Terrific Tigers: How Wests pulled off the biggest upset of 2026

When the ladder-leading Roosters and the 14th-placed Tigers kicked off at Allianz Stadium for the last match of Round 25, many assumed Easts would cruise to a win.

With the merged club having lost their last eight games before the clash compared to Sydney having won their last eight, the result seemed like a forgone conclusion.

However, the Tigers flipped the script with Ben Gardiner explaining how Benji Marshall's men got the job done.

Despite the Roosters getting the opening try in the first two minutes and doubling the number of tackle breaks, the visitors found a way through with a last-minute Jock Madden field goal securing a 25-24 victory on Sunday.

Reflecting on what went wrong for the Tricolours in the shock defeat, the Perth Bears assistant coach believes there may have been overconfidence having come off the high of beating Penrith last week.

But the Samoa coach acknowledged there were issues beyond mindset, in particular on the left-hand side of the field.

“It's always really, really dangerous when a side's expected to win and they score first, and it's like a training run,” Gardiner said on SEN’s Front Office with Vossy.

“That's what's happened with the Roosters; I watched the Roosters roll down the right-hand side, really good momentum, shift the ball to the left, like untouchable. Billy Smith scores in the corner (and) it's like, here we go.

“Next time Billy Smith touches the ball, he knocks it on and it's like straight away, that left-hand side of the Roosters, Billy Smith and (Hugo) Savala, they were off from the start.

“The decision-making, they weren't connected, and then all of a sudden the team gets put under pressure, they drop the ball in the backfield, they score again, so then scoreboard pressure starts to come up on them.

“It looked to me like, mentally, they hadn't prepared the way that they should have prepared.”

But Gardiner also gave praise to the Tigers for their improvements after losing to the bottom of ladder Dragons last week.

“In the Tigers' credit, I thought the Tigers were really good,” he added.

“I thought that they worked quite hard for each other. We talked last week about their lack of support play.

“I thought their support play really drove up; there was that one try where they offloaded through the line and (Jahream) Bula ended up supporting on the offload and went through and scores.

“Last week that didn't happen for them, so to their credit, they've addressed a few of the things that they needed to address, which was great.”

The Tigers travel north this week to play the Cowboys at Townsville on Saturday night.

Sydney, meanwhile, hosts the Dolphins at Allianz Stadium in a vital clash in relation to the top four for Saturday afternoon.