do you have previous evidence of Madge doing this? He acts tough but he played some absolute trash players for years for the tigers when they should’ve been dropped.
Went from 9th to 16th gradually in his time at the tigers and one of his biggest issues was not dropping players…
I don’t mind Madge, but his time at the tigers worries me. Yeah we have a different squad but he still took a club to a place so bad that they got 2 more wooden spoons after he left…
Winning a premiership is great to have on your resume but the 10 years of failure after it are pretty concerning.
His first year at the tigers he slightly improved the team over what Ivan achieved the year before... but from there were the covid years, so if your squad wasnt setup for a new META that appeared overnight you were fucked... just like Broncos were when we picked up the spoon in 2020.
The only criticism I would have on his time in the covid years was not recognizing the new META quick enough... but was that him or was that the squad available to him.
Early six again era was all about having a big long kicker to control field position, because yardage penalties were gone... Cleary, Moses, Reynolds, Cherry, etc. were the dominant forces who could flip the field position from deep inside their own half.
Storm and rorters had success without a long kicker by creating momentum in the ruck and just rolling through there play after play. Get a roll on and you were making 60m sets... get a six again and the defence was completely fucked. But both teams have been building that play style for years leading up to that point.
If you didnt have momentum... you were done... there was no way to flip it... teams were conceding tries back to back to back... there still really isnt a way to flip it... just look at possession and field position when having to play Panthers. It's pretty much 60% possession against and 30% field position.
Tigers had Brooks as the primary kicker who is a pop gun kicker... no chance of controlling field position with him as primary half.
I would say tigers appointing the Shenius is what has completely fucked them... he is dinosaur old regarding tactics and had no idea during covid.
The question will be if Madge has learned since covid and I would say he has, given how dominant NSW were under him... and the META being pretty obvious to all now.