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The collapse of the Broncos, the demise of the Storm: the NRL has delivered a season of change. Even if some things never do.

The Wests Tigers have lost seven matches in a row and, after a promising start in 2026, their nosedive is taking them towards the NRL cellar, a place with which they have become familiar.

Indeed, if the Tigers lose to the bottom side St George Illawarra on Sunday, they will be well down the path toward a new club record of 11 straight defeats this season, given they travel to Penrith, the Roosters and finals contenders the Cowboys in their final three matches.

After last year’s turmoil around Lachlan Galvin and the board instability, this year there has been the shock, accelerated departure of Jarome Luai and an ugly falling out with Adam Doueihi. Though coach Benji Marshall responded to reports two weeks ago by denying his players vape inside the club’s gym, he admitted standards have slipped. From a place of promise at times in the past two seasons, the club is back at square one.

The Tigers’ absence from the finals will now tick past 16 years, and a fourth wooden spoon in five years is still not out of the question. Indeed, their collapse has taken the merged entity’s win rate below the modern NRL low-water mark from the Northern Eagles’ brief existence – 39.5% over their three seasons until Manly was reborn in 2003.

It means the Tigers and the Gold Coast Titans are locked in a duel to become the worst NRL club of the 21st century.

A string of high-profile recruits in the past few years including Luai, Api Koroisau and Sunia Turuva has been unable to shift the Tigers’ fortunes. Under more stable ownership of the Holman Barnes Group this year and a new chief executive in Shaun Mielekamp, however, there is now a focus on building the club’s foundations.

“The club has continued to shoot itself in the foot,” Mielekamp told supporter group the Ambush earlier this month, committing to a new focus on pathways which has “never been unlocked properly” at Concord, Campbelltown and Leichhardt.

“That’s a big project, right, it’s a lot of coaches, it’s a lot of stability, it’s facilities and there’s a shit-tonne that’s in there,” he said. “That’s my message and that’s my focus, there needs to be a long-term fix here.”

In Sol Saukuru, Mielekamp might have a model for the club’s future. The 21-year-old is top scorer in NSW Cup this year with 20 tries – four more than anyone else – and was named to debut by Marshall against the Dragons in the centres.

“We’ve been driving some standards around his weight and his fitness, and he’s been meeting them to a tee,” the Tigers coach said. “[He] deserves his opportunity and everyone loves him here, the boys love his personality and now he gets to go and live out his dream and make his debut.”

A debut club is never easy for a player, but it also affects the team. Simon Strachan, co-founder of Gain Line Analytics and a former Wallabies analyst, has found developing cohesion between players is under-appreciated in both rugby league and union.

“What the Wests Tigers are trying to do is, because of bringing in that external talent, it just can’t produce that high level of in-game cohesion, and that influences the ability of the players to execute,” he said.

“So, even if you might have a highly talented player, if they are playing a game with a lack of understanding with those players around them, they’re not going to be able to perform, and this manifests itself strongly in defence.”

Bringing in Saukuru means the winger on the outside and backrower on the inside have to develop connections from scratch. Yet there may be no better time to do it than when a team is out of finals contention, with the longer term payoff making up for short-term pain.

Equally, there is an argument that Luai’s presence in the side is preventing others who will actually be at the club next year from gaining experience. Yet Luai engineered the Tigers’ most recent victory, a comeback against the Titans in round 15’s Leichhardt Oval send-off.

“There’s always a lot of outside noise, and if you listen to the outside noise, you’ll end up there,” Marshall said, confirming Luai would still play against the Dragons despite the much-vaunted signing leaving for Parramatta next year. “It’s what I think is best to win the game this week, Jerome’s still going OK for us so we just want him to go and do his job.”

In the longer term, the Tigers face a difficult task to not only end their finals drought, but to keep their noses ahead of the Titans in the all-time table. The Gold Coast franchise have won just 38% of the NRL matches they have played since joining the competition in 2007, but in recent years have unearthed promising talents in fullback Keano Kini, lock Cooper Bai, centre Jojo Fifita and halfback Zane Harrison.

“They’ve gone a more junior, younger route and not necessarily gone with significantly higher-profile signings, so what this enables them to do is create more of a stable environment, and that will allow the players to start playing more to capacity over time,” Strachan said.

Rugby league’s formula is elusive for all but a few. For now, the Tigers are still looking. “You can have a butcher’s shop,” said Mielekamp. “It can have the best marketing, it can have the best people, it can have everything, but if your meat’s rotten, your meat’s rotten, and you’ve got to fix your meat.”