Tim Sheens has issued a hands off warning to the Newcastle Knights, insisting Luke Brooks will be staying at Wests Tigers next season.
And despite Brooks last month hinting his time at the club might be coming to an end, Sheens said the Tigers are keen to extend his contract beyond 2023, when he is due to earn a reported $1.1 million.
“Obviously everyone would prefer for it to be at less money,” Sheens said.
“But we can sit down and negotiate with him and extend his contract out.”
It comes in the countdown to Sunday’s clash between the two clubs amid renewed speculation that the Knights are still desperate to tempt Brooks out of the Tigers for 2023.
The talk won’t go away that Brooks may have played his last game for the Tigers after going down with a season-ending calf injury last week.
Knights legend Andrew Johns was a driving force in trying to entice Brooks to Newcastle at the end of last year following Mitchell Pearce’s shock departure.
Johns went on the record saying he thought Brooks needed a change of scenery and that he could help the game’s most maligned playmaker fulfil his massive potential.
Johns recently signed an extension to stay on Adam O’Brien’s coaching staff next season, and some in Newcastle believe signing Brooks could be the key to saving O’Brien’s job as huge pressure builds on the Knights coach.
It was Sheens who stepped in last year and declared that Brooks would not be released.
Now Sheens has doubled down, adamant he and Tigers coach-in-waiting Benji Marshall want Brooks long term.
“I will stand by what I said,” Sheens said.
“On the record, he is contracted. Point blank.
“He is contracted to us next year. And I expect him to turn up for pre-season training.”
Sheens was just as confident that he and Benji could help bring the best out in Brooks, just as Johns thinks he can.
He even reminded us that under Ivan Cleary in 2018 Brooks was crowned Dally M halfback of the year.
“Ring Benj, he will tell you,” Sheens said. “Look, I rate the kid. He is a one club player.
“I think we can certainly between Marshall and myself bring him back into the game as the seven he was and he is.”
Asked if he could guarantee Brooks would be at the club next season, Sheens added: “Unless the world changes that is what I am doing.
“Honestly, can I ever say yes to anything? No one can.
“But I am not indicating (he is leaving) and I have told you, I mean it, I like the kid and I want him in the side.
“Benji loves him and wants him in the side. But we can’t say any more than that.”
Sheens said it was his intention to keep Brooks and Doueihi together as the halves combination, with Jackson Hastings the ball playing lock.
Sheens also has a good opinion of young Jock Madden but sees him as a work in progress given his limited experience.
Brooks, Doueihi and Hastings are all off contract at the end of next season, along with fullback Daine Laurie.
That is why Sheens insisted interim coach Brett Kimmorley moved Hastings to lock to accommodate all of them in the starting side before the club started any extension talks.
Unfortunately that plan has been put on hold with both Brooks and Hastings suffering season ending injuries.
“That is the only thing I really stood up and said,” Sheens explained. “I am not taking credit for it or anything like that.
“All I am saying is I said that was the way it was going to happen.
“We needed to look at it for the rest of this year before we made a decision (on the future) because I thought that was the best way it would work.
“And certainly with me coaching next year that will be the way it is going to work. It is only unfortunate now we have a situation with two of them out for the year
