March 16, 2013, 3 a.m.
SPLIT lips, busted and bloody noses, bruised bodies. Wests Tigers have clearly been hurting mentally following their round-one collapse against Newcastle, but the evidence is overwhelming that they are also hurting physically as a result.
This wasn't the scene of the dressing room at Hunter Stadium either. This was Concord Oval on Thursday morning, when, having been belted by the Knights days earlier, they responded by belting each other. In a positive way. Coach Mick Potter asked for more intensity and he got it, complete with added blood and minor wound on Benji Marshall's lower lip.
''The only way to get back to playing well is to train hard,'' Marshall said on Friday. ''We've definitely done that.
''The coaches wanted us to really put in against each other at training. We really stepped it up to another level. I suppose you get worried if you're losing games because of your attitude on the field. But the attitude of the team was still there.''
Chris Anderson has seen this all before. In 2002, having taken over the coaching of the Cronulla Sharks, his side lost the first six matches. That is why he said it was understandable that the Tigers, in Mick Potter's first match, faltered. Even more so considering so many of the players have known only one NRL coach, Tim Sheens, the long-time Tigers coach who made way for Potter. The players have become used to Sheens' structure and that takes some breaking down.
''As soon as there's pressure put on them, they revert back to the old days,'' Anderson said. ''It just takes a little while to instil that new structure. When the pressure is applied, you just forget about what you've learnt over the last few months and go back to what you've done over the last 10 years. You're caught a little bit in between.''
And that black hole is where he felt the Tigers found themselves on Monday night, when, after a promising start, they dropped the ball, gave away penalties and ultimately dropped their heads, caught between the new and old regimes.
Of course they will need to hold onto the football, starting against Penrith on Sunday. Of course they will need to avoid giving away costly penalties, or missing costly tackles. But it will take more than those basics. Anderson believes it will still take three or four matches to instil Potter's structure. Each week, he would expect the Tigers to be able to last longer before the old habits start re-emerging. And before long, things should turn; in 2002, having lost the first six matches, the Sharks won 11 straight and ultimately fell one game short of the grand final.
''It's a building process; before long, you're doing it for 80 minutes,'' said the former Canterbury, Melbourne, Cronulla and Sydney Roosters coach. ''It's understandable because they've been doing something else for so long.
''They just have to believe in the process. They need to keep working on it. Gradually, it'll sink in. The worst thing they could do is start thinking, 'shit, I don't think this is going to work'. It's the coach's job to make sure they don't think like that. It's like muscle memory. As a coach, you say 'this is how it's going to be'. You keep doing it at training and all of a sudden, you believe in the process. [At Cronulla] I'd been around a bit, I knew it worked. You just had to prove to them that it could work.''
Many Tigers will know that fortunes and form can turn quickly, too. In 2010, the Tigers were thrashed 50-10 by South Sydney at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Yet they won seven of their next eight matches. It is perhaps a shame that it takes a defeat like that to kick-start a team, but sometimes the big losses reaffirm what it takes to win.
''I think we've learnt from it as a team,'' Marshall said. ''It showed us a lot about character and how hard you're willing to work. All the boys really put in at training to try and make amends for it. We all feel like we let each other down. It was a pretty quiet bus trip back from Newcastle. No one spoke. Everyone just wants to play again.
''It sort of felt like quicksand out there. The harder we tried, the worse it got. But there's no panic at the moment. It's hard work. It's round one. There are eight other teams on the same amount of points as us.''
It's that sort of positivity that is required, even if Marshall did make the comment with a smirk.
''The scoreline made it look a lot worse than it actually was,'' said Brad Fittler, the former Roosters player and coach, who could find a positive out of a long, lonely walk through a sewer.
Fittler reinforced that dwelling on the negatives gets you nowhere; that defeat shouldn't mean defeatist. ''They've got some experienced boys there,'' he said.
''They will realise that the [lost] possession would have made it a lot worse. There's no panic there.''
Those older heads will be crucial. The Tigers do have many of them; captain Robbie Farah, Marshall, centre Chris Lawrence, forwards Keith Galloway, Adam Blair and Liam Fulton. And newcomer Braith Anasta, who has been playing in the NRL for longer than anyone else in the squad, barring the injured Lote Tuqiri.
''The only way it becomes a problem is if you make it one, if you dwell on it and compound the issues,'' Anasta said. ''For us it was pretty clear cut where we went wrong so we just have to rectify it as soon as possible.
''The biggest thing is we remain positive and not let everything get you down. No one expected that, we didn't expect that. You get surrounded by negativity when you play like that because everyone is telling you how bad you played. You have to separate yourself from that, accept you played bad, accept where you went wrong and just change it.''
And you get back on your horse, and think about that old phrase about not winning the Melbourne Cup first time past the post.
''It's round one,'' Marshall said. ''If we do that again this weekend, then I'll be worried. But we won't be letting that happen again.''
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