Uncaged: Proof that Wests Tigers are on the rise

Jarome Luai isn’t due to join his new team-mates at training until January, but he has already visited the club's headquarters and walked around the field in a bid to get a feel for the Wests Tigers.

Yet what the star recruit would not be able to fully appreciate is how big a transformation Wests Tigers have undergone in the past 12 months under the administration of Shane Richardson and coaching of Benji Marshall.

While the Tigers finished with a third consecutive wooden spoon last season, there is a new-found belief in the direction of the club that is enticing players to sign, sponsors to get on board and members to join.

Of the eight players Richardson and Marshall targeted from other clubs, six signed and the only reason they missed out on Corey Horsburgh and Kobe Hetherington was because the Raiders and Broncos changed their minds about releasing them.

With Pepper Money becoming the club’s major backer for the next three seasons, Wests Tigers have now sold all the sponsorship space on their new 2005-inspired NRL jersey, while Richardson said membership was up 40 per cent.

Everyone has periods at the bottom of the ladder but if you work hard and have a plan in place you will get to the top of it.

Wests Tigers CEO Shane Richardson

Wests Tigers are also investing in juniors and aim to overtake Penrith as the game's biggest nursery by taking advantage of the corridor from Pyrmont to Picton that the club considers their territory.

“We're not like any other NRL club, and we don't want to be like any other club. We’re outlaws,” Richardson said.

“We want to be the No.1 club, but we want to do it our way.”

With little to shout about since the 2005 premiership, Wests Tigers wanted to make a big deal about the sponsorship and held a public unveiling at the club's Concord headquarters with NRL and NRLW stars in attendance.

Among them were 2025 recruits Royce Hunt, Jack Bird and Jeral Skelton, who have cut short their annual leave to begin training with their new club.

Fiji international Sunia Turuva, who has won two premierships with the Panthers, was an observer at training, while Luai and Terrell May plan to join the group soon after returning from Samoa's tour to England.

"One of the best things about all of the guys we have signed is that they are all trying their hardest to come in as much as possible," Marshall said.

"Royce Hunt started three weeks early, Sunia Turuva is going to come in and he isn't required back until January, Jack Bird started a week early, Jeral Skelton started today, and he is not due back for another two weeks.

"We are talking about people who are buying into what we are doing and want to be a part of the solution and want to be in the fight to get us out of where we are so that reassures me that we have signed the right people."

In the halves pairing of Luai and star rookie Lachlan Galvin, hooker Api Koroisau and fullback Jahream Bula, the Tigers have an exciting spine, and the addition of Turuva and Skelton on the wings gives them a strong back three.

Luai and Galvin will be playing behind a pack led by May and Hunt up front, with Bird set to start the season at lock. 

With uncertainty about the future of England international John Bateman, the Tigers may be short of an edge backrower, as well as a strike centre, but there is talent coming through the junior ranks.   

“I liken it to a rat in a cage," Richardson said. "They have been working, going around and around at 100 miles an hour but going nowhere.

We have opened the cage up, and this is what today is about. We are able to do things that nobody believed we could do.

"We are a huge club. We will have more juniors next year than Penrith. We have opened offices in Campbelltown, we are pushing out from Pyrmont to Picton, so we are in a really good space in what we have set up to be successful.

"You don't understand how valuable that area through to Camden and Group Six and all through to the airport is. It is growing at a massive rate - 500,000 extra people in the next five years - and that's our area.

"People said nobody would be attracted to Wests Tigers, but companies like Pepper Money and Zurich don't become involved here if they don't believe in the business plan.

"The place on the ladder is not forever. Everyone has periods at the bottom of the ladder, but if you work hard and have a plan in place you will get to the top of it."