Can someone paste the Fitzsimmons article here? My old AI trick doesn't work anymore where I could ask it to show me the article behind the paywall
Opinion
Tigers to blame as bullies and hypocrites pile on Galvin
Peter FitzSimons
Columnist and author
April 16, 2025 — 11.45am
The Lachie Galvin carry-on?
Friends, when it comes to hyperbolic hypocrisy, when it comes to bullying bastardry, when it comes to sheer shittiness in rugba league, I think we have a post-war record, yes? (Which is saying something.)
Tigers young gun Lachlan Galvin breaks his silence on the decision to leave the club at the end of 2026.
For those who’ve joined us late, Galvin is the 19-year-old wunderkind of the newly resuscitated Wests Tigers, a great player who’s been carving ’em up a little like Benji Marshall in his prime. He’s got verve in his swerve, Veuve in his make-up. He plays champagne rugby league that is a joy to watch!
But here’s the thing. Marshall is now Galvin’s coach, and despite the Tigers recently tabling a $5.5 million offer for five years of the young man’s services,
Galvin quietly declined. He did not loudly decline. He quietly declined. All the noise since has come from
Tigers management and players. It is understood that the reason for Galvin declining to sign the contract is not because he wants more money, necessarily, but because he thinks he might become a
better player under another coach, and that Marshall is not necessarily his kind of coach.
Cue, the said hyperbolic hypocrisy, the bullying bastardry, the sheer shittiness led by – of all people – Jarome Luai, who went so far as to put on his
Instagram account an image of god-knows-what, emblazoned with the words: “Team first.”
Sorry, what?
“Team first,” Jarome?
YOU’RE the one saying that? Is that the approach you took, when
leaving the team you were born and bred to, the one that raised you as a footballer, the one writ large in your very DNA, Penrith? Or did you just observe the greatest of all rugby league traditions – the very one that the game was founded on in 1908 – to take the money and run?
Well, you’re right, you didn’t quite do that.
For in your case, you paused long enough to put a clause in your contract with the Tigers saying you reserved the right to talk to other clubs at the end of this year, and depart after the 2026 season, if you weren’t happy with the way things were going – or, clearly, if you got a better offer. Can you see much “team first” in that clause, Jarome?
You were joined by
Api Koroisau, in the delegation that went to see Marshall on Monday to say you didn’t want to play with Galvin any more, and he should be dropped.
You, Api Koroisau, you? Mate, you didn’t even resist the big bucks as long as Luai did, but left the ’Riff two years ago! Who the hell are you to wring your hands and say Galvin has let the side down by choosing to do precisely what you did?
Two other Tigers players have publicly joined the carry-on, turning on their 19-year-old teammate – and the end result is that Galvin has, unbelievably, been dropped to the NRL’s version of reserve grade.
For what, exactly?
Seriously, to be a player as good as Galvin and find yourself in the NSW Cup, you’d have to think he was guilty of at least one cardinal sin – not going out drinking with the boys after the game? – if not two, but I can’t see any. I repeat: everything he did was quiet. All the noise has come from the Tigers, now leading a baying mob of NRL fans, and Galvin has merely responded to it.
And you, Benji, want to tear him a new one for chasing the money? Which one of you, or your players, hasn’t? The only one I can think of in recent times would be ... Lachie Galvin. As far as we know, money is not the driving force in this imbroglio. He simply doesn’t think Marshall is a great coach. Is this not his right?
The end result of the whole debacle is a Tigers train wreck. Bodies, everywhere. Ill will abounding all around. The Tigers were just back on track, starting to win for the first time in yonks. And now this. Through gross mismanagement, what should have been a minor affair has blown up, de luxe, resulting in one of their star players being sidelined and vilified by all and sundry. Seriously, the online hate against him is extraordinary. (Not quite as bad as the hate your humble correspondent gets when I opine that COVID vaccinations were a good thing that saved millions of people, but close.)
And he’s 19!
Get in the bin, the lot of you hypocrites and bullying bastards.
Oh, and if you’d like to discuss it, I’ll either be in my trailer, or hiding behind JT on the sidelines.
