Racing
League
Rugby
Cricket
Golf
Motorsport
Combat Sports
Football
Netball
Basketball
Other Sports
Sport Nation
14 years of failure: Inaugural Wests Tiger's emphatic plea to the board
Joel Caine • December 2nd, 2025 9:37 pm
I'm done with this. The kids have been dealing with this unhappy marriage for all this time and the parents have just got to get on their own way.
Can I take you back? We're now 25 years into the merger, into the marriage so to speak. 25 years.
In late 1999, probably November, we meet together.
The very first Wests Tigers training session, the Balmain boys are hanging around the Balmain boys, Wests boys hanging around the Wests boys and the rest are hanging around each other.
And then I can tell you, come Christmas that year, we were Wests Tigers. There was no Wests group, there was no Balmain group, there was no other group.
Fast forward to February, game one at Campbelltown, and speaking of jersey colours, we are wearing a predominantly black jersey. It is a Magpie-thon, and we couldn’t be more proud.
It didn't matter where you came from, we were playing for the Wests Tigers.
Some of us played for Balmain and Wests, we weren’t just fans. We had played in those jerseys, and after such a little time, we were already Wests Tigers.
I was from the Balmain faction, and my favourite strip was the predominantly Wests version.
Now the talk around this jersey, it's too Balmain. The home jersey for the Wests Tigers for the last four years in a row is virtually a Wests Magpies jersey with a splash of orange, the home jersey.
Who gives a rat's? Who cares that this year is predominantly orange? I actually think the black one looks better personally than the orange. I don't like the orange, but who cares that that's our home jersey?
It is just ridiculous.
14 years straight the Wests Tigers have missed the top eight.
14 years.
Now, this is not a competition where you have to run top five out of 20. It's mainly been you have to finish in the top half of the comp.
We've got rid of coaches, we've got rid of general managers, we've got rid of recruitment staff, we've got rid of players, we've got rid of CEOs. What's gonna happen with this CEO? Who knows!
I don't even really know who's on the board, and I don't even know who's part of the Holman Barnes group, but all those with wielding power, any one of those individuals who were there 14 years ago, in my opinion, ta da Tatiana Weston-Webb.
Why?
The reason why is that if you've survived 14 years in this turbulent period, you've clearly got great power and you've clearly got something around you and you're safe, right? But your power is not influencing the group because for 14 straight years we've missed the finals.
So, anyone who is involved in the power play at the Wests Tigers, thanks for your services, thank you so much, but if you were there 14 years ago, ta da.
So, who do we replace them with?
In Australia, there's enough talented 25- 50-year-olds, right? There are enough smart people in the world.
And the reason I want somebody 50 and less is because anyone under 50 who supports the Wests Tigers, they would've supported the Wests Tigers far longer than they could've supported Balmain or Wests. So therefore, they're not drowning in Balmain, they're not drowning in Wests, they are Wests Tigers.
We need Wests Tigers there, and I've said this a million times, there's a lot of sharp people.
Mark O'Neill can't have him. He's at Parramatta, general manager. Todd Payten, he's coaching up there at North Queensland, great leaders.
The best available leader, who I actually think is the best leader of all time at the Wests Tigers, is Ben Galea.
He is the best leader in my opinion. Mark O'Neill's a tremendous leader, Scott Prince did a great job, but Ben Galea, I've known him since he was young. He's been a winner, he's a natural leader, I've seen it firsthand.
He would be the very first person I'd put in, and then you work around that, so we need young people to dilute this crap.
The idea of going back to a Magpie. Yes, I come from the Tiger side, but go and ask a range of kids in another country who don't really know much about magpies or tigers, don't follow rugby league, and say do you wanna go see a tiger or do you wanna go see a magpie?
They want to see a tiger, so to change to the Wests Magpies is ridiculous. It has to stay ‘Wests Tigers’.
If you're in a position of power at the Wests Tigers, and you've been there to oversee the 14 years of us missing finals, just do the noble thing and say it's time for fresh legs to come in, please.
Because the kids are sick of mum and dad fighting. It's just enough.
