As their golden era retreats further into the past, Wests Tigers are on the hunt for a new future

The struggles of the Tigers in recent years have made plenty of their fans feel old before their time – back-to-back wooden spoons and the longest finals drought in the league can do that.

But for any long-suffering joint venture fan who really wants a glimpse of their own mortality, look no further than Tallyn da Silva.

Da Silva is, as they say in the classics, a good’un. A free-running hooker who is among the best of a fine crop of Tigers juniors coming through the grades, da Silva became one of the youngest players in club history when he made his NRL debut midway through last season just a couple months past his 18th birthday.

That first game was Campbelltown Stadium and that means a lot because da Silva is Campbelltown to the bone, a born and bred Tiger every single day of his life.

“This was my dream growing up, to play for the Wests Tigers. I’m so proud to be a Campbelltown boy and I was such a big Tigers fan growing up,” da Silva said.

“Dad supports them, Mum supports them, the whole family. Everything about this is so special to me.”

Da Silva is the platonic ideal of a Tigers junior, the kind of guy who the club should be putting on a poster.

He was playing senior footy alongside his father for East Campbelltown at 16, did a few days here and there as a scaffolder in his rookie year to make ends meet and is a player of seemingly endless possibilities.

He was also born in April of 2005, a little under six months shy of the greatest night in the club’s history, the triumph they are always trying to emulate, the glorious time they want to make new again, the high they are perpetually chasing.

Da Silva is one of a generation of Tigers players who have little to no memory of the club being successful. He was six years old when they played their last final in 2011.

Even the men who were there are starting to fade away – Aaron Woods and Ben Murdoch-Masila are the last two active players in the league who have appeared in a semifinal match for the Tigers.

For fans of a certain age, they’re sobering facts. Boys have grown into men as they waited for their club to win.

But don’t dwell on it for too long. The Tigers certainly aren’t – after what happened last year, when they bet it all on the spirit of 2005 only to drown under the weight of another tumultuous struggle of a season, they can’t afford to.

“You have to take the good with the bad and it was a tough year but we have to move forward. It would have been hard for anyone, because we all play to win, but you can’t dwell on that,” said star forward John Bateman.

“You have to learn, you have to move forward. If you stay in the past you can get stuck there for a very long time.

Bateman has been part of a steady overhaul, on the field and off it, that has the potential to reboot the entire club – the departure of Luke Brooks and David Nofoaluma means only one player in the top squad has played more than 60 games for the Tigers.

Coach Benji Marshall has been given about as blank a canvas as anyone could ask for. What he’ll do with it is anybody’s guess given Marshall had not coached any side at any level before taking over for Sheens in the closing stages of last year.

When you see him at training, where he often takes part in ball-work drills, Marshall looks like he could still play. Our visions of his glorious career are still so fresh it’s difficult to imagine him as anything else.

But according to new recruit Aidan Sezer, one of Marshall’s early strengths has been the certainty of his vision and the clarity of his communication.

“He’s so understanding but so clear in what he wants as a coach. It’s good working with him on a daily basis because he’s not long retired and he still understands the game,” Sezer said.

“He’s been really clear what he wants from me. He wants me to get us around the park, other than that I can’t really say what it is because of player-coach confidentiality, but he’s left no doubt what he expects.”

While Marshall will rely heavily on experienced men like Sezer, Bateman and Api Koroisau to make some progress ahead of Jarome Luai’s much-vaunted arrival in 2025, his more important task will be developing the club’s younger brigade.

The Tigers have worked hard at revamping their junior pathways and are now beginning to reap the rewards as players like da Silva, five-eighth Lachie Galvin and lock Kit Laulilii all begin to filter into the top grade.

All three have been named for this weekend’s trial against the Warriors and when the Tigers finally have another day in the sun it’ll be them, or players like them, who make sure it lasts.

That’s why the likes of Sezer, Bateman, David Klemmer and Api Koroisau, who has taken a special interest in da Silva, are so important. Marshall can teach the boys how to be players but it’s their teammates who teach them to be men.

“You have to work hard, nothing comes easy, you can have all the talent in the world but if you won’t work hard nobody gives a shit, really. You won’t get where we need you to be,” Bateman said.

“That’s being a team player, team first, that’s what we’ve built this pre-season.”

It’s a good plan, enough to bring a little bit of optimism into a Tigers fanbase even if they learned long ago that hope can be a dangerous thing.

But we have all been there before, haven’t we? A finals drought doesn’t go this long without a lot of fresh starts, a lot of rebuilds that never go where they’re supposed to.

If you had a dollar every time you heard the Tigers had a good junior coming through you’d have enough to cover Jarome Luai’s contract for 2025.

Board clean-outs and new coaches and big signings that are going to change everything are nothing new to this club. They have seen it all before and da Silva is not the only lifelong Tiger who has never seen the club do anything but struggle.

There is a lot to prove, many hearts to win and a generation of fans who are desperate for a new legend to believe in, and Marshall’s Tigers are fixing to give it to them.

“We want to finish top eight, no doubt about it. That starts with the first game, then the second game, but that’s our goal,” Bateman said.

“We’re coming off the back of what’s been, but we’re excited about what’s gonna be.”

For a team on back-to-back spoons, that’s aiming high, but ending the long winters away from the bright lights won’t happen any other way.

The past is not enough anymore – not for the players, the fans, Marshall, or anybody else. Only a new future will do.

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