Jarome Luai will mark up directly opposite former halves partner Lachlan Galvin on Saturday night, bound by two of the most dramatic contract sagas in modern rugby league and separate NRL campaigns blown up by them.
Instagram posts, six-figure transfer fees, endless innuendo and, just for fun, a Provan-Summons Award nomination for a PR-friendly, post-game embrace between the pair, all feature in a made-for-NRL narrative between the playmakers, Tigers and Bulldogs.
That Luai and Galvin do the dance once more, with a loss for either surely the death knell on their respective seasons, is just further proof rugby league’s deities truly get comedy.
Luai has made his point via cryptic (and not-so cryptic) Instagram posts throughout his career, and over the weekend his father Martin left an ‘OK’ emoji on a post questioning how close the Tigers star and coach Benji Marshall still are.
The Bulldogs, meanwhile, are awaiting scan results on the nerve damage that floored Stephen Crichton against Canberra in a 40-16 thrashing that put Canterbury’s four wins from their past five games in perspective.
But the club is confident their skipper will avoid any long-term lay-off, just as he has in previous years when he’s lost feeling down his right arm from a seemingly innocuous tackle. Luckless young half Mitchell Woods is facing more time on the sidelines though, after yet another hamstring injury in NSW Cup cut short his first game in 315 days.
The Tigers expect to have Samuela Fainu (groin) fit to play and Marshall will front the media before any player is asked to do so this week to properly address Luai’s planned exit at the end of 2027, two years into what was originally a five-year, $6 million deal (with no public disclosure of the contract’s ample exit clauses).
Luai told reporters after Friday’s deflating loss to the Warriors that he also plans to speak about his future soon. How he and the Tigers navigate his final seven games will be fascinating and will say a lot about how rosy relationships truly are at the joint venture, and how much the Tigers learnt from the Galvin saga.
Galvin’s ugly exit to join the Bulldogs in May 2025 triggered aftershocks through both clubs for the remainder of their seasons.
Those reverberations at the Tigers came with Luai’s famous “team first” Instagram post, which has resurfaced now he too is on the move, albeit after Marshall, chief executive Shaun Mielekamp and chairman Barry O’Farrell first proposed an early release for their captain, star half and highest-paid player.
Brad Fittler on Sunday was the latest league great warning of a fractured dressing room, given the Tigers’ season has fallen off a cliff since Luai announced his historic signing with PNG after Anzac Day.
“The big thing about Jarome is, and he’s very good at it, he can bring people together,” said Fittler, who handed Luai his NSW Origin debut, on The Sunday Footy Show.
“He’s got a lot of charisma. But then when you go and sign somewhere else, all of sudden, that message you’ve been selling, it loses all of its power. I think some of those players are just starting to doubt now the whole ‘team first’ thing.”
The Tigers were sitting in third place when Luai toured Port Moresby and subsequently signed with the Chiefs. They are 2-9 since then and are wallowing in 13th spot.
They have also been without Adam Doueihi, Api Koroisau, Taylan May, Alex Twal and Fainu for large chunks of that period. Luai’s form mirrored has that of a team struggling for polish in attack and cohesion in defence.
The Tigers are at pains to stress Luai’s exit – which he has agreed to after initially being shocked by the decision – is made with their salary cap, extensions for the Fainu brothers and long-term rostering in mind.
Privately, there is also consternation from some at the Tigers about Luai promoting the Chiefs and his legitimate, PNG-related third-party agreements next year. However, Mielekamp denied this emphatically when asked on Triple M on Saturday.
It is a situation that won’t necessarily change for Parramatta, Perth or whoever picks up Luai’s $1.2 million deal next season, of which the Tigers will chip in up to $500,000.
In a similar position when Dylan Brown was Newcastle bound last year, Jason Ryles made the gutsy call to start emerging playmakers who were staying at the Eels ahead of Brown. While Marshall faces a similar dilemma, a benching would carry much higher stakes – and remains unlikely while Luai retains the captaincy.
“Of course Benji will make the decisions, week by week as he needs too,” Mielekamp said on Saturday. “But I’ve got no sense at all that there’s going to be any change to the way Benji has been playing Jarome.”
Across the way, Canterbury are still working out exactly how best to build around Galvin, just as Cameron Ciraldo did last season throughout a run to week two of the finals. Bulldogs boss Phil Gould conceded Galvin is “not a long-term halfback” six weeks ago, but “the best halfback we have this week”.
Matt Burton’s future at Belmore lies at centre. Crichton has been pitched into five-eighth – Galvin’s most natural position – of late to try to spark a spluttering attack.
The Bulldogs spot on the ladder flatters them too. Take out the byes and they slide from 10th to 12th, ahead of the Tigers only on points differential.
On Saturday, a few days after his 21st birthday, Galvin will line up on Canterbury’s right edge as usual. Luai should be directly opposite on the Tigers’ left.
And the two juiciest contract sagas in recent NRL history collide once more.
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