At a cafe inside Wests-Ashfield Leagues club on Monday afternoon, Aaron Woods met with interim Tigers coach Andrew Webster to mark the beginning of a new era at the joint venture.
Inside the same building that saw the Tigers draw an end to the Jason Taylor regime earlier that day, the captain, coach and head of football, Kelly Egan, gathered in an attempt to resurrect what for the past two weeks had looked like a sinking ship.
![Faces tell a story: The Tigers gather behind their own try line after another Canberra try on the weekend.](/web/20170321085206im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/1/l/w/4/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gv2gwr.png/1490042599512.jpg)
But, for Taylor, the writing was on the wall in the nation's capital the day before. The face of chief executive Justin Pascoe and chair Marina Go after the match said it all. The 40-point shellacking was the final straw for a club that felt its players just weren't putting in enough for the coach.
The board was left with two choices – either flick the coach or tell Aaron Woods, James Tedesco, Luke Brooks and Mitchell Moses to look elsewhere. They came to the conclusion the coach had lost the support of the playing group.
"I think we observed around the organisation and certainly reflected in the performance that that might have been the case," Pascoe said when asked if Taylor had lost the players.
After several phone calls on Sunday night, the board decided there was only one choice. Taylor was summoned to Wests-Ashfield to hear the news of his demise, before the NRL squad was called to the Leagues club to put them all on notice.
"It's really important to understand as an organisation we're here to make some tough decisions," Pascoe said. "Those tough decisions are aimed at making sure this organisation is put in the best position to move forward. We felt the performance of the team this year – we're not going to sit here and allow this organisation to drift again and miss out on the finals. It has been since 2011 now.
"We're focused and unapologetic that we're going to make these tough decisions. Those last two games were both performances that were unacceptable to this organisation and again showed to us that the improvement we hoped for was not there."
![Executive decision: Justin Pascoe concedes that Jason Taylor had lost the dressing room.](/web/20170321085206im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/w/e/x/v/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gv2gwr.png/1490006651699.jpg)
All that now remains is to secure the services of the big four. And despite a strong suggestion Taylor's exit will ensure they remain in Tigertown, club bosses insist the two issues are not related.
"This is a completely separate issue," Pascoe said. "We have had no conversations, as I said two weeks ago, in relation to the big four. Players play, the coaches coach and we administer. That's as simple as it is. We have had no discussion with the players in regard to the coach. This is a performance based decision made by the board and myself."