A horrific capitulation has seen the Wests Tigers plummet to their ninth straight loss in a ruthless 56-14 beat down by the hands of the St George Illawarra Dragons.
A historic 32-point haul from Dragons winger Zac Lomax, which beat the three way partnership’s membership document by 10 factors, and a try to 4 strive help efficiency from halfback Ben Hunt after each males backed up from State of Origin left the Tigers of their mud.
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Most extremely, the Tigers truly led at halftime 14-12, that means the Dragons outscored Wests 44-0 within the second half, tallying seven unanswered tries.
Whereas it was a shocking capitulation for the Tigers, it’s virtually nothing new for the membership which has claimed the final two picket spoons and hasn’t tasted finals soccer since 2011.
Ranked sixteenth in 2024 forward of South Sydney purely on factors differential, it appears the Tigers are heading for one more bleak season in its first season beneath head coach Benji Marshall.
Though the Tigers had put in considerably improved performances in 2024, Friday nights consequence was a return to the membership’s darkest days over the previous few seasons.
On Fox League, Michael Ennis identified that the Tigers ran for simply 220m in an entire half of soccer. Your complete workforce.
“It was an absolute diabolical second half from the Wests Tigers facet which have now misplaced 9 straight,” Ennis mentioned.
“They have been successful at halftime,” James Graham added. “That’s actually dangerous — it’s fairly stunning.
“This will likely be up there with one in all their worst performances in a foul six or seven 12 months interval, particularly in that second half.”
Graham mentioned that though the Tigers had some accidents, there can’t be excuses.
“How a lot sympathy are you able to give?” Graham requested. “Not even from folks like us — from the followers. How a lot sympathy can they afford their workforce?”
Yvonne Sampson replied: “When do you get empathy fatigue?”
“It’s simply to date under par,” Ennis mentioned.
Graham argued that it as soon as once more put Marshall himself beneath the microscope after he went on a household vacation to Fiji throughout the facet’s bye week.
Marshall was criticised after the Tigers had misplaced eight-straight video games main into the bye however hit again throughout the week, revealing “I preach to the gamers that household is No. 1 and footy is No. 2, so in that break, spend a while with your loved ones. If I’m main that and preaching that, I’m going to do this too.”
However Graham mentioned it raised the query of whether or not it’s a correlation or a causation after their “worst efficiency of the season”.
Sampson summed up: “The working bye could be the approach to go sooner or later”.
Though he wasn’t requested in regards to the mid-season journey within the press convention, Marshall mentioned the workforce had come out “freshened up”, however lamented that he was “saying the identical factor each week”.
He added that having solely 20 per cent of the ball within the second half and “making schoolboy errors was unacceptable” and that he might must make personnel modifications.
“If the actions don’t change, then the gamers have to vary — it’s unacceptable,” he mentioned, including there was “no excuse”.
As for the followers, Marshall mentioned: “I really feel sorry for them to have to look at that capitulation within the second half. I truly do, I really feel sorry for them. And I can think about how irritating it should be placing your hard-earned into it however on the identical time, we’re on a trajectory of enchancment.
“Though tonight was horrible, there’s positively been enhancements and we’re on a path for constructing for our future that we have to stick with.”
Marshall mentioned there had “positively” been enchancment regardless of not successful since back-to-back wins in spherical three and 4, saying these wins constructed expectations.
However on Channel 9, NRL nice Paul Gallen mentioned he didn’t assume the Tigers have been getting any higher.
“I feel being that younger, you’ll want to see gamers get up and play properly,” Gallen mentioned. “Whenever you have a look at their senior gamers, Olam had a shocker, Stefano (Utoikamanu) was comparatively unsighted, Koroisau tried his guts out however he’s a hooker so you’ll be able to’t do a lot except you’re forwards to going ahead, Alex Twal, comparatively unsighted — that’s about all of the senior gamers they’ve acquired.
“The remainder of the blokes are younger children getting their profession began. I fear for a couple of of them. To me, they’re going backwards.
“ gamers like Jahream Bula and Lachie Galvin, I simply marvel if week-in, week-out getting pumped, it’s going to take a toll on them. Clearly right now they turned up and had some good moments within the first quarter-hour, they competed very well.
“If they’ll full their units, they offer themselves an opportunity however once they make errors, they maintain compounding them. It’s like they haven’t any fallback plan. When issues go fallacious for them, they go actually fallacious.”
ABC’s Michael Doyle added: “Six weeks in the past I might have mentioned the @WestsTigers have been an improved facet in 2024. After 9 consecutive losses, and that efficiency in opposition to the Dragons, I’m beginning to assume the Tigers might have gone backwards.”
Whereas it was a nightmare for the Tigers, it was a superb consequence for the Dragons, cracking 50 on the scoreboard at WIN Stadium for the primary time since 2017.
And Lomax annihilated the membership document for many factors in a single sport by 10 factors.
The earlier document was held by Amos Roberts (2000), Jamie Soward (2007), Gareth Widdop (3 times — 2015, 2017, 2018) and Lomax (2021) at simply 22 factors.
The consequence additionally moved the Dragons into the highest eight in the meanwhile, though might drop to twelfth by the top of the spherical.
