Recently appointed CEO Shane Richardson wants to make Wests Tigers the best sporting club in Sydney, outlining here some key changes that will form part of a new business strategy for the club.
Talking exclusively to Wests Tigers official podcast Behind The Roar, Richardson has covered a wide range of topics.
He outlines a new strategic focus for the club, a new policy around player development, a restructured community plan, and the impending launch of the new Wests Tigers Alumni.
He also issues a challenge to Wests Tigers supporters who have not yet 'joined the family' as a member.
Shane, or ‘Richo’ as he is more commonly known, has seen enough in his first couple of months in the job to know there is much to be excited about.
“It’s a great club with enormous opportunities and there are so many areas we can improve on,” he said.
We’ve got this magnificent training facility, a really good young coach, a quality squad, great juniors, and financial backing.
Shane Richardson Wests Tigers CEO
"There are not too many things to say you can’t make this a success, the challenge is to get off the bottom of the table both on and off the field.”
One of Richardson’s top priorities is to strengthen and improve the flow of local junior talent through to the NRL team.
“We’ve got to make this really clear to everybody out there. We are not a recruitment club, we are a development club,” he said.
“We've got over 9,000 juniors in our club yet in our top 17 we wouldn’t have had one junior, which is wrong.
“Clubs win premierships when they bring their juniors through, and we’ve got 9000.
“Souths only had three (thousand juniors) and we had seven or eight in the grand final.
“My point is, you do that when you create a pathway for the development kids and you don’t buy kids into Matts (Harold Matthews) and Ball (SG Ball).
“You use your own kids and develop them into Fegg (Jersey Flegg) and into second grade (NSW Cup), and to first grade.
"We must bring through the young players we’ve got and allow them time to develop.
“That’s how you build champion clubs, that’s how all champion clubs do it, and that’s what we’ve got to do.”
Another important change under the new direction is how the club quantifies its membership.
Richardson has been quick to implement a new policy where only ‘paying members’ are included in the club’s total membership tally, shaving almost 10,000 ‘members’ off the previously reported figure.
He explains why this is important, and in doing so, issues a challenge to non-member ahead of the 2024 NRL season.
“We’re the lowest ‘paying’ membership club in the Sydney area. We’ve got a problem,” said Richardson.
“We've been including 9000 juniors who don’t pay at all, so there is no income to the club, and we’ve been declaring we have 20,000 members.
"Let’s be totally honest about what we have because we need you to become a member of this club, in whatever capacity that is. You need to become a member."
Behind The Roar is also available on Apple, Spotify and YouTube
