Wests Tigers’ 2001 campaign was among the more difficult endured by any club in the NRL era – and was a perpetual minefield for hapless rookie first-grade coach Terry Lamb.
Just a month into the season, star duo Kevin McGuinness and Craig Field were slapped with lengthy bans by the NRL for testing positive to recreational drugs. A fortnight later, wing wild-man John Hopoate parted ways with the Tigers after his infamous finger-happy antics incurred a 12-match suspension and resulted in a torrent of unwanted attention for the joint venture.
Unsurprisingly, results suffered. The beleaguered Tigers battled through an 11-match midseason period that garnered just one win, while their frequent thrashings included a 56-6 defeat in Newcastle.
The Knights were sailing towards a top-four finish – though a striking suspension ruled halfback talisman Andrew Johns out of the Round 23 return clash with the Tigers in Campbelltown.
With debutant James Wynne in the No.7 jersey, the Knights romped to a 24-0 lead after just 22 minutes.
The Tigers regrouped via tries to prop Corey Pearson and winger Lipina Kaufusi, but a four-pointer to Newcastle interchange forward Julian Bailey on the cusp of halftime appeared a hammer blow for the home side.
When Kangaroos back-rower Ben Kennedy steamed over to complete a hat-trick less than two minutes after the break, the result seemed a foregone conclusion at 32-12.
But a flurry of three Tigers tries – to five-eighth Owen Craigie, lock Ben Galea and goalkicking fullback Joel Caine – in the space of 10 minutes turned the match on its head. With the Tigers running downhill at pace, the mercurial Craigie’s grubber in the 71st minute laid on a go-ahead try for McGuinness, who was back from five months in purgatory.
The errors continued to pile up for the shellshocked Knights in the latter stages as they crashed to a 36-32 loss.
It was revealed later that a halftime address from Pearson acted as a catalyst for the stunning turnaround.
“I just said to each and every one of the boys, ‘Have a look around the room’,” Parramatta-bound Pearson explained.
“I said, ‘I can look each one of you in the eye and I have faith in each of you blokes. I’ve got faith in the team that we can go out and win this’.”
The stunning revival represented the second-biggest margin reeled in to win a game in the competition’s history, behind only North Queensland’s 36-28 win over Penrith in 1998 after trailing by 26 points.
The Tigers’ effort has been equalled four times and surpassed once since.
“I think it’s the attitude of being in a tight game, of enjoying the arm wrestle,” stand-in Knights captain Bill Peden lamented.
“We scored enough points against the Tigers to win two games but we let ourselves down with our mental attitude.”
The Michael Hagan-coached Knights went down heavily to St George Illawarra a week later with ‘Joey’ still sidelined but subsequently did not lose another game as they surged to the club’s second premiership.
The Tigers, meanwhile, were outscored 98 points to 26 in their remaining three games, slumping to a 12th-place finish. Lamb would be replaced by Tim Sheens 12 months later.
