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Sport Nation
2025 Mid-season review: Wests Tigers
Charles Goodsir • June 11th, 2025 1:31 pm
After three consecutive wooden spoons, the Wests Tigers entered the 2025 season with a renewed sense of optimism.
The club had recruited excellently and Benji Marshall finally had the squad he wanted. It was then time for the tricky part; winning games.
Happy to report that the Tigers have done a lot more winning but there are still plenty of areas to improve.
The Tigers have set themselves up nicely to have a strong second half of the season and can dare to dream about breaking the club’s almost 14-year finals drought.
Ladder: 14thRecord: 5W, 8L, 1 Bye
Positive: Confidence
For the first time in a long time, you can trust the Tigers. Benji Marshall has built an identity on-field and CEO Shane Richardson navigated a tricky front office. Most importantly, the Tigers have strung wins together on the field and whilst a 5-8 record isn’t ideal, it’s certainly an improvement from where they have been.
The additions of Jarome Luai, Sunia Turuva, Jack Bird, Royce Hunt and more have added class to the roster and ensured the Tigers have been in positions to win games.
Negative: Same old Tigers v Melbourne
The most glaring issue that needed to be addressed for the Tigers in 2025 was their competitiveness. In their wooden spoon seasons, the Tigers have had scorelines of 72-6, 56-10, 54-12, 56-14, 58-6, 60-26 and 74-0 at the hands of the Cowboys which remains as the heaviest defeat in the NRL/ARL era.
Heading into a Round 10 match up against the Storm in Melbourne, the Tigers’ average losing margin was 11.5 and that included two losses by two points. Melbourne proceeded to put the Tigers to the sword with a 64-0 demolition. The Storm ran in 11 tries including four to Ryan Papenhuyzen which also included a hat-trick inside the opening 16 minutes.
It was a reminder that despite all the improvement that Benji Marshall and his players had made at that point in the season, they are still well behind the elite teams of the competition.
Best Player: Terrell May
May has not only been the best player for the Tigers but he has arguably been the best forward in the competition this season. After being discarded by the Sydney Roosters in circumstances that have not been made clear, May has seemingly gone on a revenge tour and he’s winning.
The 26-year-old is playing big minutes and putting up career best numbers in average running metres (176), is leading the competition in offloads (38) has the second most tackles in the competition (561) and was firmly in the conversation to earn a NSW Blues jersey.
Biggest Moment: Lachlan Galvin’s departure
What a mess.
The biggest off-field story in recent memory saw young superstar Lachlan Galvin leave the club that gave him his opportunity at first grade level. It got ugly very quickly with Tigers players voicing their anger on social media, claims from Galvin’s camp of Benji Marshall’s deficiencies as a coach and then allegations of bullying at the club.
Tigers management initially dug their heels in and were adamant that the 19-year-old would see out the remaining 18 months of his contract. However, the situation was blatantly untenable and Galvin was eventually released the join the Bulldogs.
Grade: B-
