The more things change...

The Tigers and Luke Brooks need to see other people, but these cuts run deeper.

You know, Lindsay, as a therapist, I have advised...a number of couples to explore an open relationship, where the couple remains emotionally committed but free to explore extramarital encounters.

Well, did it work for those people?

No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but...but it might work for us.

Tobias and Lindsay Funke

At this point it feels like the Wests Tigers are in an open relationship with Luke Brooks. There have been occasional dalliances with other partners (the rumoured swap to Newcastle), but at the end of the day these two star crossed lovers always find a way to end up in each others arms, much to the chagrin of their families.

In this modern day Romeo and Juliet, there’s two sides of a very bitter love story. On one hand, House Montague is fed up with the constant failures, the fleeting promises of twinkling potential, the teasing of a wasted talent.

Meanwhile, House Capulet sees no wrong in their jewel. It’s the fault of the young protagonist’s friends, mentors, never being put in a position to succeed.

Long winded and inaccurate Shakespearean foray aside, the Wests Tigers and Luke Brooks need to see other people, for the sake of themselves and everyone in Verona.

The Tigers over the last few years have recruited positively and aggressively, with the likes of Stefano Utoikamanu, Adam Doueihi, Daine Laurie, David Klemmer, Isaiah Papali’i and Api Koroisau all strolling through the doors at Concord.

The Tigers struck while the iron was hot with the likes of Doueihi and Laurie, poaching clear first graders stuck in the depths behind established stars at South Sydney and Penrith alike.

Then, once the foundation was laid, the aggression, pursuing NZ Test star Papali’i and NSW Origin hooker Koroisau for what were reported as very fair deals.

But you don’t restore a 1970 Chevrolet El Camino by simply replacing the leather interior and slapping some turtle wax on the bonnet. You replace the engine too, and the Tigers are operating a Mustang powered by an old Pinto.

Not all of this is the fault of Brooks, obviously. When you keep getting offered lots of money to live a privileged life only a select few before you have done, of course you take it.

But look at the numbers and you wonder what Albert Einstein would make of the theory the Tigers brass are trying to operate under here. This is the literal textbook definition of insanity as Einstein put it, to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.

Well the Tigers have done the same thing. 193 times to be exact. The results?

Zero finals games. The most games ever for a player without appearing in the postseason.

That’s not a trend that just goes away. At this point it’s not about whether the dog can learn new tricks. The dog knows all the tricks it’s ever going to know. Unfortunately, those tricks aren’t particularly impressive.

Tigers fans entered season 2023 with unbridled hope and cautious optimism, which, for a fanbase so downtrodden and full of self pity and loathing, is quite impressive in its own right.

After four particularly listless displays of sideways running, a defensive structure that is very much the movable object, and a gameplan ripped from the annals of 2005, that elusive hope has been quashed and pulped into bitter, chewy disdain.

To be clear, the problems do run deeper than Luke Brooks, and sometimes there is a certain degree of unfair scapegoating of the halfback. But that comes with the territory of being both the halfback and on the kind of money Brooks is reportedly on.

But to pivot off Brooks, because I don’t want to make this one big target practice aimed at him.

Let’s examine the rest of the carnival.

For instance, Daine Laurie and Adam Doueihi have also been particularly lacklustre to start the season, with Laurie even being benched for new recruit Brandon Wakeham with Doueihi shifting to fullback.

Meanwhile, in the attacking redzone, the team seems more interested in playing to the cartoonish storyline surrounding Alex Twal’s search for a try. Endless crash balls for the stoppable force certainly doesn’t leave the audience pondering just how he hasn’t managed to bust through just once.

The fake tough guy act in the Round 2 loss vs. Newcastle, in front of their adoring yet surely insane by now Leichhardt faithful. It’s an insult to the paying customer that the best display of fight you can give is when Tyson Gamble sledges you for dropping the ball and faking a cramp in the 78th minute. Oh now we’re interested in giving a shit? Bit late fellas.

David Nofoaluma spent the latter half of last season on loan at the Melbourne Storm, breaking his finals drought. The outward displays of gratitude at his “rescue” on social media, you’d be forgiven for thinking he wanted the move to be permanent, and there’s surely large swathes of Tigers fans that would reciprocate that notion.

Seeing him sluggishly mope around on the Tigers right wing, before being hooked, while Melbourne themselves struggle with their own crisis in the outside backs, certainly makes for cathartic viewing.

The Wests Tigers right now are a directionless franchise mired in the past and hoping the flicker of the glory days is the jolt needed to bring the struggling club into the 21st century.

Between the rent-a-quote chairman, the clinging to a third world relic of a home ground, and the reluctance to let go of a bygone era, it’s frankly a surprise they recruited as well as they did (although Papali’i certainly did try his best to Ctrl + Z his signature on that contract).

So yes, the Tigers are a vortex of misery. To truly move forward, they need to fully let go of the past. That means some tough and honest conversations, conversations they’ve been too scared to have for the last ten years.

To Luke Brooks, and to David Nofoaluma, two loyal servants of the club. For the Tigers to be taken seriously they can’t be seen as a charity that puts the boys ahead of success.

The Tigers have pinned their hopes to what worked twenty years ago. It runs the risk of diminishing the vibes and dulling the shine of those fond memories of all of us who revere Benji Marshall and those tricky Tigers of the mid 2000s.

To ham-fistedly shoehorn in another Shakespeare reference, there’s trouble in the state of Concord.