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It’s been the season of ride-sharing planes to games for NRL sides and referees alike and Saturday night’s sudden-death semi-final blockbuster between Penrith and Parramatta was no different.
It must have been as icy as 5am in Siberia on the Eels flight home after the loss to the Panthers when referee Ashley Klein and the other match officials boarded the plane.
Eels coach Brad Arthur had only just blown up about the Mitch Kenny incident with the Penrith trainer where there’s no doubt the Panthers gained a clear cut advantage by having the game stopped.
Did it cost Parramatta the game? Please. What about the dropped balls out of dummy half, the forward pass or the dropped ball at the end.
Not to mention all the sets on Penrith’s line when the Eels couldn’t crack the NRL’s best defensive side.
Eels coach Arthur can at least breathe easy that he’s thwarted the push to have him unseated as head coach for next season given the fight shown from the blue and gold outfit.
One thing that won’t go away though is how the Eels can’t make it past week two of the finals. That’s three straight seasons Parramatta can’t progress past week two of September.
Eight seasons, four finals series, no preliminary finals.
TIGERS LEGENDS TORCH TIGERS
Balmain champions Steve “Blocker” Roach and Benny Elias are fed-up at the lack of DNA at the club the pair both shed blood for in the wake of the Wests Tigers missing the finals for a tenth straight season.
Roach, who played 185 games for Balmain, has questioned where the history of Wests Magpies and the Balmain Tigers has gone and the direction the club’s decision makers are taking the joint.
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Elias, who played 234 games for Balmain, is steaming about the way the Tigers wood duck front office refuse to make the findings of the internal football review public after coach Michael Maguire was given the green light to pilot the club for a fourth straight season.
“The Balmain Tigers have been around since 1908 do they not realise that? It’s the same for the Wests Mapgies,” Roach said
“I feel sorry for the Wests Magpies side just as much. They’ve had a hugely proud history but they get the same treatment as us.
“All we want to know is what’s the direction of the club? How are they going to fix the mess that is the current NRL team?
“We’re called the Wests Tigers. They put the magpie on the shoulder and the Tiger on the chest but it’s like they just want to be a new club.
“It’s like they’ve forgotten the working class roots of the foundations of both clubs. How do they unify that?
“It’s like they’ve wiped us from history.
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“Another thing that I question about the DNA is the only world class recruit the Wests Tigers have signed in the history of the club is Gareth Ellis.
“What does that say about the club’s recruitment and retention over the last 20 years and what the Wests Tigers stand for.
“On the flip side of that it seems like we don’t have our ducks in a row in terms of how we keep all the great talent out of two of the best rugby league nurseries in the world in the inner west and Campbelltown.
“These are all the sorts of things that I thought would need to be addressed.”
Wests Tigers chairman Lee Hagipantelis is the right powerbroker to take the Wests Tigers forward but clearly some hard decisions need to be made.
Tigers CEO Justin Pascoe is under mounting pressure to retain his position as angry members and fans grow tired of six seasons of corporate management handbook jibberish.
Fans simply roll their eyes when the spin about the off-field success of the club starts because unless the Wests Tigers are going broke no one cares what the profit and loss sheet says.
Here’s the score in terms of where the Tigers have finished during Pascoe’s tenure from September 2015 onwards; 9th (2016), 14th (2017), 9th (2018), 9th (2019), 11th (2020) and 13th (2021).
What members care about are wins and losses and watching a side that at the very least does its best to hold its hands up and fight every game.
Which is why Elias wants the much-hyped football club internal review made public.
“We need a forensic audit into that review. The members are entitled to that.
They should make the review public,” Elias said.
“They make ICAC inquiries public. They make ASX listed company reports public.
The Wests Tigers members deserve to know what the report found.
“What’s the hope for the members, supporters and ex-players leading into next season?
“If they’re fair dinkum and they’re true to the people who’ve supported the club for the last 10 years of heartache then the public are entitled to see whatever the findings of this football committee review were.
“If they want to do a proper review go and get a set of independent eyes like a KPMG.
“The reason I’m so frustrated is because I love the club.
“Some seriously hard decisions need to be made.
“They were prepared to do a documentary on what goes on inside the four walls and the Tales form Tiger Town on Fox League gave everyone a birds eye insight into the club.
“But they won’t show us what was in the review. Why not? What are they hiding? There comes a time when people need to be held accountable.
“Publish it on the website and then everyone understands why these decisions are being made.
“Until such time as we have an open book then the situation is never going to improve.”
Watch ‘Wild Wests: Tales from Tiger Town’ an exclusive Fox League behind-the-scenes production on demand on Kayo > Click here to watch
BURGESS CROWE’S NEW BODYGUARD
The last time South Sydney were powering towards a grand final the red and green on-field tidal wave was led by Clive Churchill medallist Sam Burgess.
Seven years later as the Bunnies bid to become the first side through to the 2021 grand final Burgess will be watching from 7,000km away alongside club owner Russell Crowe.
The pair recently flew out of Australia on Crowe’s private jet bound for Thailand where they’re currently doing two weeks quarantine before the Hollywood actor begins filming a new movie in Bangkok.
While Burgess is currently winning back huge public support for his efforts on Channel 7’s SAS Australia, in Thailand the South Sydney enforcer will be assuming the role of Crowe’s personal bodyguard.
Crowe has famously previously used Rabbitohs hard man Mark Carroll as a bodyguard overseas in Hollywood but this time it will be big Sam who is entrusted with keeping a watchful eye on Rusty.
South Sydney insiders have been pushing the Rabbitohs to watch the award-winning Chicago Bulls documentary The Last Dance in the lead up to Friday night’s showdown against the Sea Eagles.
In the NBA blockbuster, the Bulls won the championship in the final season of all-time players Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen, Luc Longley and Dennis Rodman at the club.
Champion coach Phil Jackson had also been told it was his last season at the Bulls.
At the Bunnies, Adam Reynolds, Dane Gagai and Jadyn Su’A are all moving on from the red and green roster while Wayne Bennett is also in his farewell season in the Burrow.
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BENNETT SHUTS DOWN HASLER PRELIM HYPE
The old gunslinger Clint Eastwood couldn’t help himself on Thursday when quizzed about the outstanding preliminary finals record of Manly coach Des Hasler.
The mad rugby league scientist Hasler has an impeccable record in prelims having won two as a player with the Sea Eagles in 1995 and 1996 and then five as a coach with Manly in 2007, 2008 and 2011 and then Canterbury-Bankstown in 2012 and 2014.
Wayne Bennett was having none of it – simply laughing it off as a “myth” statistic.
It’s another example of how Bennett plays the game better than any other big-occasion coach at this stage of the season.
We’re tipping privately Dessie would be tipping his hat to Bennett. Especially on the back of the hilarious theatrics of his post-match press conference after carving up the Roosters in week two of the finals.
NRL BOSSES TO SKIP GRAND FINAL DUE TO LOCKDOWN
The running of the bulls across the Queensland border from the executives at NRL headquarters for the grand final won’t be happening.
Unlike the AFL where it’s a special exemption-a-thon to travel to Perth, Peter V’landys, Andrew Abdo and NRL executive team will instead remain in Sydney in lockdown like the rest of us.
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