SHEENS NEEDS TO HIT GROUND RUNNING
Wests Tigers head of football Tim Sheens jets into the country on Sunday and expects to have his feet under the desk at club headquarters first thing Monday morning.
Sheens will need to hit the ground running. Speculation won’t go away that Luke Brooks is in the sights of Newcastle as they look to replace Mitchell Pearce.
Sheens issued a statement from England recently suggesting Brooks was off limits. It was intended to put an end to the chatter about the Tigers No.7, but it has done nothing of the sort.
Instead, Brooks remains at the centre of speculation that he could be on his way out of the club. There are several impediments to that happening.
Firstly, Brooks - the Tigers’ reigning player of the year - has two years remaining on his contract with the club that pays him in excess of $900,000 a season.
The Tigers are also short in the halves given the departure of Moses Mbye and Billy Walters, and the fact Adam Doueihi is expected to miss more than half the season as he recovers from knee surgery.
There was a sense that when the season came to an end, either Brooks or coach Michael Maguire had to go. The Tigers ultimately kept Maguire. That left Brooks.
