In an apparent borrowing of a page from the playbook of the San Francisco 49ers of the NFL, Wests Tigers have axed Coach Jason Taylor and will appoint their fourth coach in the span of seven years.
The word “tenure” seems to be increasingly absent from the professional coaching ranks, as clubs increasingly come to the conclusion that if players are failing to perform on the field and win games, firing the coach is the quickest, easiest and most effective solution.
Wests won their first game of the 2017 Telstra NRL Premiership competition, but they plummeted to a 34-point loss to the Penrith Panthers, followed by a 40-point drubbing by the Canberra Raiders.
Following a less-than-stellar 2016 campaign where Wests never won more than three consecutive, lost three of their last four and dropped six consecutive beginning with round three, the ownership decided that Taylor had had sufficient opportunities to complete the rebuild Wests had started on, and sent him packing.
Andrew Wester is serving on an interim basis. Todd Payten and Ivan Cleary are the two recently mentioned as the long-term solution to the Tigers’ woes, by which we mean one of the two might be given until the end of the season to take the spooners to respectability, if not the finals.
