Benji’s blunt message to Tigers’ players after second half capitulation against Dragons

The Wests Tigers have sunk to a new low in the 2024 NRL season, going down 56-14 to the St George Illawarra Dragons on Friday night.

Suffering their tenth loss in 12 games, the Tigers are in dire straits once again and after two straight seasons at the bottom of the ladder, the light at the end of the tunnel continues to get further away from the long-suffering fans.

The Tigers led the Dragons 10-0 in the opening stages of the game and went into the halftime break up 14-12. However, an early second-half sin bin to Jayden Sullivan blew the game wide open as the Dragons pounced with 44 unanswered points in the final 40 minutes.

Reflecting on the loss post-game, Tigers coach Benji Marshall didn’t hide his disappointment in the result considering how strong the start was.

“Yeah, very disappointing. We seem to say the same thing every week, which is unfortunate,” Marshall said.

“At the same time, we give ourselves every opportunity, we start with a lot energy.

“To have 20 per cent of the ball and have as many errors as we did, schoolboy errors to be honest, (it’s) unacceptable.”

“We find someone to get sin-binned every week. (To) give away silly penalties. We lost our head (and) unfortunately we’re in a position where we can’t do it to ourselves and we do.

“I cannot talk about discipline enough, the whole week we’ve talked about discipline and it’s unacceptable, there’s no excuses.”

Despite his sides’ poor start to the season, Marshall remained persistent that the club is on the right trajectory.

“Although tonight was terrible, there’s definitely been improvements and we’re on a path to building for our future, especially with our local juniors,” Marshall added.

“I thought tonight we showed glimpses at the start of the team we want to be, particularly (in) the first half.

“The confidence diminishes when you do silly things, at 10-nil up the confidence was high, the energy was high. You could feel it amongst the team.”

The Tigers are in danger of slipping back to the bottom of the ladder if the South Sydney Rabbitohs are to get a result against the Gold Coast Titans on Saturday afternoon.