\u201cIt\u2019s at the top of the pile,\u201d Mielekamp said of the star spine players. \u201cWe\u2019ve got two guys who want to be here, who want to be with the coach.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019ve got good people, so I\u2019m sure that things will work out pretty positively. Let\u2019s just take a breath and just move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tigers fans have vented their displeasure about the latest boardroom brawling, with many contacting the club directly. Mielekamp has begun calling all of them back and has promised to give every member who wants one a personal audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve actually spent all morning calling members, every second I get a gap,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll call every member that\u2019s asked for a refund, that\u2019s written in and made a complaint. I\u2019ve got through some, I\u2019ve got a lot to get to.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy message to the members is every member can come and meet me directly. As part of your membership you do have a voice and you have the opportunity to come and meet me \u2026 All our members want the same thing. So let\u2019s communicate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite a history of bickering between the Balmain and Western Suburbs factions \u2013 and within the HBG itself \u2013 Mielekamp believes the infighting is over.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason I\u2019ve got confidence is everybody I\u2019ve met \u2013 every board and every stakeholder \u2013 they all want the same thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s just about communication. I\u2019m actually surprised by how distracted everyone has got at times. When they wind it back, what\u2019s really important is the players, that they\u2019ve got the resources, they\u2019ve got the structure. And our members.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust having that clarity for everybody, that\u2019s actually what this is really about. They all do want the same thing. There are a lot of scars, there is a lot of history, but moving forward everybody I speak to actually wants the same thing \u2013 a bit of unity and stability, some good communication. I\u2019m very confident that this is something that we will move forward on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s announcement of Mielekamp\u2019s appointment comes as Holman Barnes chairman and influential club powerbroker Dennis Burgess quits the Tigers board.<\/p>\n
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Burgess\u2019 position has come under scrutiny throughout the week when it emerged that his Instagram account follows hundreds of sexually explicit pages.<\/p>\n
He denied those headlines were the cause of his resignation in an interview with News Corp, claiming instead that his withdrawal from the Tigers board is being made to create stability at the joint venture.<\/p>\n
Burgess will remain chairman of HBG, which will hold a five-person majority on the club\u2019s new nine-member board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s at the top of the pile,\u201d Mielekamp said of the star spine players. \u201cWe\u2019ve got two guys…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-345556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}