He was booed, as expected. There was no way a full Sunday afternoon house at Leichhardt was going to do anything else.
But it was the man-of-the-moment, Lachie Galvin, who killed off the boos himself in the ninth minute when he showed the rugby league world exactly what all the fuss was about.
He hit the line at speed off Jarome Luai, drew two defenders and shifted deftly and brilliantly to back-rower Samuela Fainu, who scored to put the Wests Tigers in front over the Sharks.
The boos were suddenly cheers for the teenager who has been under more pressure than Clive Palmer’s belt buckle in the past fortnight. That he could put the scrutiny all behind him, and perform, is a credit to him.
It’s a pity the holidaying CEO Shane Richardson wasn’t there to hear the reception Galvin initially got. As he was landing in the US for a bizarre two-week mid-season breather, the boos came thick and fast early.
In his hubris, Richardson would have probably felt justified – believing the faithful’s protest was directed only at Galvin, whom they believed was the true villain in yet another shameful episode at the hapless club.
Lachie Galvin and the Tigers on Sunday.Credit: Steven Siewert
But for every boo there was for Galvin, there were equally as many directed at the club in general. Just imagine what would have happened if Richardson himself rolled out to the middle before the teams ran on.
In Wests Tigers’ land, chaos and disappointment are so normalised, punch-drunk fans have learned to live with it.
This is the club, after all, that lost James Tedesco, Aaron Woods, Andrew Fifita, Josh Addo-Carr, Mitch Moses, Ryan Papenhuyzen … to name a few.
Then there were fiascos like punting Robbie Farah before grovelling to get him back. While all that was going on, they haven’t made the finals since 2011 and have won the last three wooden spoons.
In 25 seasons as a joint venture, they’ve made the finals just three times – 2005, 2010 and 2011.
To start 2025, the team was three wins and three losses.
Penrith’s Jarome Luai and Sunia Turuva had arrived, as had Terrell May.
Galvin (top) celebrates with teammates after Samuela Fainu’s try.Credit: Getty Images
Despite being only April, and with a promising start in the bag, Richardson decided to bring the Galvin situation to a head a full 18 months before his contract ended and five months before he could even talk to other clubs. It blew up in his face as he took on a formidable foe in Galvin’s manager Isaac Moses.
Benji “The Prophet” Marshall, hired to lead the club back to the promised land that still resides in 2005, emotionally dropped Galvin in a decision rubber-stamped by Instagram-loving teammates, only to bring him straight back when the team was hopelessly spanked by the lowly Eels.
Wow, that showed him. In trying to teach Galvin a lesson in humility and loyalty, all it did was show him the team couldn’t live without him for one week.
Cue Benny Hill music.
No matter how you cut it, Richardson started this fight. And is to blame. The club knew Galvin wanted out, he’d told them so several times, so it should have quietly waited him out to avoid the inevitable chaos, fuelled even more by an out of control halves market with $14 million deals thrown at underachievers like Dylan Brown.
Richardson then blustered around like it was still the 1990s, and got undone by his own playing group whose social media tirade against their teammate brought legal letters of bullying into the equation. The strategic upper hand was gifted to manager Moses.
Richardson never saw anything coming, which is a gross management failure.
He and Marshall are quite similar when it comes to the media. They project an at times aggressive confidence they can control the narrative.
But you can’t control the narrative in the digital age with social and traditional media engaging in a brutal crocodile roll for relevance and survival. Especially in a feeding frenzy.
Moses and Galvin are at fault, too, make no mistake.
Many in the game now see Galvin as an entitled teenager, and maybe he is. He publicly disrespected his own coach in Marshall, a premiership-winning legend of the game and a future hall-of-famer.
Wests Tigers coach Benji Marshall.Credit: Getty Images
Moses is seen as a pariah, who shreds and manipulates clubs via talent management, or mismanagement, whichever way you see it.
At Leichhardt, the ultimate crucible of rugby league, the crowd gave a unifying thumbs-down to the whole palaver.
But they quickly moved on, as they have with similar dramas in the past. Because no matter what this club serves them up off the field, you get sell-outs like you did yesterday at Leichhardt.
You can knock these fans down but they’ll get up. They registered their protest boos and moved on.
Sadly for them, probably no-one was listening. Richardson is away, while football club chairman Barry O’Farrell, the former NSW premier, hasn’t been seen off Nobby’s during this latest crisis.
What about the majority owners, the Holman Barnes Group, which controls the financially powerful Wests Ashfield Club?
Unfortunately, the Holman Barnes board is completely and utterly dysfunctional, with lawsuits at 10 paces. Some directors are even banned from entering the club they sit on the board of. They must have their meetings via Zoom. Turn your camera off and your mic on. Most importantly, press record to cover your backside.
If it was a protest on Sunday, then the answers you’re looking for, my Wests Tigers friends, are blowin’ in the wind.
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