Belief the key for Brooks as Wests Tigers overturn deficit

Wests Tigers coach Michael Maguire says his playing group's internal belief helped them overturn a 14-0 deficit against the Titans in Tamworth on Saturday night despite the loss of key playmaker Josh Reynolds.

A run of penalties and their first try sparked the Tigers to a run of 30 unanswered points to storm home, with halfback Luke Brooks and makeshift five-eighth Ryan Matterson among the team's best.

"The thing about this group is I have a lot of belief in them and it was great to see they showed the belief in each other," Maguire said.

"From five or six days ago [after losing 51-6 to Parramatta] it wasn't a nice place as a team but to see them climb out and do the things we've been practising for some time now, that was the key.

"Our big one now is building consistency around that performance."

Maguire was hopeful the suspected MCL injury to Reynolds was not a serious one.

"We haven't had a lot of luck early in the games over the last few weeks, we seem to be losing someone but I think we really handled it well [against Gold Coast]," he said.

"To lose one of your playmakers, and we've done a lot of work around those boys being together but Josh at the moment, we'll have to just assess him, they seem to think it might be a medial.

"He ran around after half-time to see how it was but he wasn't right so we'll just have to wait for the scan."

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Maguire had plenty of praise for Brooks's work both on and off the ball.

"Brooksy's really working on both sides of his game but it's his consistency on both sides, I thought defensively he was really strong and there were moments in that game where he really grabbed the game," Maguire said.

"They're the things we'll talk about and it's good to see him growing off the back of that. Last week we were challenged and this week he was able to take control.

"I thought Ryan Matterson did a good job for us as well but credit to Brooksy, he took control and helped us around the middle of the park. Between Matto and Luke I was pleased with how they went."

The Tigers had to overcome the Titans despite a significantly reshuffled forward pack; Luke Garner sat out following a head knock suffered against Parramatta while Michael Chee Kam was omitted as a result of the mid-week conclusion of a court case where he plead guilty to assaulting a taxi driver.

Prop Russell Packer was also dropped after the Eels game while Chris McQueen and Elijah Taylor each came in and grabbed their chance while Alex Twal was again strong.

Maguire said Packer was omitted due to team standards but was reluctant to provide specifics.

"We look at our standards and I pick teams around that, the boys are very strong around that as well, very honest with each other so we need to continue to do that and I decided to go with that team tonight," he said.