{"id":567754,"date":"2026-03-27T12:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T12:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/567754\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T12:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T12:07:11","slug":"benji-marshall-press-conference-compares-tino-tavana-to-gehamat-shibasaki-tigers-defeat-warriors-what-did-he-say-rugby-league-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/567754\/","title":{"rendered":"Benji Marshall press conference, compares Tino Tavana to Gehamat Shibasaki, Tigers defeat Warriors, what did he say, rugby league news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benji Marshall has revealed impressive debutant Tino Tavana was almost sacked by the club in the pre-season, with the Tigers coach likening his journey to a Origin and Test star.<\/p>\n

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The 21-year-old winger was brilliant in the Tigers\u2019 32-14 win over the Warriors, in what was his first NRL appearance, scoring a try and twice outduelling veteran Roger Tuivasa-Sheck in the air, earning possession that led to tries to Kai Pearce-Paul and Royce Hunt.<\/p>\n

Tavana has come through the Wests Tigers pathway, playing both NSW Cup and Jersey Flegg Cup in 2025 to earn a train and trial contract for 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnbelievable story, like (Bronco\u2019s Gehamat) Shibasaki last year, where at the start of pre-season, he was almost kicked out.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe needed to do some work and it\u2019s a credit to him, because he worked hard on himself, came back, and I thought he had a great pre-season after Christmas.<\/p>\n

\u201c(He) Trialled really well and just through lack of outside backs, we got a dispensation for him to play this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, really proud of him. I thought he did a great job today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he single-handedly got us back into the game with two effort chases, jumping over Roger (Tuivasa-Sheck) to get us the ball back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tino Tavana scored a try in his debut NRL game.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n

Marshall also revealed that five eighth Jock Madden missed his grandfather\u2019s funeral this week so he could play.<\/p>\n

Madden was one of the stars in the Tigers\u2019 upset win over the previously undefeated Warriors, stepping in to fill the shoes of injured skipper Jarome Luai and leading the side around the field with class.<\/p>\n

While fellow half Adam Doueihi was the best on the paddock, Madden, who made his NRL debut for the Tigers in 2021 before spending the last two seasons at the Broncos, earned special praise from Marshall after the game.<\/p>\n

Doueihi himself had been in doubt for the match with what was reported as a hamstring strain, however Marshall said it had been a groin niggle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s credit to him (Doueihi), because he could have easily pulled the pin and said, \u2018don\u2019t play me\u2019,\u201d Marshall said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd just on that, really proud of him to play, but he had a halves partner who\u2019s played no footy this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been on the bench for two games with us, biding his time. (He) had a great pre-season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he was the difference tonight. He put Adam in position so he could just run. He did all the kicking, took all the pressure off Adam and let him just play, you know, so (that\u2019s) Jock Madden I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis grandfather passed away last week, and he didn\u2019t make the funeral because he wanted to play for the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said his grandfather would have wanted him to play. So, we\u2019re really proud of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really proud of him for that, and his grandfather would have been really proud of him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Benji Marshall has revealed impressive debutant Tino Tavana was almost sacked by the club in the pre-season, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-567754","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\/567754","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=567754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}