The Tigers may be a club on the rise and for some, a sexy pick to improve into the top eight this season, but there has been some very dark moments in recent years to overcome.
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Skipper Api Koroisau admits he ran out of answers during the Tigers’ horror three year wooden spoon streak from 2022-2024.
Koroisau was fresh off back-to-back premierships at Penrith when he arrived at the Tigers at the start of the 2023.
Reality soon set in for Koroisau as the Tigers would lose their first eight games and win just four the entire season.
With just ten wins total across 2023 and 2024, Koroisau doesn’t look back too fondly on those times.
“Oh man, it was a slog,” he told foxsports.com.au.
“We were on the bottom, struggled to get off the bottom, and week in, week out we were trying new things but not coming up with the results.
“Honestly, after a while we started to hurt but we had some boys here who just kept turning up regardless and it’s those guys you love paying back at times like this when the club does start to get better.
“My mindset was just footy. For me footy is simple, it’s probably the stuff that happens off the field and the lives you have to worry about as well.
“There’s 30 blokes in your team who all have personal lives, some were finding it tough from how hard footy is in general … It’s just hard because I didn’t have the answers when the boys were asking the questions.”
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The Tigers improved up the ladder to 14th last season and were in finals contention up until the final few weeks of the season before losing their last three.
In what was co-captain Jarome Luai’s first season at the club, there was a lot to like about the 2025 campaign given there were a few bumps along the way, notably the Lachlan Galvin saga.
Galvin left the club to join the Bulldogs in a controversial mid-season switch. It placed a huge microscope on the club, especially the leadership group of Koroisau, Luai and coach Benji Marshall.
“To be fair, it was quite a rollercoaster,” Koroisau said.
“We started off better than a lot of other people anticipated and sort of started proving a few points to ourselves, but it got derailed halfway through the season there, but a credit to the team for not falling away too hard.
“Last year was up there in terms of where this club’s been at and where we sort of finished up.
“Understanding the group of players that we have here, they all just want to compete. They’re guys you want to go out there and win with.
“Obviously the results haven’t gone our way in the past, but they are a bunch of blokes that’ll keep turning up each week. You love playing with these kind of guys and it’s a privilege to lead them out.”
