Benji Marshall at Wests Tigers training, going across the field with ball in hand and looking like he can do just about whatever he wants with it.
The year isn’t 2005, when Marshall helped spur the joint venture to their breakthrough premiership, or 2010, when he had a fair claim to being the best player in the world, or even 2018, when he came back to the club after four years of wandering.
No, it’s last pre-season, back in February before the Tigers claimed their second-straight wooden spoon.
Marshall returned to the Tigers again as Tim Sheens’s lead assistant and heir apparent for the top job but sometimes he’d jump in for a drill and still seemed like he could be out there as a player if he wanted.
He’s 38 years old now and a long way from the 17-year-old schoolboy who debuted back in 2003 but he’s one of those guys who always seems young because it always feels like there’s still so much ahead of him.
Eight months later, with Sheens sent packing less than a season into his return and Marshall accelerated into the top job a year ahead of schedule, it still feels that way. He does not seem like other coaches and that’s probably because he’s not.
“I’m not your typical head coach, I reckon. I do like time away from it, I’m not 24/7 coaching, I like people being themselves and I want to create an environment where people want to be and where they want to play and be their best,” Marshall said.
“The X’s and O’s don’t matter to me as much as making the players feel confident in their ability and wanting to play for the club and doing their best every time they put the jersey on.”
The 2024 campaign and Marshall’s first pre-season is just two weeks old and Tigers fans are desperate for something to believe in after two last-placed finishes.
Their first wooden spoon, in 2022, was understandable even as it was agonising.
That was a bad team who played badly and were duly punished for it. It was the law of the jungle and the Tigers were prey in a league of predators.
But 2023 was different. Three of the club’s four big recruits enjoyed strong seasons, Stefano Utoikamanu made his State of Origin debut and Jahream Bula emerged as one of the most exciting young players in the league.
They put 60 on the Cowboys and managed an incredible upset over the Panthers but still finished last. This might not have been a finals team, but they were capable of far more than they showed.
This was not a team who should have been on the end of the third-heaviest defeat in premiership history.
There is a difference between being a poor team and an underperforming one but the silver lining of the latter is there’s at least something to build on, even if you have to squint to see it.
Throw in the recruitment of the experienced Aidan Sezer and exciting youngsters Jayden Sullivan and Latu and Samuela Fainu and the Tigers have something. What it might be is still anyone’s guess but Marshall will spend the summer trying to figure it out.
One thing is for sure, though – he won’t have them throwing behind-the-back flick passes or ripping out big, shotgun sidesteps that seem to split the air in two. Nobody but Marshall could do those things, so there’s no point in trying.
Marshall wants to keep things simple – get fit, play to your strengths, do it your way and you’ll get a start.
“Everyone has ideas about what I should do but one thing I’ve made really clear to all the players is nobody is guaranteed a spot – in our team you have to earn that through hard training in the pre-season and if you earn that you’ll play,” Marshall said.
“I don’t care how old you are, how experienced you are, if you earn it through the pre-season you’ll more than likely play.
“What I love is when you sign players who have a bit of personality about them and you encourage them to be themselves. The more you want them to come out of their shell and be upbeat and funny, the better it’ll be for us.
“There’s nothing worse than telling a player how to act or how to be. There’s some people you can’t keep in a box, let them make their own box and do what they do.”
It is early days, but he’s saying all the right things and because he is Benji Marshall, flicker of passes, bane of defenders, perhaps the most beloved player of his generation, people will want to believe he’s leading the Tigers down the right track and just by being who he is he’s easy to believe in.
But it’s impossible to know if this will work out.
The Tigers are the first team Marshall has ever coached and even if there’s some promise he’s trying to succeed where Sheens, Michael Maguire, Jason Taylor and Mick Potter all failed.
It would have been easy for Marshall to keep his pundit jobs on TV, work a session or two a week as a skills coach to get a footy fix and avoid trying to untangle this whole mess to begin with.
So why get into it at all? It’s a fair question but a simple answer — this is the life Marshall knows, a world he feels like he understands, a task that gives him purpose.
“A lot of people have asked why I’m doing this, it’s a lot of stress and a big challenge but it’s the way you look at it. It might seem like a challenge but it’s an exciting one for me, I come to training every day with a purpose and I’m excited to be here,” Marshall said.
“When you go from 20 years of playing and retire you miss a lot of things about footy.
“Being able to be involved again and being able to coach and teach the things I learned about footy to a team, things don’t get much better.”
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