Luciano Leilua

Just listen to joffa interview on the tigers website. He said Luciano has been playing injured. That's been the problem with Madge. He always played players with injuries or not fully fit. It has a big out come on games and big out come on a players form and confidence. Luc form speaks for it self.

I read an article about Matterson's departure and that was right up there about why he wanted out.
Correct Paws, it was partly about Madge wanting him to come back early after a head knock.
 
This thread I find interesting because on one hand don’t get the hate for him but yet I’m glad he is gone. His last game showed his character and cost his team mates any chance of the game. There is alot of I in Lucy actions this year (multiple release requests, performance last game) which is a shame because he had been one of our best over the last few years.

He could’ve left with some dignity but instead has most of us saying good riddance.
 
Just listen to joffa interview on the tigers website. He said Luciano has been playing injured. That's been the problem with Madge. He always played players with injuries or not fully fit. It has a big out come on games and big out come on a players form and confidence. Luc form speaks for it self.
I think it's as much a Luciano problem. When at his best he plays a very up-tempo game, rip-tear-bust type footy that makes him extremely hard to contain. But that style also exposes the body to injury, and even a slight injury really takes the edge of his game. He loses that dynamic aspect to his attack and starts to arm grab in defence.
He seems to spend a lot of time being/playing injured, that won't change because it's just the type of player he is. In a better side he might not need to go at 100% all the time which would be the smart way to manage him.
Anyway not our problem any more.
 
If you read between the lines, cows were insisting LL miss the Somoa international. Tigers announced LL’s departure early so it couldn’t be tied to forcing him to miss out and having more bad PR.

Now cows are holding that cap in hand - so to stop that being reported they are drawing the media to focus on the actual contract handover and the minor details of when an announcement is usually made.
 
If you read between the lines, cows were insisting LL miss the Somoa international. Tigers announced LL’s departure early so it couldn’t be tied to forcing him to miss out and having more bad PR.

Now cows are holding that cap in hand - so to stop that being reported they are drawing the media to focus on the actual contract handover and the minor details of when an announcement is usually made.
Thats true - plus the fact that if we held off releasing and he got injured in the test we would be left paying him the rest of the season while he was in rehab. Stuff the cowboys - it was a smart move on our part.
 
We definitely did jump the gun and were unprofessional with this.

I don't think we should have put out the press release until Leilua's deal was done, it was unprofessional. However, what we also mentioned in the press release is that he was 'joining Cowboys for the remainder of the year'.

I understand that we can make a statement saying we have released LL once our contract with him is null and void (I understand but don't agree with it) but to announce that he has joined another club when the club hasn't made the announcement is awful.

Only we look bad in all this. We jumped the gun. Another instance of WT looking bad.
The only jumping the gun we did was the comment about joining the cowboys. The timing is fine we had released him and can announce that
 
The only jumping the gun we did was the comment about joining the cowboys. The timing is fine we had released him and can announce that
You're correct in saying that.

But if this was the case, i'm now wondering if the clubs duty of care should have been applied here as well.

I mean things could have turned very ugly for the player, when he is trusting his manager and Cowboys to complete the paperwork, he could have been jobless.

The player should never be put in this risk again.
 
The only jumping the gun we did was the comment about joining the cowboys. The timing is fine we had released him and can announce that
Yep.

Unless there is a law or rule against it.

Once we made up our minds he could go as he wanted and they confirmed, I think it was open slather.

Hopefully he is ok and can feature in their finals series.

Which doesn’t hold much meaning if if it’s not our Wests Tigers. There’s no turbo boost of emotional hurrah. Not that the cows are as evil as other clubs.

And he won’t get the same kind of fan worshipping that we provided him with.

At the end of the day, I think that we moved quickly to take full advantage of the situation. How many times have we done the right thing and got nailed for it?

It seems to me that this is the only forthright and decisive move we’ve made for quite some time and hopefully is a new direction for the club.

The next thing is that we turn the screws on Ciraldo so we don’t lose face if he is wasting our time.

No more Mr nice guy. No more nylon doormat.The media are going to flog us anyway no matter what we do.

At any rate, the Cowboys have been playing great footy. I am not sure why they want Lucy prematurely who may inadvertently disturb their Mojo. The assumption is that he will add value to the pack but that’s an assumption and largely untested. Teams can be fickle. You don’t fix things that aren’t broken except if you work for us!!

All the personal very best to Lucy of course. He has a nice young family but his mum is very very ill. I hope a miracle transpires and she pulls through-some things are more important than footy.
 
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This thread I find interesting because on one hand don’t get the hate for him but yet I’m glad he is gone. His last game showed his character and cost his team mates any chance of the game. There is alot of I in Lucy actions this year (multiple release requests, performance last game) which is a shame because he had been one of our best over the last few years.

He could’ve left with some dignity but instead has most of us saying good riddance.
Even if he dogged it in his last game- for 3 years, he's given us really good service. He's played 50+ games for us and he's been above average for most of those games- you can say that for about 3 or 4 players in the last 3 years- Matterson is unfortunately on that list too.
 
The only jumping the gun we did was the comment about joining the cowboys. The timing is fine we had released him and can announce that
I disagree, we should not have announced it and in fact we should not have released him until all the fine print was done. However, that's a matter of opinion as I said.

Announcing that he's going to the Cowboys is a Big No. May not be a legal issue, but the way we have treated players that have left us: Benji, Cleary, Matterson, Aloiai etc, media and other players see that. Even though we "technically" didn't do anything wrong with these guys, these dramas always happen with us- it's such a bad look.
 

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