The Wests Tigers managed to land an impressive signing spree in 2023 and brought a host of talent to Concord in an overhaul well overdue for the club.

Despite the Tigers struggling to lure talent for some time now, multiple big name signatures all landing in the same year was a massive positive for the struggling club.

However, the recruits have not been enough to turnaround a struggling outfit that would start the season with zero wins in their first seven games, before managing an incredible upset against defending premiers the Penrith Panthers in round 9.

The Tigers newcomers have seen mixed performances among the group so far in the season, and I will be ranking each of their impacts at the merger club below.

4. Isaiah Papali'i

Grade: B

The 2021 Dally M second rower of the year Isaiah Papali'i has been another recruit at the Tigers plagued by limited opportunity. While he is still putting up great and consistent numbers each week fans have come to expect more from his time at Parramatta.

While he is still averaging an impressive 127 metres, this is well behind his previous 140 in 2022 and 150 in 2021. However I feel much of this is due to not what he is doing with the ball but the type of ball he is getting.

Papali'i has not had his role within a team change at all, even in his Dally M year that was mostly due to consistent hard running. He is still doing the same thing at Tigers, though the difference through no fault of his own is the halves.

Having previously run off the classy combination of Mitchell Moses and Dylan Brown, currently finding himself with the likes of Brooks and Wakeham is objectively a downgrade for the New Zealand international.

However, as stated while he is not putting up the same flashy plays or scoring the amount of tries we are used to he is still putting up great numbers both with the ball and defending it, he just needs more direction from his halves.

From the outside looking in, it seems Papali'i has been forced to become simply a metre-eating workhorse at the Tigers rather than his usual linebreaking, tackle busting self.