The Tigers’ players have hung embattled coach Michael Maguire out to dry and should take the blame for his sacking if he goes, says rugby league Immortal Andrew Johns.
Speaking on Wide World of Sports’ Freddy and The Eighth, Johns has put the blowtorch on the club’s under-achieving roster amid yet another crisis.
A decade without finals football signed off with a 38-0 Round 25 thrashing at the hands of the Bulldogs kicked the Tigers’ season review inter overdrive with fans desperate for answers after a decade of woe.
Something has to give at Concord and there only seems to be two viable options ahead; send Maguire packing or undertake a complete roster overhaul.
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While Maguire has found himself in the hot seat, he has also received a groundswell of support from pundits across the game who have instead pointed the finger at the players.
After watching the Tales from Tiger Town documentary, controversially commissioned by the Wests Tigers this season, Johns agrees, and has challenged the club to find some inspirational characters to form the nucleus of a competitive outfit.
“I watched that documentary they’ve done and I see Michael Maguire and his frustration, yelling at the players. That’s not the job of a coach, that’s the job of the senior players,” Johns said.
“Whether it’s one or two or three of your senior players demanding better from their teammates and younger players, and saying to them ‘get on my back’. Whether I’m going out and going to have a big defensive game or if I’m a halfback I’m going to kick you to victory. It’s got to come from the players. It can’t come from the coach because the coach isn’t out there.
“I just think they lack those strong characters, those strong personalities in the key positions.
“Look at Penrith. They’ve (the Tigers) got to start developing from within. They’ve got to get their juniors in place, they’ve got to find their identity where they play out of. Whether it’s south-west Sydney or an inner-city team. But at the moment I just see a club with no identity.”
NSW Blues coach Brad Fittler was among the first in the game to come to Maguire’s defence, arguing the players hadn’t done enough to repay the effort he’d poured into turning the club around.
“It feels like the players have had their final say. In the last game they pretty much just lay down,” Fittler said on Freddy and The Eighth.
“You feel like, it’s very hard to move a whole team on. Which you’d like to do considering the back-end of their season but this is what happens at NRL level.
“You find it hard at the moment because at the moment, the media are all circling, the pressure is right on. Whoever is making the decisions are going to be locked in a board room at the moment and there’d be a lot of chatter going on.”