The first thing you notice when you walked into Leichhardt Oval on Father’s Day? The big black and gold signs. Strategically, one was erected across the same terrace which collapsed during a schoolboy rugby game last month.
Save Leichhardt Oval – fair funding now.
How about just saving the team that plays there first?
It might have been the last game of a miserable season, in which the Tigers were handed their first wooden spoon, but there’s no excuse for arguably the most inept showing in a half of the NRL this year, even allowing for an often overlooked casualty ward. They lost 56-10, and might have prodded the once meddling NRL to consider a mercy rule.
Fans booed their team off at the break, and they were the ones that were still left. Some headed for the exit gates even before it reached that point, the Tigers trailing 42-0 after just 32 minutes. Never have you heard so many bronx cheers, just because the Tigers got the ball back.
Andrew Johns called their defence “pathetic”. There was just as much lime green left on the famous Wayne Pearce Hill afterwards than fans wearing the colours of the hosts. The Viking Clap even got a run.
The half-time score at Leichhardt Oval.Credit:Getty
The eighth-placed Raiders will play finals football, setting up an elimination showdown with the Storm in Melbourne. Ricky Stuart’s side only needed to avoid defeat by 53, and withdrew Jack Wighton and Elliott Whitehead before the game, and benched halfback Jamal Fogarty at half-time.
By the time embarrassed Tigers players had snuck up the tunnel for a break, narrowly avoiding the record of 48 points for the biggest half-time deficit in top grade history, they brought out those KFC buckets and asked fans to catch footballs in them which were launched into the early spring sky. It was as about as entertained as the crowd got.
During the same half-time, the Tigers confirmed a host of players would leave the club. Captain James Tamou headed the list, which also included Jock Madden, retiring centre James Roberts, Penrith-bound Luke Garner and Manly pick-up Kelma Tuilagi.
Tamou, who was given a reprieve for one final game at Leichhardt Oval when he had a suspension for abusing a referee reduced to one game, stood right on the sideline when he wasn’t on the field, and barked instructions at his younger teammates like he was coaching under-6s. Who could blame him? If it is to be his last NRL game, what a way to go out.
The Wests Tigers were thrashed by Canberra.Credit:Getty
In Hudson Young, Stuart has a back-rower capable of needling Craig Bellamy’s Storm. The World Cup hopeful scored twice, and went close to more. He might be half the size of Nelson Asofa-Solomona, but you would be a brave man to suggest he can’t get the better of him at AAMI Park, a happy hunting ground in recent years for the Raiders.
In defence of caretaker Tigers coach Brett Kimmorley, his side came out a different proposition altogether in the second half. Daine Laurie scored, then Ken Maumalo. The crowd cheered, and this time it wasn’t of the Bronx variety.
It was enough to stir Joseph Tapine and Josh Papalii from the bench, and wake the Raiders up.
Tim Sheens is going to have to be as good as he was in his heyday coaching Raiders in the 1990s if he’s to take this Tigers team anywhere near the top eight next year, even allowing for the arrivals of Api Koroisau and Isaiah Papali’i. It still might not be enough.
As for those poor Tigers fans who stayed until the death on the hill…
Did somebody say KFC?
CANBERRA RAIDERS 56 (Hudson Young 2, Matt Timoko, Sebastian Kris, Nick Cotric, Jordan Rapana, Xavier Savage, Jamal Fogarty, Josh Papalii tries; Fogarty 7, Rapana 3 goals) defeated WESTS TIGERS 10 (Daine Laurie, Ken Maumalo tries; Adam Doueihi goal) at Leichhardt Oval. Referee: Gerard Sutton. Crowd: 10,041.
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