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When Shane Richardson caught Penrith napping almost 20 years ago, making an abrupt exit from the reigning premiers a week after his new company car was delivered, Panthers general manager Roger Cowan said it best.
“He loves a challenge and what better challenge could you have than to go to Souths?” Cowan said of Richardson in June 2004, having learnt his chief executive was on his way to the wooden-spooners at Redfern.
Wests Tigers, circa 2023, might be a bigger challenge still, what with the dismissal of the entire board on Tuesday, a rookie coach at the helm and their own set of unwanted cutlery picked up in more than a decade of failing to make the finals.
Richardson, who has been installed as interim Tigers CEO with a long-term appointment surely a good chance to follow, is one of the game’s more polarising figures and also one of its great survivors.
Having led dramatic rebuilds at Cronulla, Penrith, Hull FC and South Sydney, he has stepped into brand management and consultant roles with the Rabbitohs and an expansion bid by the Brisbane Tigers. There was a brief chat with the Dragons last year, too.
A 12-month stint as the NRL’s head of strategy and development in 2015 also points to one of Richardson’s great passions.
Shane Richardson during his time as Panthers CEO in 2002.Credit: Mike Bowers
His comments on James Graham’s The Bye Round podcast in September found the Tigers squarely in his crosshairs – intersecting with his long-held stance on junior development, and strong belief on where the Tigers have gone wrong.
“The Wests Tigers have got an unbelievable recruitment area,” Richardson said, pointing to the club’s prize-winning junior ranks of recent years.
“But instead of actually working towards a plan to get that through, they charge off and they chase players that they’re never going to be a chance of picking up.
“They might say, ‘Well if you don’t try’ … but instead of looking at the next player down that will come, that will do the job, their recruitment policy is not about getting the middle right and then the specials, they never got this right.
Jahream Bula has emerged as one of the Tigers best young stars in years.Credit: Louise Kennerley/SMH
“And they’ve not put the pathways through. No kid will leave a club if he thinks he’s going to be the halfback in three years’ time.
“[But] he’ll leave the club when that shuts off to him. So when you bring players in, you’ve got to think what opportunities you’re blocking off for the kids coming through.
“And if you do that, and you allow for that in your planning, those kids will stay with you and that’s where you’ll get your loyalty. But Wests don’t do that, they want the big hit. That’s why they get beat every week.”
The Tigers, of course, are chasing big hitters in Jarome Luai and Addin Fonua-Blake, with rookie coach Benji Marshall leading those pursuits and several others of late.
Any NRL coach will tell you, the temptation to spin every plate is real, matched only by the likelihood of them coming down when stretched too thin.
Richardson’s previous tenures have been driven by using the best of whichever backyard he’s landed in, while the Tigers own has lain under-used for far too long.
On paper, perfect fit. As the Tigers have proven for more than a decade, and on Tuesday especially, there’s a lot more to it than that.
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