**Who said loyalty was dead?**
GLENN JACKSON
February 25, 2010
Big score … Benji Marshall scores for the Tigers last year and now he has scored for himself with a $2 million four-year contract extension which will see him cross the line at Leichhardt many, many more times. Photo: Getty Images
Benji Marshall says he wants to repay a debt to Wests Tigers for persevering with him through his injuries after signing a lifetime deal with the club. And he's determined to do it by winning a premiership with the Tigers between now and 2015, the final year of his staggering new contract.
"I just can't see myself as anything other than a one-club man," Marshall said last night.
Marshall will celebrate his 25th birthday today by announcing that he has signed a contract extension that ties him to the club for at least the next six seasons. The New Zealand captain is already contracted until the end of 2011 but the four-year extension alone is believed to be netting him more than $2 million.
The five-eighth told the Herald he was desperate to win another premiership with the club that stuck by him through a horrific run of injuries after he helped the merged entity claim its first title in 2005.
"That's everyone's goal," Marshall said. "On a personal level, I haven't had so much hunger and drive, ever. I contemplated rugby in the past, I contemplated changing [NRL] teams, but I never really wanted it to happen. The club's looked after me pretty well. This gives me security in the game, and financial security as well.
"The decision wasn't that hard. The club's been terrific to me.
"I feel like I'm a pretty loyal person, and I want to repay them for what they've done for me through my injuries. And I feel like I'm starting to get back to the old me."
What's more, Marshall hopes his long-term deal might convince other Tigers to follow suit.
"If I can start by being the first one, maybe that will help signing other players," he said.
Marshall celebrated the new deal, and his birthday, last night with a Chinese meal in Crows Nest with Tigers officials, who have only recently pulled off the coup of securing dual international Lote Tuqiri. But NRL officials will no doubt be equally enthused.
Marshall was one of the best players in the competition towards the end of last season, along with Parramatta's Jarryd Hayne, who has recently re-signed with the Eels until the end of 2013\. Having those two players on NRL books for so long is a shot in the arm for a code that is bracing for a new AFL club in western Sydney; the two most popular players in the region have now been locked up for a significant period.
Only this week, Steve Gillis, the manager of Parramatta's Daniel Mortimer, said his client would not sign a deal in excess of two years because of the money potentially on offer after a new television rights deal is struck. Marshall admitted there was some gamble to his own decision.
"It's the longest contract I've ever signed," he said. "But for me, and what the club's done, I just feel like it's the right time, for my security, and for my wellbeing."
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