OPINION
While the Wests Tigers were chopping Nofoaluma, a surgeon was chopping off the CEO’s toe
Chief Sports Writer
While the Wests Tigers were chopping winger
David Nofoaluma from their squad, a surgeon was chopping off the toe of chief executive
Shane Richardson.
Since being appointed on an interim basis in December, Richardson has been
slicing and dicing staff and players as he attempts to turn around the struggling joint-venture.
A blood infection, though, has consigned Richardson to a hospital bed for the past fortnight.
He took Zoom and phone calls the whole time,
including delicate negotiations around Nofoaluma, who on Tuesday was cut loose from the final two seasons of his deal and given a $300,000 payout.
The only day Richardson slowed up was last Thursday, when a surgeon amputated a toe on his right foot.
“I lost the fourth toe — the one next to the pinkie,” Richardson told me from his hospital bed. “They also had to clean the infection out. At one stage, it looked like they might have to take the whole foot off. But I’ve gotten over it pretty good to be honest.”
Richardson almost lost his right foot when, as South Sydney’s head of football in 2018, he was dispatched to other side of the world to sign
Wayne Bennett as coach.
He was on his annual holiday on the Fijian island of Tokoriki when he slipped over and broke several bones in his foot.
Instead of flying home to Sydney for an operation, he flew to London, where Bennett was coaching England in a three-Test series against New Zealand.
Richardson’s foot was black and swollen, but the deal was done.
Say what you want about the big fella, he’s making the hard decisions the previous administration at the Tigers was either not capable of making - or too scared to.
Nofoaluma has been a problem for some time, effectively “enabled” by previous administrators who allowed him to put himself ahead of the team.
When he stopped turning up to training, Richardson and coach
Benji Marshall had little choice but to move him on.
From what I can gather, weary Tigers fans are happy with the club’s change in direction after the board effectively sacked itself in December following years of dysfunction.
But nobody gets off the bottom of the ladder in January, as they say. It will mean nothing unless Marshall’s team can string some wins together.
“If we can make the top eight,” Richardson joked, “they can have the whole foot.”
