Madge must go: Wests Tigers are on the verge of making club-defining mistake

As much as any NRL player, fan, or writer doesn’t want to see a coach ousted, it’s beginning to look like swinging the axe over Michael Maguire’s head is the only option the Wests Tigers have left if they want to save their spiralling club.

It’s simple really — Madge must go, before the 2022 campaign begins.

There’s plenty of rumblings in the NRL world about the Tigers, not least of all thanks to their Fox-funded “Tales from Tigertown” doco series that has given us a grim insight into the once-proud Wests club as they ran aground in another finals-less season.

This season, the Tigers finished a lacklustre thirteenth, mired down by a disappointing 16 losses, and buoyed away from the wooden spoon — which an insipid Bulldogs managed to ‘win’ instead — by just eight wins.

The club suffered a nasty -214 point difference to end the season, conceding an average of 29 points across 24 games, and scoring an average of 20 in reply.

2021’s dour run has chalked the Tigers into the history books for all the wrong reasons too; this finals-less finish marks their tenth (10th!) consecutive year without postseason football. Not since 2011 have they played a finals game. And, to heap on the misery, their 2010-2011 appearances in the playoffs was just their second and third times ever.

That’s right. Since Western Suburbs and Balmain combined to form the Tigers joint venture in 2000, they’ve made finals three times. Just three.

2005 (a premiership year, at least), 2010, and 2011.

And now, heading into 2022, the Tigers are on a collision course with the same kind of torrid, disappointing season results the club has become accustomed to, if they don’t make a change at just the right time. The club has hit a key moment in its story.

That time is right now, before the 2022 season begins. And the change is to sack Madge.

There’s one very simple reason why this Sporting Base writer believes it’s time to swing the axe, too; a surplus of cash.

Cash for the Tigers, that is. Joey Leilua ($600k), Russell Packer ($750k), Moses Mbye ($950k), Zac Cini, and Billy Walters are all headed out the door at the end of the season, leaving a monster hole in Wests’ salary cap.

Let’s count it up. Cini and Walters are on short-change coin, so they’re no dramas. But Leilua, Packer, and Mbye walking out the door sees as much as $2.3m scraped off the Tigers’ bloated books. They’ve now got holes in the forward pack and backline, and have some truly outrageous money to plug the gaps for 2022 onwards.

Madge, however, is not the right man for that job.

Playing with more than $2 million to pick up a wealth of player power will mean that Maguire leaves his stamp on this Wests Tigers team for the foreseeable future, whether he’s sacked or not.

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The Sporting Base doesn’t necessarily believe that Madge would pick players poorly. The problem comes from the cloud that has hung over his head ever since he took the job. He inherited Ivan Cleary’s Tigers outfit, stars combined with plodders, and has been paying the price for someone else’s recruitment drive ever since, trying to play with pieces he never wanted to have.

Considering the Tigers are disillusioned with Madge and the way he runs the club, is it not better to avoid a similar run for whoever Tim Sheens — currently midway through a club review — brings in?

Instead, the Tigers should look elsewhere for a new man to command their rebuild. Give them the keys to the kingdom — and that aforementioned $2.3 million war chest — and let them mould the team they want for the future.

Two names already been tossed around privately at the Tigers are Kristian Woolf and Shaun White.

While there’s no guarantee they’ll cough up better results than Maguire, or any of his Tigers successors, they will at least be starting with a clean(ish) slate. That’s a luxury not many Wests coaches have been afforded in the past, and it’s a major reason why the club continues to struggle come the pointy end of the NRL season.

Now, The Sporting Base understands that there’s not a pile of star talent waiting in the wings for the Tigers to pick up. Kikau — who’s tossing up a rich Cowboys deal this week — is one, but $900k is a steep asking price.

Aaron Woods, Nene Macdonald, Tyrone Peachey, and Ashley Walker are also available.

Other stars that can do a job, like Leeson Ah Mau, Enari Tuala, Will Smith, or Corey Norman are all headed into free agency too, as is Tigers icon and rejuvenated Bunnies halfback, Benji Marshall, though he seems destined to finally hang up his boots at the end of 2021.

Unwanted Dragons star Tariq Sims is also chasing a new deal for 2022, after the Blues forward was told he was surplus to St George Illawarra requirements under Anthony Griffin.

The Tigers are a turning point in their modern history now, and have to make the right call.

Madge may well be the man for the job, but if the axe is already hovering over his head, then swing it now. Rip the bandaid off, set the club into rebuild freefall, then back the new man to guide them out of this decade of heartbreak and 9th-place finishes.

To stick with Michael Maguire now, let him spend the club’s rich war chest, only to dump him midway through 2022 if the results don’t swing upwards as fast as the Tigers powerbrokers would like, would be a mistake that dooms the Sydney team to years more struggles.

The only way forwards for the wounded, weary Wests is with a total pivot, into the team’s new era as quickly as possible. Whether the club sees it or not, is another question entirely.

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