Benji vowing to strike back for Tigers

1 Aug 2012, 3:26 pm   -   Source: AAP
Playmaker Benji Marshall vowed to revive the Wests Tigers' NRL season against Parramatta. (AAP)

Playmaker Benji Marshall vowed to revive the Wests Tigers' NRL season against Parramatta. (AAP)

Electrifying playmaker Benji Marshall says the buck stops with him and he's vowing to revive the Wests Tigers' NRL season against Parramatta.

Benji Marshall is vowing to turn the Wests Tigers' NRL season around - but not through turning it on.

The electrifying playmaker candidly confessed to being off the boil while the Tigers slumped to five defeats from their past six outings to plummet from the top four to outside the top eight.

The upshot, as Marshall put it on Wednesday, is the pre-season premiership favourites' "season is on the line" against Parramatta at Campbelltown on Monday night.

"We've got a great team. We've really under-performed, I think, this year and we're more disappointed in ourselves than anyone," Marshall said.

"The best part is we can still make the semis and, if you get in there, you can still win the comp."

But if they do get there, Marshall says it won't be through the Tigers' trademark razzle dazzle.

"We've gone back to have a look at when we won seven in a row and that was through grinding out games and it's going to be that way this week," he said.

And the buck stops with him.

The 2010 Golden Boot winner as the world's premier player says he's looked in the mirror this week and watched videos of his own game - and hasn't liked what he's seen.

"It's not through lack of trying," he said. "If anything, it's trying too hard.

"I've been trying to win games for the team and just execution has been letting me down a little bit.

"So I've gone back to the drawing board this week, put all the fancy stuff away and just concentrated on controlling the game, keeping the errors down and not trying so hard.

"I'm probably trying to make too many big plays at the wrong time and, as a senior player, you can't be leading an example like that."

Marshall also pledged to rein in his instincts once before this season.

"And I sort of went the other way and that's a letdown for me," he said.

"As much as I've turned into a halfback now, the old five-eighth in me still wants to come out every now and then.

"It's probably a matter of picking the right time to bring it out and I've been doing it at the wrong time."

Marshall says lining up with eight different halves partners this season is "no excuse" and he and the Tigers know it's "do or die" against the revitalised Eels.

"It hasn't been easy. It's very hard to build combinations when you change it a few times," he said.

"But at the same time I haven't been happy with my own season on a personal level and there's no point looking at who you're playing with.

"When you look in the mirror, you have a look at yourself first."

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