NRL360 co-host Paul Kent has revealed Tigers coaches Tim Sheens and Benji Marshall “aren’t agreeing” as they head into their first season of a Leichhardt rebuild.
Following Michael Maguire’s sacking final season, Sheens, alongside Marshall and Robbie Farah had been handed the reins for the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
A succession plan has been put in place which is able to see Marshall, who gained a premiership with the Tigers in 2005, progress into the pinnacle coach function.
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Sheens has beforehand gained premierships with the Tigers and Raiders as head coach, and in addition led the Kangaroos to World Cup victory in 2013.
Nonetheless, the 72-year-old and his understudy are reportedly not seeing eye-to-eye because the merger membership head into their first recreation of the common season.
“There’s already the discuss they aren’t agreeing with the whole lot,” Kent stated on NRL360.
“I believe there’s just a few quizzical appears between the 2 of them in the intervening time, I don’t assume it’s a blue, I don’t assume it’s something main however I believe there’s already indicators there are barely completely different philosophies.
“The opposite half to the Tigers is, they’ve made some huge calls… however they’ve carried out it up to now and it’s confirmed to be the fallacious name.
“Michael Maguire was seen as a sea change, get a hard-edged coach in and the gamers merely weren’t robust sufficient to deal with him.
“Earlier than that we had Ivan Cleary who pushed the wage cap and signed some huge gamers… which took years to repair.
“The Benji Marshall and Tim Sheens partnership goes to be a narrative all yr, as a result of it’s got a story.
“Whether it is profitable, we’re going to ask of Sheens ought to proceed to teach… if it turns into a cropper, we’re going to be saying ‘grasp on, the bloke that’s changing him has been sat with him for 2 years, what’s he going to convey that’s completely different?”
The Tigers have signed a number of skilled gamers together with Apisai Koroisau and Isaiah Papali’i, while additionally recruiting English worldwide John Bateman.
The 29-year-old loved a profitable two-year stint with the Raiders and gained the Dally M Backrower of the 12 months award in 2019.
Canberra went right down to the Roosters in a good grand closing that yr earlier than Bateman departed for the Wigan Warriors solely a yr later, as soon as once more taking part in his commerce within the Tremendous League.
The Tigers reportedly paid a hefty switch payment of round $250,000 to safe his companies, signing him on a four-year deal beginning in 2023.
Whereas many had been impressed by the signing, The Each day Telegraph’s Phil Rothfield isn’t certain he shall be a hit with the sting ahead place evolving since his NRL departure.
“I’d like to say Bateman, who I’m informed that Wigan, though they demanded a switch payment, weren’t all that fussed about letting him go,” Rothfield stated.
“His type was nothing just like the yr he was Dally M Backrower of the 12 months on the Raiders.
“To be paying John Bateman, who did have an ideal yr, $800,000 when most edge forwards now, the Olakau’atu, Kikau, Liam Martin, huge sturdy and highly effective.
“I don’t assume he’s obtained that construct anymore and I’m undecided it’s $800k properly spent, I could be fallacious.
“And the hazard with that’s that he has come again into the sport and he’s in his place as a small ahead,” Kent added.
“It’s a long-term deal to attempt to get by.”
Initially printed as ‘There’s already indicators’: Sheens and Benji ‘aren’t agreeing’ as English recruit questioned
