Under-siege Tigers batten down hatches

Skipper Robbie Farah refused to front the post-game press conference and coach Mick Potter labelled continued speculation over his future at the Wests Tigers as tiresome as the joint venture battened down the hatches in the aftermath to their round 21 loss to Melbourne.

The Tigers much documented woes continued on Monday when the Storm swept them aside 28-6 with halfback Cooper Cronk creating four of the visitors’ five tries in the tribute match to injured former Wests forward Simon Dwyer.

The Tigers finals hopes took a heavy blow in the defeat and Potter admitted his side were outclassed by Melbourne, who jumped to sixth on the back of the win.

But he claimed he didn’t know why Farah was absent from his media duties, after the NSW rake took time off in the lead-up to the match, upset by accusations he was undermining Potter’s role.

“I didn’t allocate the duties, it’s not my job,” Potter said when asked about Farah.

Potter then quickly tired of questions about how the off field drama was affecting his team.

“It seems to be really easy in particular to talk about other things other than the game itself and for a fan, which I really love the game, I think that should be spoken about more so,” Potter said.

“It just becomes tiresome. I don’t know if the fans really want to hear that sort of stuff or they just want to move on.

“For me, I just move on. I can’t waste my time getting distracted by this sort of stuff.

“I’ve got a job to do every week and this week is a short week. I won’t have to be worrying about what you guys write and what you report. I’ll be getting on with North Queensland.”

The Tigers have slipped to 12th and ahead of their trip to Townsville on Saturday realistically need to win four of their last five to play finals football.

Keith Galloway, who sat in on the press conference for Farah after celebrating his 150th game for Wests, said his skipper was faring well.

“He seems to be OK. He was obviously doing it tough earlier in the week, but he put in a pretty good effort tonight,” Galloway said.

To make matter worse for the Tigers Potter said Pat Richards (hamstring) and Luke Brooks (shoulder), who was a late withdrawal for the Campbelltown match, are unlikely to be fit to face the Cowboys.

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