Wests Tigers 2025 season review
Overview
After three straight wooden spoons, a 13th-placed finish was a big improvement for the Tigers, who briefly looked like making the top eight earlier in the year.
Five wins in their first nine games had them in contention, but the Lachlan Galvin saga derailed their season and they only won four of their final 15 to finish eight points off the Finals.
Still, at least the dreaded wooden spoon never came into sight, and there’s plenty of hope heading into 2026 for a first Finals spot since 2011.
Highs
As mentioned, five wins from their first nine games had the Tigers flirting with the Finals.
There were some eye-catching victories over the year too, including a 30-28 win over the Roosters and a very satisfying 28-14 win over Lachlan Galvin’s Bulldogs side.
Jahream Bula continued to go from strength to strength at fullback, while multiple Premiership winner Jarome Luai added some class and experience in the halves and Terrell May was a beast in the forward pack.
Lows
The Lachlan Galvin saga was a major distraction the Tigers could have done without. Had he stayed put, who knows how their season may have gone, but ultimately theirs – and his – ended with a whimper.
There were some poor results too, including a 64-0 thumping in Melbourne and an inexplicable 36-28 loss to the Titans in Round 27. The latter was probably worse, as they were 28-12 up against a bottom-of-the-ladder Gold Coast side.
2025 RLB Player of the Year – Terrell May
The powerful prop didn’t need to prove anything, but after being surprisingly dumped by the Roosters at the start of the year he may have felt he had a point to prove. He did it in some style too, playing all 24 games, averaging 166 metres per game and gaining a tackle efficiency of 97.7%.
Reasons to be positive in 2026
The Tigers have a fairly young squad who will all be better for the experience in 2026. Strike centre Taylan May will have a full pre-season under his belt too, while Kai Pearce-Paul is probably the pick of the new recruits so far, and comes in off the back of two solid seasons with the Knights.
All in all, I’d expect the Tigers to be looking up rather than down next year, although a Finals spot might still be a little bit of a stretch.
My 2025 prediction – 16th
Final 2025 position – 13th (+3)
In terms of position I wasn’t a million miles off, but I’m willing to admit the Tigers were much better than I expected them to be in 2025. While clubs like Souths were looking nervously over their shoulder, the Tigers always looked an outside chance of troubling the top eight, and a 13th-place finish is a good platform to build on for next year.
