With a raft of new recruits and nowhere to go but up, Benji Marshall is poised to finally revive the beleaguered Wests Tigers.
MOST of us fail to keep our new year’s resolutions.
Read more books. Join a gym. Learn a language. Whatever change you promise to make on 1st January normally ends up in the bin by the time the new rugby league season kicks off.
Unlike most of us, Benji Marshall should be able to deliver on his goal for 2025: to finally liberate the Wests Tigers from the wooden spoon after three seasons at the foot of the NRL ladder.
The Tigers won just four games in 2022, a brutal campaign that cost Michael Maguire his job.
Tim Sheens returned to the club he led to the 2005 premiership the following year, bringing his title-winning five-eighth with him.
Marshall’s plan was to serve a two-year apprenticeship under his old mentor before taking over the clipboard in 2025, but another dismal four-win campaign accelerated the handover.
In his first year at the helm, Marshall collected six wins.
Curiously, those victories all came in pairs, leaving long losing streaks in between sips of success to test the patience of their long-suffering supporters.
They kick-started their season at their spiritual home Leichhardt in Round Three, upsetting eventual top-four finishers Cronulla 32-6, followed by a heart-stopping Easter Monday clash with Parramatta, settled by an 80th-minute Aidan Sezer drop goal.
After nine losses on the bounce, they notched back-to-back home wins over Gold Coast (18-10 at Leichhardt) and Canberra (48-24 at Campbelltown).
Cult hero Adam Doueihi’s return from a 15-month ACL layoff against the Raiders — racing away for the final four-pointer of that eight-try rout — was one of the highlights of the season.
Then a seven-match losing streak was snapped by stirring defeats of Sydney rivals Souths (18-16) and Manly (34-26) on a rousing Thursday night that nearly brought down the crumbling Leichhardt grandstands.
A week later, though, a 60-26 demolition by Parramatta in the wooden spoon decider sent Marshall into the off-season with a reminder of just how much work he has left to do.
The improvement in the win-loss column may have looked modest, but green shoots began to sprout.
Marshall exposed 37 players to first-grade in 2024 — four more than any other club — including 12 debutants.
The most exciting? Lachie Galvin.
The 19-year-old standoff notched 21 games in his rookie campaign, tallying 16 try assists (equal 14th across the competition).
Manly recruit Samuela Fainu (21) stamped himself as a first grader in the starting side, teaming up with brothers Sione and Latu in the 17 by the end of the season.
Local junior Tallyn Da Silva (19) will give skipper Api Koroisau a challenge for the number nine jumper.
And 22-year-old Jahream Bula compiled another solid campaign before a shoulder injury ended his year early and handed an opportunity to impressive 19-year-old Heath Mason.
While the core of kids improved the mood around the club, Marshall didn’t get the best bang for buck out of his recruits in 2024.
Aidan Sezer, arriving from Leeds, looked good when he wasn’t hampered by knee and shoulder injuries or his month-long suspension — but he’s now back in the UK at Hull FC.
Storm signing Justin Olam limped to the end of the season with lingering knee complaints.
Ex-Dragon Jayden Sullivan is off to Souths and New Zealand rugby union convert Solomon Alaimalo returns to the 15-man code after just 12 months in Tiger Town.
The exit lounge is full again, a year after perpetual whipping boy Luke Brooks headlined a list of departures.
Besides Sezer, Sullivan and Alaimalo, England international John Bateman heads to North Queensland and Kiwi international Isaiah Papali’i departs to Penrith after just two years at the joint venture.
Young enforcer Stefano Utoikamanu is a mammoth loss, going to Melbourne, while Junior Tupou showed promise before joining ex-St Helens coach Kristian Woolf at the Dolphins.
The consolation is a raft of new recruits filling the empty seats on the bus.
22-year-old Fiji rep Sunia Turuva, fresh from his second Grand Final win at Penrith, and ex-Bulldog Jeral Skelton add strike power out wide.
Seasoned props and Samoa team-mates Terrell May (25, Roosters) and Royce Hunt (29, Sharks) make up for the loss of compatriot Utoikamanu in the middle.
Dragons recruit Jack Bird — who began his career in a blaze of glory at Cronulla eight years ago with a premiership and Origin selection — is hoping to reignite his career at 29.
But the marquee signing is Jarome Luai, the Penrith playmaker with four premiership rings in his collection.
Sometimes knocked for being the Robin to Nathan Cleary’s Batman, Luai enjoyed his best year in 2024 while his halves partner nursed injury after injury.
Luai farewelled his junior club with a characteristically lively display in their victorious Grand Final, but his crowning achievement came in New South Wales’ series-deciding upset victory in Brisbane.
Phil Gould described that Blues effort as a “coming of age” — and having just celebrated his 28th birthday, Luai is primed to bring his best footy to his new club.
The Samoa skipper brings a brash confidence that might be exactly what such a downtrodden club needs, especially alongside his teenage halves partner Galvin.
The off-season hasn’t all been good vibes. It wouldn’t be the Wests Tigers without a bit of off-field drama.
Twelve months after an external review put a broom through the administration, the Sydney newspapers reported the two sides of the merger — Balmain Tigers and Western Suburbs Magpies — were eyeing a divorce.
Although incredibly unlikely, the backroom brawling provided pundits with great fodder.
Marshall will be more interested with patching up the club’s defence and discipline, which condemned them to yet another spoon last year.
In 2024, the Tigers leaked 750 points — an average of 31.25 per game.
Losses to St George-Illawarra (56-14), Cronulla (58-6) and Parramatta (60-26) were particularly brutal.
Perhaps worse, they copped 16 sin-bins, the most any side has accrued in history.
A strong start to 2025 is vital to their hopes of dodging a fourth straight last-place finish.
Wests open their campaign against Newcastle at Campbelltown, followed by Parramatta at CommBank Stadium, the Dolphins at Redcliffe and the Warriors at Campbelltown.
Besides the Knights, who scraped into eighth in 2024, none of those opponents made the finals last year — gifting the Tigers a golden opportunity to notch at least a couple of wins before the calendar flips over to April.
Marshall steered the Tigers to their finest chapter 20 years ago.
The goal two decades later is far more modest — just unload that dreaded wooden spoon, the first step on the road to a second piece of silverware.
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 505 (February 2025)
