Tigers blow hapless Sharks out of water
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday August 17, 2009
Tigers 56 Sharks 10 FIFTH place. Sixth win in a row. Ten tries. Biggest win against Cronulla. Taniela Tuiaki breaking the club record for tries scored in a season. But the most significant milestone occurred before any of this had even happened.Well before Benji Marshall scored two tries and eight goals for a 24-point haul, and showed shades of 2005 with a vintage performance a few weeks out from the finals, against Cronulla, the five-eighth did something he has wondered before if he ever would. He ran on to the field for a century of NRL games."There's times I've wondered whether I'd make it to a hundred," Marshall said. "In the back of my mind, it meant something, just getting that far after the setbacks I've had. I've questioned myself a couple of times, whether I'd make it there."Hopefully, there'll be a hundred more to come."You always doubt yourself, but I'm lucky I've got a competitive nature. I want to get back and be the best. There were times I wanted to stop training, give up and go on a holiday, but my family brought me back down to earth and kept me there."They may be called on this week to keep his feet on the ground, because those very shoes were dancing and stepping to a beat that was eerily familiar. In 2005, Marshall's brilliance against Cronulla at Toyota Park announced the Tigers as premiership possibles, before his flick made them premiership certainties.Yesterday, he toyed with the Sharks with the same disdain and disregard for the opposition that will have a number of teams looking over their shoulders.Tigers assistant coach Royce Simmons played that down. It was only Marshall's shoulders that he could bring himself to discuss."A lot of people still underestimate what he went through €“ five shoulder dislocations," he said. "[It's] amazing he's even playing the game. He'll keep getting better for the next 18 months. He's still getting confidence back, and a game like that certainly pushes him a bit further again."Marshall said the Tigers could also only get better, saying the team was being driven by the "devastation" of missing the finals for the past three seasons."We're a better team than we have been in the last three years, and we want to prove that," Marshall said. "But we did it the tough way. It wasn't pretty out there."That's like saying Elle Macpherson looks bad in the morning because the Tigers were still absorbingly entertaining. Which is a turnaround of fortunes to rival Marshall's, considering the Tigers were second last earlier in the season. "In the back of your mind, you always believe you can make it, but sometimes you've got to face reality and think, 'Can we really do it?"' Marshall said."We went into camp at Kiama and really had a good look at ourselves, and we started playing for each other. You can tell that the way we've been playing the last few weeks. But we can't stop here. If we lose next week, this week means nothing."While the attacking acumen of Marshall and fullback Tim Moltzen €“ lauded by Sharks coach Ricky Stuart as "the best I've seen for a long time" €“ was at times breathtaking, it was defence that laid the way for it.Again, it paints a picture of a different Wests Tigers side. In recent years, the Tigers have been consistently inconsistent. In the three years the Tigers have missed the finals, they have conceded 565, 561 and 560 points (at least they could say they had been gradually improving). But with three rounds left, they have conceded just 409 points, which means only a significant implosion could prevent them from a significant improvement."We're consistently showing up," skipper Robbie Farah said. "In the past we've probably struggled with our consistency €“ we'd show up with the right attitude, and then we'd drop off. But in the last six to eight weeks, we've had a really good attitude to our defence, showing up, wanting to make tackles, wanting to work for each other."Stuart, on the other hand, questioned his side's commitment.
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald
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