The stars aligned for the Wests Tigers in 2005, according to premiership winger Pat Richards, who played every match for the relatively new joint venture side that season.
Richards had joined the Tigers a year earlier, after struggling with injuries during his four seasons at Parramatta, and found his feet in a young Tigers’ outfit in the club’s fifth season.
“We just kept building as the year went on in 2005 and once we got that belief, we went on an eight game streak and sort of felt unbeatable coming into the finals,” Richards told Big League.
“There were a number of guys like myself, Brett Hodgson, Scott Prince, Todd Payton and Shane Elford who had all had a bad run with injuries at our previous clubs and were just thankful to play footy.
“Then at the same time, we had some really good senior guys, like John Skandalis and Mark O’Neill, plus a really good group of young juniors.
“The stars all aligned for us that year but we were still a really young side. I think John Skandalis was our oldest player and he was maybe 30. Benji and Robbie were both 20, 21 and we had a lot of guys in the early parts of their career.”
Wests Tigers hadn’t played finals footy since Balmain and Western Suburbs merged in 2000 but something clicked midway through the year for the Tim Sheens’ coached side.
After winning just six matches in the first 15 rounds, the Tigers won eight straight games to push into the top four, before losing their final two regular season matches against Melbourne and Penrith.
“When we got on a bit of a winning run, you quickly realised how many West Tigers fans there were out there. From the Balmain side, from the Wests’ side, they all came together through that run we had and you could definitely feel the support everywhere you went.
“I think that also had something to do with the way we played as a team as well. We played a pretty exciting brand of footy and Sheensy allowed us to throw the footy around.”
The Tigers belted North Queensland 50-6 in the club’s first ever finals match, then went on to beat Brisbane and St George Illawarra to book a spot in the grand final, where they faced the Cowboys again for the second time in a month.
“They obviously turned things around after week one and won two away games to get themselves back into the grand final,” Richards recalled.
“They had a lot of quality and some scary players in Matt Bowen and (Johnathon) Thurston. In saying that, we were confident that if we played our style of footy, we were good enough to get the job done.”
After conceding the opening try, the Tigers took control of the match and scored five tries to claim a 30-16 victory, including Richard’s famous try towards the end of the first half that came from a brilliant Benji Marshall flick pass.
“It’s pretty special to be involved in a moment like that that’s still remembered today and the funny thing is it never really should have happened,” Richards said.
“Benji had a bad shoulder so he was defending on the wing and I had dodgy ankles so had shifted in and was further up the field. When Hodgo (Brett Hodgson) threw the ball to Benji, neither of us should have been where we were but fortunately, it all worked out.”
It’s been a while between drinks for Tigers’ fans since that fateful night almost 20-years ago. But there’s plenty to like in this current group, according to Richards, including the influence of a few of his former teammates.
“You can see they’re playing a different style of footy this year and they’re staying in games towards the end and winning a few.
“They’re going well and hopefully that will continue. I think a lot of it comes back to just backing yourself and having belief in the team. That’s what we had in 2005 and it was really the backbone of our side.”
