The future of former Leeds Rhinos star Aidan Sezer is again up in the air as Benji Marshall speaks about his halfback plans moving forward with Jarome Luai arriving in a deal worth $6 million or £3.1 million.
Marshall spoke about this to the Daily Telegraph: “Jarome is going to be a massive part of what we do in the future but he is not here now.
“Control what you can control now because a year is a long time in footy. From my experience, especially last year as an assistant coach, we didn’t have depth in the halves and it hurt us through the season.
“So to have depth in the halves is a good thing and competition for spots is a good thing. So you have to go out and earn that.
“(But) I want to win now. He is not going to help us win now. It is not a five year plan where I am worried about what happens in five years.
“In my career when I played I wanted to win every year. Whether you are favourites or wooden spoon favourites, who cares. That means nothing.
“I want a team that competes on every play and wants to win every game. That is the type of team we want to be. As much as Jarome is a great signing for the future of our club, we won’t talk about him this year at all.
“I think it is disrespectful to the players we have now to worry about that and it is also disrespectful to Penrith to bring him into it.
“Lachie Galvin is in the mix to play in the halves. He could be one of the guys who start the season. He has to earn it. One thing I do know about rugby league players is if you are good enough, you are old enough.”
This begs the question, what are the plans for Sezer, the Wests Tigers’ current number seven after completing a move from Leeds Rhinos. It seems that, as per reports, he is set to leave the club at the end of the year or at least move onto a smaller role.
NRL star bound for Super League
This comes after Benji Marshall also elected to release a former teammate and star winger David Nofoaluma.
He was paid a fee of $300,000 in this release which has massively opened the door for him to move to Super League.
Speaking on his release, Marshall said: “I played with David and he spilt a lot of blood, sweat and tears for our club.
“He’s obviously the club’s leading all-time try-scorer and he did a lot of great things in his time here, but it was probably time for him to have a fresh start.
“We both agreed that was the right thing for him. We wish him all the best.”