Apparently, I have blood on my hands.
The Roosters have told Terrell May to move on while the ink is barely dry on his contract extension and recent accounts suggest it’s got nothing to do with the club’s salary cap situation, their need to cover for injured stars Sam Walker and Brandon Smith or the surplus of forwards they have on their books.
No, evidently the reason the Roosters are marching May towards the exit relates to an interview I conducted with him at Kensington’s Bar Lucio in mid-August, and the story that was subsequently published by this masthead on the eve of the finals about a month later.
Over the course of an hour, May offered up his life story. Sharing it was a chance to give the fans a rare insight into why his relationship with rugby league has been a complicated one.
May initially played football to please his father, then because his siblings Taylan and Tyrone – who both played at NRL level before running into off-field dramas – were good at it. Because football provided a better life to a family that struggled to put food on the table while growing up in housing commission lodgings in Mount Druitt. Because there were teachers who overlooked him for the school footy team and told him he would never amount to anything. Because of the scrutiny the game put on his family. Because there were other things he was also passionate about, like again working in the disability sector. Because he wants to be his own man.
Terrell May is cut from a different cloth to most in rugby league.Credit: Louise Kennerley SMH
“I hate getting compared to my brothers, we’re all different,” he told me.
At times, it became too much; on two occasions, at the age of 18 and 20, he walked away from the game, revealing, “I just didn’t want to play any more”.
“It’s a weird feeling. I don’t think many people experience it where one week they love the game and go on the TV screens and the next week they don’t want to be there at all,” May said at the time.
“Sometimes I just feel I could quit, like in a day. It sounds a bit weird, but I get those thoughts sometimes where I’m just like, ‘Is this really for me? I’m very grateful to be where I am and play with the Roosters, but rugby league isn’t the whole of me’.
“Then you just look at the bigger picture. You need to support your family and I couldn’t do it without footy. I have aspirations to take the club to the grand final and to play for NSW.”
Of all of the conversations I’ve had with footballers for over a quarter of a century, this was one of the most candid. Sadly, given the fallout, maybe fans can expect less of it in the future.
May’s sentiments have been seized upon as the reason he has been tapped on the shoulder. There has also been a narrative pushed that there were cultural reasons for the decision, prompting him to post on his Instagram account: “Nothing to do with off-field stuff.”
Neither explanation holds water. There is nothing the Roosters would have read about May that they didn’t know already.
There is no doubt May is different. The 25-year-old has a quirky sense of humour, one the public rarely sees. When Herald photographer Louise Kennerley asked to take a photo of him without his bum bag, he politely declined because he wanted to be seen as his authentic self. He’s also abstained from social media for long periods over concerns about how he will be portrayed.
“That’s just the way I am, all the boys know I just mock everything and I take nothing serious,” he said.
‘I just mock everything and I take nothing serious’
Terrell May
“I forget there are all these cameras now. It’s hard because I try to be myself on the camera as well, but it just doesn’t work out. It just always gets me in trouble, so just trying to stay away from that stuff.”
Suggestions he’s failed a character test at the Roosters are also off the mark. At a time when the club got heat for handing lifelines to Matt Lodge, Brandon Smith and Michael Jennings – each arrived at Bondi Junction hauling considerable baggage – May has given the club no cause for concern.
Indeed, such has been May’s rise that he played all 27 games for the Roosters this season, including an 80-minute performance at prop. If he wasn’t fully committed to rugby league, he wouldn’t have embarked on an off-season tour to England, to represent Samoa, while his wife was pregnant. He wouldn’t have been crowned the Rugby League Players’ Association inaugural impact player of the year if he wasn’t committed.
Further, it makes little sense for the Roosters to be badmouthing a player when they’re trying to get another club to buy him.
So how did we get here?
The truth is that the Roosters roster is forward heavy, as evidenced by young gun Siua Wong struggling to crack first grade for most of last season. May’s style of play, viewed internally as being less compatible with the team’s future direction, coupled with holes in the roster that need filling, have conspired against him. Unfortunately for May, it has made him the player most dispensable.
On the cusp of Origin selection, May has plenty to offer and will ultimately find he fits in better somewhere else. The next chapter will only add to one of sport’s most intriguing stories. We shouldn’t be discouraging him from telling it.
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