Benji Marshall insists he still has full faith in Latu Fainu despite benching the young halfback during Wests Tigers’ thrashing from Penrith.
The Tigers seemingly had no answers as the Panthers showed flashes of their four-time premiership-winning best in a 36-2 win on Saturday night.
Fighting to spark his side, Marshall shifted Fainu to the middle of the park during the second half to allow in-form Adam Doueihi to play as a half on the edge.
With 14 minutes to play, Marshall benched 20-year-old Fainu altogether and did not use him again.
But Marshall remains as bullish as ever about Fainu, who is only five games into his first stint as a regular starting halfback.
“Latu’s done a great job of putting together a string of games for 80 minutes. This is the first time he’s done that in his whole career,” Marshall said at full-time.
“I just felt like I wanted to try and get some impact on our right edge by putting Adam there and putting Latu back to lock for a little bit.
“We seemed to get a little bit there and also just to take some of the kicking pressure off Jarome (Luai).”
Marshall felt no need to reassure Fainu of his place in the side, adamant the man earmarked as the Tigers’ long-term halfback would remain in the No.7 jersey against Canterbury next week.
“The thing with Latu is not just the short term, it’s a long-term development, learning, understanding the position,” Marshall said.
“He’s done a great job, it was through no fault of his own that I made the decision, I just wanted to try and create something because we were going nowhere with that we were doing.
“No dramas, he’ll be the seven again next week.”
Marshall lamented the Tigers conceding a try in the shadows of half-time, which put the Panthers up 18-2 and on course for victory.
The Tigers have leaked a try in the final 10 minutes of the first half in five of their last six losses.
“It’s sort of been the story of our season, to be honest, there’s always been that period just before half-time, which we’ve spoken about, that a try seems to get let in,” Marshall said.
“They kept putting pressure on us, hence why they’ve won four competitions in a row.”
