Embattled Wests Tigers coach Jason Taylor has told Fairfax that banned centre Tim Simona cost the club a spot in the playoffs.

Wests missed the finals by one competition point before being hammered by Canberra in the final round at Leichhardt Oval.

In a revealing interview, Taylor says he had spoken to Simona about his inconsistent form:
The team

“That season is done, but obviously it held us back,” Taylor said.

“And, looking forward, we won’t have that hinderance to our performance, which is a good thing.”

Inconsistencies

“I always believed Tim was out there playing his best and the inconsistencies were due to the fact he’s an inconsistent player.

“I spent a lot of time with Tim in a one-on-one situation, talking to him about his game and his life off the field. Through most of the course of the time I’ve been here I’ve been working on improving Tim’s consistency. But he didn’t improve and that was something I wasn’t comfortable with.

“He wasn’t improving at the rate the other guys were. Did I know what was going on? No, I didn’t. But I knew something wasn’t right with Tim.”

Systematic lies

“I knew that he was working hard to support his family,” Taylor said. “That’s what I knew about him. That’s why we spoke a lot about his family and how things were. I would ask about his family and personal life. He always looked me in the eye and said everything was good.

“As a coach, I sat down with him weekly and spoke about on field stuff but almost always asked him about life off the field because they are linked. He continually told me things were fine. Continually. As a club it was hard for anyone to predict that when someone is not only not willing to share that, but is going out of his way to hide it.”

Doubts

“As a coach, I’ve never thought about that. Even when players play really poor. I believe every player turns up wanting to play their best game of footy each week. They don’t always get that right but I believe they did their best.”