The turning point for the Wests Tigers? Think back to Easter Monday last year
This time last year, Lachie Galvin was banished to the NSW Cup and ran out for the Western Suburbs Magpies instead of playing for Wests Tigers in the Easter Monday clash against Parramatta.
It was one of many low points in the recent history of the Wests Tigers. But it was also a time the Tigers finally stood for something – a time they came together, made it clear what they were going to accept, and went all-in on the senior playing group and coach Benji Marshall.
One year on, excitement is brewing in Tiger Town again. There will be a healthy sprinkling of black, white and orange in the stands at CommBank Stadium on Monday when they take on the injury-hit Parramatta.
Tigers teams of old would not have clawed their way back from 10-0 down against a white-hot Warriors team to win in Auckland, like they did last weekend.
Tigers teams of old would not have raced in five tries by half-time at Leichhardt Oval, like they did against the Cowboys in round two.
To appreciate what is happening at the club right now, you have to go back to that afternoon 12 months ago when security flanked Galvin at Pratten Park.
Galvin and his manager Isaac Moses were at war with the Wests Tigers, with Marshall, with former CEO Shane Richardson, with co-captains Jarome Luai and Api Koroisau, and pretty much everyone else in the playing group.
The local junior had made it clear he did not see his future at the Tigers, only for all hell to break loose.
Parramatta were keen to sign Galvin. Phil Gould and the Bulldogs eventually won out. A handful of Tigers fans started picking up the phone and telling the club’s reception what they thought of the kid.
It got nasty. Galvin ran out in front of a few hundred diehards for the Magpies a few hours before the Tigers did battle against the Eels up the road.
Only one Tigers player, Tallyn Da Silva, showed up to publicly support his mate.
Galvin had told Richardson and Marshall he wanted to play that weekend, even if it was in reserve grade. The club was worried about the reception Galvin would have received from his own fans had he remained in first grade.
The then 19-year-old was eventually brought back into the fold, but only lasted a few more weeks before joining the Dogs. Time will tell if Galvin can be a success at the Bulldogs.
For the Tigers, the Galvin stand-off was a classic line-in-the-sand moment. They decided they were no longer going to be pushed around, on or off the field. They started to play with a certain aggression. They developed a chip on their shoulder.
That resilience and toughness and not wanting to back down in the heat battle – even an eagerness to race into every melee – was happening most weeks after Galvin exited.
At the height of the Galvin saga, Luai and Koroisau, and Sunia Turuva, all premiership winners, made it crystal clear what they thought of Galvin’s reluctance to buy into what they were building. If Galvin missed the memo, he only had to check his Instagram account.
By getting so hot under the collar, Luai, Koroisau and Turuva also got the message across to the rest of the group as to what would and wouldn’t be tolerated.
And if you did not want to be a part of the revolution, make sure one of the multiple exit doors at the $78m Concord facility did not hit you on the way out.
Benji was the boss, and the senior players would happily drive the standards.
If the Tigers go on to something special in the next year or five, the starting point will be Easter Monday, 2025.
The intensity has certainly lifted. Just ask Jock Madden, who returned to the club this year after leaving at the end of 2022.
“The competitiveness among the boys,” Madden says, when you ask him the biggest difference between the present-day Tigers and the 2022 version. “At training, everyone wants to win; we also want to be a team that turns up for each other and has each others’ backs.”
When you ask Marshall this week about Galvin saga that enveloped the club this time last year, the coach says he had genuinely forgotten about it.
“In the review at the end of the year [when discussing] the team we wanted to be, that was probably the biggest turning point; what we were prepared to accept and not accept,” Marshall told this masthead.
“I hadn’t even thought about [Easter Monday]. I had actually forgotten about it until you mentioned it. The standards for the playing group, the coaching staff, the club, and what we’re prepared to accept, that’s changed. That’s the line in the sand.”
The Tigers are finally on the up.