Over the last week, the situation at Canterbury has been in flux which has had an up and down effect on Leeds Rhinos’ reported interests down under as Gary Hetherington searches for Leeds’ next coach down under.
Last weekend, a rumour started in Australia that Wests Tigers were willing to swap Luke Brooks for Canterbury halfback Kyle Flanagan in a move which would also see Kyle’s father Shane join the Tigers as Head Coach relieving former Wigan Warriors boss Michael Maguire of his duties.
This led some to speculate that should Maguire find himself out of a job that Leeds could make a move for the Super League Grand Final winning coach but the Flanagan-Brooks swap never truly materialised.
Instead a new rumour was started by World Wide of Sports’ The Mole who claimed it was now Leeds pursuing the two Flanagans with Hetherington keen on bringing in both Kyle and Shane to the Rhinos.
However, that rumour was put into question yesterday on Fox League with Phil ‘Buzz’ Rothfield stating that he’d spoken to Shane Flanagan about the prospect of his son moving to England only for Flanagan to state that there was “zero” chance of Kyle moving to Super League.
Rothfield recounted his talk with Shane on Fox League saying: “I said, ‘Is he going to England? There is a rumour.’ He said, ‘Not a chance.’
“He can’t walk out on the money he is on to take less in England. You can’t do it.”
If that wasn’t enough to put a stop to the rumours then the comments from Flanagan’s Head Coach Trent Barrett and Bulldogs’ General Manager Phil Gould certainly should with The Daily Mail stating that the Bulldogs can see Flanagan being their number seven for the next decade when asked how long would Flanagan be guaranteed the number seven jersey. This suggests that his future remains with Canterbury all but ending the speculation of a move to Leeds.
This came with Flanagan set to make his first appearance of the season against Premiers Penrith Panthers after being excluded from the side since pre-season. This has led some to criticise the Bulldogs for throwing the young man in at the deep end as they name their third different halfback pairing in the opening five games of the season.
On this, Head Coach Barrett said: “We’ve got to pick teams that we think can win on the weekend and give us our best chance of winning.
“We think he can help with our direction. Our attack inside 20 has been been a little bit ordinary I thought. That’s a strong part of Kyle’s game.”
Barrett also said that this was all part of the plan and believes Flanagan is ready to steer the side after improving in the NSW Cup recently further cementing the narrative that he is valued at Canterbury and set to stay.
“We had a plan from the get go, so we stuck to it,” Barrett said of the decision to bring Flanagan back into the fold, “I think it’s worked. Kyle’s performances (in NSW Cup) have helped him relax a little and he’s playing well.
“They’re the only factors that really came into it, when we thought he was ready. There were discussions with Kyle and other people close to him about how we wanted him to develop. We thought that he needed time to work on a few things in his game. And to his credit, he’s done that.”
Interestingly coach Barrett didn’t have the final say on Flanagan’s return to the side with Barrett asking Gould’s permission to re-introduce him leading to claims that Gould is really the one controlling the side not the coach.
This has compounded some of the negativity around the situation which started with claims that it was unfair to drop Flanagan into the side against the league’s best team but Barrett has since hit back at this saying: “We would like to be looking at the other side of it, celebrating how hard Kyle has worked to get back in the team, that’s where the focus should be, not on the rest of it and all the innuendo.
“He’s earned his spot, where that gets misconstrued through all this other stuff I don’t know.”
Either way, he seems to have done enough to force his way back into the side and with a bumper contract which doesn’t run out until the end of 2023, he seems set to stay a Bulldog despite the reported interest from the Leeds Rhinos.