Well, THAT was #awkward.
I’m talking about the Eels’ thumping of a Tigers team sans its wunderkind, Lachie Galvin.
See, if you’re Tigers coach Benji Marshall and hang your hat on the claim that the “best thing for the team” is to drop one of the two best players you’ve got – and proceed to get nearly 40 points scored against you by the lowest-ranked team in the comp, you’ve got a case to answer.
Yes, you have, Benji.
So, for the hell of it, let me make the case. I say that in terms of fluster-clucks, there was the Hindenburg, there was Chernobyl and … there was the Tigers’ management of this whole sad affair over the last 10 days.
Oh, do calm down.
Lachlan Galvin played for the Magpies on Monday after being dropped by Wests Tigers.Credit: Getty Images
The defenders of Benji – many of whom I know to be good people, and this is nothing personal – have a fairly standard narrative for the whole Galvin saga, and you can see it replicated on social media, tens of thousands of times over, albeit with vicious epithets about Galvin added.
The narrative runs like this: Benji Marshall is a great man, and fabulous coach, who spotted Galvin early, nurtured him from nowhere, and personally made him a star – only for Galvin to publicly turn on his mentor, and humiliate him by telling everyone that Benji couldn’t coach, even while knocking back a multimillion-dollar offer. How dare that young PUNK? Who does he think he is?
(To which, social media added, LET’S GET HIM!)
There is, however, another narrative, and one I believe is the truth.
Galvin did indeed come to the conclusion that Marshall was not a great coach and did indeed feel isolated by some of his actions. For that reason, the young man decided, quietly, he didn’t wish to sign up to the Tigers for another five years – so thanks, but no thanks.
In response, the Tigers put out an insane press release, which they were warned by Galvin’s manager, Isaac Moses, would shake the club to its foundations – and so it has proved.
Not only did the Tigers put in the public domain that Galvin had thrice refused them in the Garden of Gethsemane, but also unleashed the hounds of hell on their own employee by letting it be known he didn’t think Benji was a great coach.
And three of their other employees, including co-captain Jarome Luai, publicly mocked Galvin on social media, adding volume and vituperative flavour to the outraged public reaction – which has since seen the young man needing a security detail, #FFS. (The actions of those three players form part of what is cited in a legal letter from the Galvin camp to the Tigers, alleging that management has allowed bullying against their client and has failed to provide him a safe workplace. Two other Tigers players have since come forward with their own dissatisfactions.)
Benji Marshall watches the Tigers take on the Eels.Credit: Getty Images
In response to the actions of those three players, neither Benji nor Tigers management cracked their heads together, but simply put it down to the players being “emotional”. Luai was certainly that, adding that the problem was Galvin had “disrespected” the coach.
So before us, your honour, your high judg-i-ness, a lot of the attacks on Galvin rest on the assumption that Benji is indeed a great coach. Not whether Benji was a great footballer – we know that. Not whether Benji is a good man – we know that, too. And not whether Benji is a great media performer – having worked with him, I can attest to the fact he is exactly that.
But purely on the reckoning that Benji is a great coach, what have you promulgators of the first narrative got? I, frankly, can’t see anything at all. Had he successfully coached anywhere, before becoming head coach at the Tigers? Nup. With little coaching background at all, his highest position was as assistant coach at the Tigers under Tim Sheens, where they got a couple of wooden spoons. See any mastery there? I can’t.
He took over as head coach of the Tigers last season. The result: another wooden spoon. How many great coaches do you know with a half a cutlery drawer full of wooden spoons?
This season, out of seven matches, they’ve won three and are drifting backwards. But it is really in just the past 10 days when Marshall’s moves have come under the most scrutiny and we have evidence of just how poorly the club is run.
Prima facie, your honour, I submit you’d have to say those moves have been catastrophic, yes? Benji brings on a fight with Galvin he never needed to have. He drops him – apparently at the behest of Luai et al – and announces he did so because it is “the best thing for the team”. The team then loses against the cellar-dwellers in a game they surely would have won with Galvin on board.
In the second half, just when the match was in the balance, esteemed commentator Cooper Cronk on Fox Sports noted the difference between the sides during a brief break in play. Grosso modo, Cronk said: “And look at the Eels! Look how tight they’re standing, how dialled into this they are, all talking to each other. And compare that to the Tigers. They’re all scattered around, no one talking, and Jarome Luai is off to one side.”
We looked, and he was absolutely right. With the game in the balance, the team culture of the Eels was united, tightly coalesced around their own returning hero, Mitchell Moses, and thrusting to win, come what may. And the team culture of the Tigers, before our very eyes – centred around the one that Marshall had backed, Luai, who was “off to the side” – was shot to pieces. The Tigers proceeded to fall apart, and lost badly.
Can you see any genius coaching from Benji Marshall, there? I cannot.
But wait! Promulgators of the first narrative will still insist the whole thing was brought on by Galvin’s manager, Isaac Moses, who I gather is not top of the pops among many in the league world.
Be that as it may, it was not Moses who put out the disastrous press release, not Moses who took the whole thing public, not Moses who made the move to drop Galvin. It was Marshall and the Tigers management who did all of the above.
What they hurl at Moses is: “He just wants Galvin out of there!”
Based on what I have seen in the past 10 days, I understand why. Can’t you?
If Galvin was our client, I reckon we’d want him out of there, too! It is a fluster-cluck of the first order, and it is all brought on by the Tigers themselves.
Where to from here? It’ll go like this:
Galvin will be released because they have little choice to avoid debilitating litigation.
The Tigers will collapse, and it will be another season shot.
More and more people will come to the conclusion that Marshall is like just about every other great football player – the magic of their playing days is non-transferrable to their coaching.
At this point, Tigers management will be left contemplating their own insanity in putting the previously untested Marshall on a five-year contract when they had to pay out their last two coaches before their contractual terms were completed.
And then, in the smoking ruins of a Tigers team heading for another wooden spoon in the cutlery drawer, we can all see if Luai’s “team first” mantra still holds, or he will activate the get-out clause in his contract, and indeed get out.
I would.
Twitter: @Peter_Fitz
