and Samuela Fainu from Manly saw the latter claim Tigers player of the year honours in 2024.
Api Koroisau’s signing is already one of the best the joint venture has ever made.
Galvin’s upcoming extension talks loom as the most important since the Tigers lost James Tedesco, Mitch Moses and Aaron Woods at the end of 2017.
Benji Marshall barks orders at Wests Tigers pre-season training.Credit: Wolter Peeters
Galvin was one of 12 NRL debutants under Marshall last season, with Heath Mason, brothers Kit and Luke Laulilii, Tony Sukkar and highly-rated hooker Tallyn Da Silva the other local talents to emerge over the past two years.
The Tigers expect more to follow. Long-term deals for Jahream Bula and Pole – who both joined the club as teenagers and are signed until the end of 2027 – could well prove as significant as Richardson’s big spending in the market.
So too 17-year-old centre Heamasi Makasini, rated one of the best schoolboy talents around, plumping to stay with the Tigers despite significant rugby union interest.
Given the Tigers’ extensive turnover, Marshall has grown especially weary of roster questions from reporters. Richardson bullishly claims, again, that the narrative is turning from “we can only attract the desperados to Wests Tigers”.
The signings of Luai and Co. do hit the right notes, whereas knockbacks from the likes of Mitchell Moses and Cameron Munster, among others, did not.
Just as Gould speaks of reviving Canterbury’s pathways, Richardson and Marshall have gone about revamping the Tigers’ systems to reclaim the rapidly growing south-western corridor as their own.
From Balmain and the inner west, through Macarthur and as far as Picton and Mittagong, the Tigers can lay claim to up to 10,000 juniors in 2025 – a figure that trumps Penrith’s vaunted nursery.
“We’ve made it very clear that we want to bring as many of our juniors through as possible and then recruit in the holes that we need to fill, which we’ve done by bringing in the six or seven players this year,” Marshall says.
After more than a decade of heartache, and 51 roster moves in a little more than two years, could the Tigers finally be getting it right?
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