What are they doing? It is causing player unrest. The coach is under pressure. He has lost the players. Are they getting rid of the fan favourites? We can’t lose THAT player!
When a club finds itself in an unfortunate situation where by it has an aging roster, it is sliding down the ladder, a lineup just hasn’t worked out how they had hoped, or the talent the club invented in didn’t quite develop, a team will pivot and start clearing out the roster and start rebuilding for the future.
It is a painful process, one that forces some tough decisions to be made. It is temporary pain for, hopefully, long term gain.
The issue you find is that the process looks really mess. It is easy for the media to focus on and try to make the club look incompetent. Fans are easily upset by the process and players obviously don’t like it because they are the ones being moved on!
As a fan of a club, you invest a bit in players in your lineup. You hold hope that they will kick on and because premiers you can cheer on through their journey. So when the club makes a decision that none of that is happening, it’s disheartening.
You see youngsters who you have high hopes for moved on. Veterans who you’ve followed through their entire careers leaving. Its a dagger to the heart at times, and it can make up fairly upset, but the thing too remember is that every journey has an ending, and even the greatest players of all time at some point got a tap on the shoulder and it was time for them to move on.
For players it’s a similar process, but has the added issue that this is how they make their livelihood. Whether is a player who has worked hard to try and establish themselves as a regular first grader, or a veteran who doesn’t think twice about whether or not their place in the first grade team is under threat, they all have a thought about what they are as a player, their place in the club, and most have build their entire lives around that standing at the club.
Imagine being established at a club for many years, you’ve got a home you’re paying off, you have your life set up, kids in school, family and friends around you, and then one day the club comes to you and says they want to go in a different direction and you’re free to uproot your entire life and look elsewhere for next season.
Make no mistake, when that happens, it’s the polite way of saying they don’t want you at the club any more. Sure, you can stick around, you have an iron clad contract after all, but the writing is on the wall. You go from being part of the club, to being on the outside. It isn’t a nice feeling, it has big repercussions for players, but it is part of being a professional athlete as well. It is business….but boy does it feel personal.
Some clubs inherit these issues. When I look at the Wests Tigers, with a new management team in place, and a new coach in Benji Marshall, they have a situation where they have the previous management and coaches lineup, players and plans in place. 2024 was always going to be about making the most they could out of a bad situation. Things were never going to turn around quickly, and it was always going to be a long process to turn the club around.
Players were always going to be moved on. The 2024 Wests Tigers lineup was never, ever going to be the finished product that took supporters to the promised land of premiership success. Still, that hasn’t stopped some supporters being upset about what they are seeing happen with the 2024 team, and while it’s understandable, it’s also a little misguided. I understand it completely, after all, we follow our football teams with passion and emotion, but supporters need to look at the longer term goals the club now has.
At the Parramatta Eels it’s a little different…
The club built a side that went all the way to the 2022 Grand Final. Supporters felt they just needed a bit of luck go their way and they could go one better some time in the near future. The club committed to pretty much that entire side. Everyone, the club, the players, the supporters, they all felt they were close….but it just didn’t work out that way.
Now they are in second last place on the ladder, they have a new coach in Jason Ryles coming in for the 2025 season, and the process of breaking down the team and starting again is now underway.
That is painful for supporters of the Eels.
The sad truth of supporting an NRL team is that MOST clubs that get close to being Premiers never actually get to hold the trophy aloft in the last game of the season. Most lineups that we go into seasons with high hopes for achieve maybe a finals appearance, possibly making it to a preliminary final if they are really good….hell even making a Grand Final at all is so difficult and so rare for a club.
To be so close and to realise that was it, that was the height of that teams achievement is rough. All that fan favourite players, all that hope…..gone.
Take heart though, it’s not forever. It never is.
All clubs have their ups and downs, and they all go through this process. Even the GREAT sides get to a point where they start moving on champion players, all of our clubs go through this.
Its a necessary evil, it feels terrible, it stirs up emotion, but it has to happen.
Line tearing off the bandaid, is it all part of the process. You just hope that the process lead to premiership glory…..and as a footy fan, all you really want is that hope going into the start of a season, isn’t it?
