No faith in Benji Marshall’s coaching: The reason Galvin walked away from Tigers
The narrative will paint Lachlan Galvin out to be greedy, but this was never about money.
With the Wests Tigers on a seemingly upward trajectory, coach Benji Marshall’s rebuild this week took a huge knock when the game’s brightest young player decided to test his value on the open market.
The simple truth is Galvin has no faith in his coach’s ability. In discussions with the club over the past week, the boom five-eighth’s camp told Wests Tigers powerbrokers Galvin didn’t believe he would develop to become the player he wanted to be under Marshall’s coaching.
Galvin’s representatives didn’t even want the Tigers to table an offer, such was their desire to look elsewhere from November 1.
Sources with knowledge of the situation, talking on the condition of anonymity due to the confidential nature of discussions, told the Herald that Galvin believed there was a ceiling on how far he could develop at the club, especially given Marshall’s tendency to appoint former Tigers teammates as assistant coaches.
That, combined with the genuine dislike between Marshall and Galvin’s agent Isaac Moses, meant the situation was always destined to end in tears.
It’s why for the past 18 months, despite carefully worded denials from all involved, Galvin has been looking for the exit door.
On Monday – following this masthead’s revelations that Galvin had knocked back the club’s best endeavours to try and keep him on what would have been a six-year upgrade and extension worth in close to $5.5 million – it all came to a head.
The issue had been bubbling away in the background in the lead-up to Sunday’s victory over Newcastle, prompting Marshall to confront his young five-eighth and call him into his office to discuss his future last week.
Marshall had been made aware that Galvin wasn’t willing to extend his contract with the club, and he wanted to know why the young prodigy didn’t want to be around.
Galvin told his coach he didn’t necessarily want to leave, but was keen to test the market and see which clubs came knocking from November 1.
After making one last failed attempt to present an offer to Moses, the Tigers released a sternly worded statement on Monday shortly after the new-look board gathered for its monthly meeting.
It was an attempt to re-establish control of a situation by removing the Tigers from a race they knew they were no longer in, avoiding the prospect of being used as pawns in a bidding war to increase Moses’ asking price in negotiations with rival clubs.
“We would like to announce that Lachlan Galvin will not be with the club beyond the 2026 season,” the statement said.
“Despite the club having the largest contract offer for a junior in the history of the club on the table, Lachlan and his management have decided his future lies elsewhere and were not willing to review the offer.
“It should be noted that the club has NO intention of releasing Lachlan from his contract, and he has not requested this. Obviously, there will be a lot of speculation around this release, but we will make no further comment. The club is focused on winning as many games as possible during Lachlan’s tenure and beyond. The club is disappointed, but we move on.”
Some have suggested the Tigers were trying to spin the narrative to suggest the teenage playmaker was being unreasonable and that the club had done everything in its power to keep him.
Either way, it raises the question as to what the Tigers do next when it comes to Galvin and how this impacts on the team.
Within hours of the announcement that Galvin was leaving, Tigers prop Fonua Pole had already liked a post on a Wests Tigers supporter’s Instagram page taking a shot at the five-eighth for turning his back on the club.
“Unf---ingbelievable. We give you a shot at first grade and hand you the keys to the franchise with every tool possible around you to succeed cya mate,” said the Instagram post that Pole liked.
“Surely there’s no need to keep him around? Throw Doueihi or Bird at 6 until Latu returns if we’re serious about building and moving forward as a club.”
Some Tigers players have grown concerned at a perceived sense of entitlement from Galvin.
There is a view internally that Galvin is wary of Marshall’s close relationship with new recruit Jarome Luai.
While Galvin and Luai are civil, they don’t share a close bond and Galvin is understood to have been frustrated by the impact of being asked to play second fiddle to the four-time premiership-winning playmaker.
Luai also has a high opinion of back-up five-eighth Latu Fainu, who is currently unavailable after undergoing surgery on his thumb last week.
The Tigers have a decision to make: do they persist with Galvin or look to the future by ushering Fainu back into the side when he’s fit? Jack Bird and Adam Doueihi are also among potential five-eighth options at Marshall’s disposal.
CEO Shane Richardson and Marshall may look to make an example out of Galvin and relegate him back to reserve grade. Galvin’s contract for the next two years is worth $250,000-$350,000 and it wouldn’t hurt the club on the salary cap if he wasn’t playing regular NRL.
Richardson has regularly spoken about wanting players who are in for the crocodile roll – an analogy he uses in relation to his desire to have players who are committed to the cause.
Former player John Bateman, who this year left the club acrimoniously, has since mocked Richardson’s crocodile roll analogy on social media on multiple occasions.
Richardson has been desperate to regain the upper hand in negotiation battles with agents since starting at the club. He refused to give teenage sensation Onitoni Large a “Galvin clause” in contract negotiations last year that would have given him the opportunity to become a free agent if Galvin extended.
Richardson’s refusal to be dictated to by managers saw Large walk out on the club and join Manly – a move that could come back to bite the Tigers following revelations of Galvin’s exit.
It places the club in a potentially precarious position, with Luai also having an option in his favour that will make him a free agent on November 1 in the unlikely event he decides not to trigger the clause.
Galvin’s seed of uncertainty with the Wests Tigers dates back to his junior days at the club, when he was often used as a back-rower despite his belief he best belonged in a No.6 jersey.
Those doubts about the club only intensified in the summer of 2023, when the Tigers signed Latu Fainu, Jayden Sullivan and Jarome Luai on long and lucrative deals in a move that was interpreted as a lack of faith in Galvin.
It led to several requests for a release, all of which were rejected, leading into the 2024 season. It brought the issue to the surface and the outcome saw Galvin handed the No.6 jersey for the Tigers’ first game of the 2024 season.
His elevation into first grade has captured the attention of the game’s most respected figures, none more so than Bulldogs general manager Phil Gould.
“I’m excited to watch Lachlan Galvin,” he said on Wide World of Sports’ Six Tackles with Gus earlier in the year.
“I’m obsessed with him. I love watching him play... I’m excited to see how he goes with Jarome Luai at the West Tigers. I think in the future, whoever has Lachlan Galvin in their side will be winning premierships.
“I’m not even worried about putting wraps on the kid because he is probably the most exciting young playmaker I’ve seen coming through in a long time.”
The sub-plot to this is the fact Gould recently ended his decade-long feud with Moses, agreeing to meet with the influential agent.
Galvin has strong ties to the Bulldogs through assistant coach Luke Vella, who was Galvin’s coach as a junior at Westfield Sports High School.
The Bulldogs have been monitoring the Galvin situation for some time and are expected to be in the conversation. So, too, Parramatta, where Galvin played junior representative football before being let go by the club.
An opening at five-eighth with Dylan Brown to depart for Newcastle at season’s end has Parramatta fans excited, especially given Moses’ client and cousin is Eels halfback Mitchell Moses.
It would make sense for the Roosters to make a play, but chairman Nick Politis is privately refusing to ever speak with Isaac Moses after he was blindsided by Joseph Suaalii’s defection to rugby union last year.
Manly have an opening and a link into Moses through another one of his clients Anthony Seibold, but Galvin may be a stretch in their salary cap – even without Daly Cherry-Evans.
That’s a problem for November 1. For now, the Tigers have been left to pick up the pieces as history repeats itself. Another high-profile Moses client walking out on the club over concerns about coaching, as was the case when James Tedesco, Aaron Woods and Mitchell Moses left in 2017. Sound familiar?
