NRL great Paul Gallen says he “doesn’t care” why new recruit John Bateman is yet to play for the Wests Tigers, in the wake of an extraordinary outburst from club chairman Lee Hagipantelis but says the confusion surrounding the marquee signing’s status hurts the club’s fans.
Officially, Bateman is “acclimatising” after only arriving from the UK two weeks before the start of the season. But rumours have emerged that the 29-year-old might be suffering from an ankle injury.
Ahead of the club’s match against Newcastle, Hagipantelis called on those pushing the ankle injury line to “put up or shut up”.
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“If any section of the media has evidence to establish that what I have said publicly is false or misleading, then I would invite them to provide [the] same to me,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald.
“I would also caution anyone to suggest publicly that I have lied or misled our supporters. Some may construe such remarks as defamatory.”
Writing in his weekly column for Wide World of Sports, Gallen noted that the whole saga was demoralising for fans.
“I don’t really care why Bateman isn’t playing,” he said.
“If he’s got an ankle injury, well that’s life. If they’re putting him through a bit of a pre-season to get his fitness to where it needs to be, that’s fine as well.
“The hard thing for Tigers fans is not being totally sure which one to believe.”
Gallen explained that Bateman’s time with Canberra in 2019-20 meant he was the best judge of his fitness levels, before pointing out that losses to Gold Coast and Newcastle made his absence even more conspicuous.
“If he didn’t have a good pre-season, I can understand the decision to wait,” Gallen said.
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“He’s played in the NRL before, so he knows how fit and strong he needs to be. I’ve got no problem with that.
“It’s a long hard season, and if you haven’t had a good preparation you’re going to get injured and you’ll be out for potentially a lot longer than you would have been had you waited.
“They’re looking at the long game, but I guess that’s come to a head a bit because they’re 0-2. If they’d beaten the Titans and Knights nobody would be saying anything.”
Gallen wrote that the Tigers always seem to be in the midst of one crisis or another, putting it down to the fact the club hasn’t played finals football since 2011.
In that time they’ve had eight different head coaches – Tim Sheens (2012), Mick Potter (2013-14), Jason Taylor (2015-2017), Andrew Webster (2017), Ivan Cleary (2017-2018), Michael Maguire (2019-2022), Brett Kimmorley (2022) and Ben Gardiner (2022). Ironically, Sheens is now back in charge.
“A lot of that (drama) is the fact it’s easy to kick a team when they’re down,” Gallen said.
“When things aren’t going well people are looking for the reasons why.
“Their roster, in my opinion, still needs plenty of work. I said last year there was not a single player at the club that could attract other good players.
“They’ve got Api Koroisau for 2023 and they can use him as a selling point, now I don’t know what they’ve payed for Api, but I’m sure it was overs, which they needed to do to get a player like him to the club.
“At some stage that will come back to bite them, because that’s how the salary cap works.”
Gallen also said expectations were “too high” if fans are looking for another new recruit, ex-Parramatta forward Isaiah Papali’i, to make a significant difference single-handedly.
“That’s not fair on him,” Gallen said.
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