The Wests Tigers have refused to discuss their form from the past as they embrace a “new year” and look to finally break their NRL Finals drought, which has stood for nearly 15 years.

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Aiming to once again play finals football, the Tigers couldn’t have asked for a better start to their 2026 campaign, absolutely demolishing the Cowboys in an attacking masterclass at the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’.

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However, in recent years, they have failed to build on their early-season success and continue it throughout the remainder of the season

This was evident in 2025, when they won five of their first nine matches before finishing 13th on the ladder.

“This is a new year, so I’m not even thinking about last year,” Marshall said in his post-match press conference after defeating the North Queensland Cowboys.

“One thing we are conscious of, though, is just week by week you’ve got to prepare each week and be ready to roll, and I’m just lucky I’ve got a good group of leaders who drive that.

“Because things coming from just me, it’s not as effective as coming from these guys, so it’s one of the biggest growth areas.

“I’ve seen in the pre-season was that our leaders were driving everything and pretty happy with the way it went today.”

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Marshall impressed by Tigers start | 07:51

Adding Kai Pearce-Paul to an already stacked forward pack this season, the Tigers will travel away from home for the next three weeks in what will be a great test to see if they have what it takes to make the finals.

Taking on the Rabbitohs next week, they then head to New Zealand to face the Warriors before facing the Parramatta Eels on Easter Monday.

“Last year’s last year for starters. We’re a new team. We had a great pre-season and just love the quality of work we’ve done,” Tigers co-captain Jarome Luai added.

“We’ve touched on it before and it’s going to pay us back throughout the year. (We’ve) got a great bunch of guys around me and I enjoyed today and moving forward we have a lot to work on but taking it week by week.”

“He’s him!”: Doueihi’s praise for Luai | 02:32

Meanwhile, the club will be sweating on the availability of centre Taylan May after he departed the field in the opening half with a shoulder injury.

He is set to undergo scans on Sunday.

“He seemed okay. The medical staff said it’s not worth the risk to put him back on so he’ll get scans tomorrow and see where he’s at, but he reckons it didn’t feel good at the time,” Marshall said.

“But lucky with the six-man interchange we had Jeral who I thought did a great job considering he wasn’t expecting to go on but he stayed ready and I thought Turuva moving to centre did a good job for us too.”

Marshall also confirmed that Latu Fainu is set to be available in Round 4.

“Round 4, I think, he’s not too far away. He’s almost doing everything in training (but) he’ll have to work hard to get into the team.”