The best there never was. The Wests Tigers are stuck amidst the longest current finals drought in the NRL, with their last top eight finish coming all the way back in 2011. Every other team has featured in at least one finals series between 2012 and now โ except Wests.
While fans are quick to point the finger and lay blame on different figures within the club, their seven straight years of bottom eight finishes comes down to one single factor โ retention.
Some of the best players of the game have featured in the Wests Tigers system over the last decade, yet somehow been allowed to walk away from the club. Internationals, Origin stars and club heroes, now wearing the colours of another club.
Hereโs the best 17 of players that have been let go, released or not re-signed by the Tigers over the last decade.
5. Josh Addo-Carr
Theyโll rue the day they let this kid go. The man known as โThe Foxโ played nine games in his debut season for Wests, scoring six tries. Off-contract, the Tigers were in no rush to re-sign the skinny winger, but Melbourne saw something in him that Wests clearly didnโt. With ex-Tiger Marika Koroibete announcing he was switching codes after signing with the Melbourne Rebels, the Storm needed a new winger, and pounced on The Fox.
Heโs now gone onto play two Grand Finals (winning one of them), win an Origin series, play for the Indigenous All-Stars, play for City and is a short-priced favourite to replace Valentine Holmes on the wing for Australia. He scored his 50th NRL try in just his 65th game last week. Heโs a freak.
Fun fact- he actually made his debut on the right wing for the Wests Tigers, in the same game where Suliasi Vunivalu also made his NRL debut, on the left wing for Melbourne. Both scored a try on that day, and now they make up the best wing pairing in the comp just three years later.
Ive lamented the retention and recruitment situati at the Tigers for years. It’s been woeful. The number of current players who used to be with the Tigers is astounding. Admittedly someone like Tedesco is hard to.keep given his price tag but many of the others were very affordable as fa review as salary cap goes. The previous management of recruitment and retention was woeful and with the departure of this management I hope things will stabilise. Of the seventeen listed here fourteen of them should have been kept on. There were only three that I thought were not as well performed as I would like.
Beau Ryan in the 17? Youโve got to be kidding. Heโs a reggie at best, or more likely, belongs in the old 3rd grade.