In October 2005, the Wests Tigers clinched the most unlikely of premierships, pipping the more fancied North Queensland Cowboys. The win marked the start of an era at the Tigers, heralded by the rise of Benji Marshall and Robbie Farah.

Around these two flamboyant and gifted footballers, coach Tim Sheens and management built the football club.

But that’s just about where the dream started to end.

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Despite appearing in the finals series of 2010 and 2011, a fruitless seven years followed 2005, culminating in Sheens being shown the door at the conclusion of the 2012 season.

Two more coaches came and went, meaning that in the time between 2005 and March 2017, Wests Tigers had gone from field of dreams to swollen tinderbox.

The became a house of cards, belted by rampant egos, internal white-anting, an ocean of bad decisions, in-house fractures, and public dirty-laundry airing.

While Tim Sheens was coach, the club was able to attract the odd notable player – Lote Tuqiri and Adam Blair were sought after by a number of clubs before inking deals with Wests – and although the place had its divisions and factions, stories of internal ruptures never gained momentum like they do nowadays.

In fact, with Sheens in charge, troubles seemed to be kept better under wraps and away from a sludge-hungry media.

However, Sheens’ handling of his star playmakers, Marshall and Farah, brought him down and set the fire which still burns today.



As individuals, the two young Tigers were very different. To the outsider, Benji could seem brash, flashy, enigmatic, and perhaps a little soft. On the other hand, Farah was intense, brilliant, divisive and stubborn. On-field flair courted off-field rumblings of selfishness and discontent.

It was under Sheens that the boys’ influence at Concord gradually grew unhealthy. The combination of individual brilliance, star power, dressing room influence, off-field worth, and weak club leadership pushed the two young men into the category of indispensability.

And for a short while, they were. The coach believed it, the club believed it and unfortunately, so did Benji and Robbie. A power vacuum ensued. Benj and Rob were promptly filling it.

By mid-2011, Sheens was losing his grip on the dressing room, the team was essentially being run by the club’s two biggest stars. They made the finals for the last time. Rumours of lunch clubs, cliques, and poor discipline were rife by late 2012. The club missed the finals. The players blamed the coach; Sheens was punted.

At the time, fans applauded the decision to cut Sheens, with a feeling that things had gone stale. New ideas and new blood were needed to resurrect the side. However, the challenge left to the incoming Mick Potter was immense. A divided change room, salary cap dramas, a dysfunctional boardroom, and a couple of oversized playing egos hamstrung the coach; all of which eroded his message and undermined his position.

It was clear as day to anyone who saw Benji play in late 2013 that the guy was struggling. His fitness levels had him gassed by the 60-minute mark, and his errors were becoming legendary – front-row spectators were just as much a chance as the winger of receiving a pass. Kicks out on the full and not kicking the ball over the sideline after receiving penalties had become all too regular. Later, Benji admitted to becoming complacent and too ‘comfortable’.

Potter and the club rightfully were not going to be held hostage over Marshall’s new contract, and pulled their generous offer, sending him packing.



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It was an unceremonious and awkward end for a player who had been instrumental in giving the club its fairy-tale premiership back in ‘05, but by 2013’s end, Marshall’s reputation was in tatters and his now former club seemed to be edging closer towards self-implosion.

But that wasn’t the end for the board or Potter.

At the end of 2014, Robbie had won a long battle between himself and Potter. However, it came at an incredible cost, the season-long saga having bashed Farah’s reputation.

The club’s woes were being aired on an almost daily basis. It was a bush-fire from boardroom to change room and somehow Farah was either suspected to be linked or directly overseeing all of it. Social media had a field day, with jokes about him being captain, coach and CEO.

The Tigers board installed Jason Taylor at the start of the 2015 season. The following two seasons ran like the previous pair: shimmers of hope were thwarted by internal divisions, contract chaos, boardroom shambolics, and player-coach frictions.

Negative stories in the press had become as regular as Sundays, plus the club seemed to have a litany of former players hellbent on tossing their two gallons of petrol on an already raging inferno.

As it stands now, the Tigers sacked Taylor and didn’t have a ready replacement. They have four players, which they’ve bet the house on, coming off contract all at one time. They have facilities which have been called, at best, archaic. They have a boardroom which has made Parramatta look professional, and are paying a huge chunk of their salary cap to players lacing up boots at other clubs.



If James Tedesco or any of the other supposed three stars decide to pack up and leave, then the bonfire which is slowly engulfing the club may well get out of hand.

With little star power to offer, a squeezed salary cap, third-party options sent running for the hills, and in-house credibility in cinders, which top-line coach or player would want to be left holding this pin-less grenade?