The Baseline: Farce exposed if Galvin joins Eels after rebel saga

Should Lachlan Galvin indeed join the Eels — and maybe even before 2027, if whispers are true — then it would expose the agent-led farce the whole rebel saga has been.

The farce is simple: Galvin and his agent Isaac Moses (famously banned from the NRL twice before) have suggested the key reason behind turning down $6 million through to 2031 — a whole stack of cash — is Benji Marshall’s coaching.

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“The simple truth is Galvin has no faith in his coach’s ability,” Michael Chammas reported in the SMH on Monday. “In discussions with the club over the past week, the boom five-eighth’s camp told Tigers powerbrokers Galvin didn’t believe he would develop to become the player he wanted to be under Marshall’s coaching.”

Should the 19-year-old then turn around and join Parramatta, that would be proven a lie.

The reason why: Eels head coach Jason Ryles. As a relative coaching junior, he’s not exactly the blockbuster tutor Galvin is suggesting he needs to turn him into a true rugby league superstar.

Now, no slight to Ryles, but he’s not quite proved his coaching chops just yet.

In fact, if Galvin wants an old head to teach him, Ryles has to be about the worst he could pick.

Numbers-wise, he and Kristian Woolf have the same short tenure (164 days) as the two most junior helmsmen in the NRL. Record-wise, Ryles is 1-5 and Woolf and his Dolphins are 2-4.

Then the big one — take Zac Lomax out and Ryles’ Eels look tepid and spoon-bound.

At least fellow coaching rookie Woolf seems to have given the Dolphins some jazzy footy.

Then there’s Marshall himself. Okay, this Sporting Base writer can concede Benji hasn’t lit the NRL on fire with his tutelage yet, but he’s only in his second season and is midway through a rebuild.

Instead, look at what he could teach a young gun. This is Benji, after all, who had every kid in Australia and New Zealand practicing flick passes and playing beautiful footy. It boggles the mind that a 19-year-old five-eighth — the role Benji won the 2005 premiership playing, remember — wouldn’t want to learn from him.

Perhaps Steve “Blocker” Roach said it best: “Every young five-eighth in the competition, every five-eighth in the competition, would want to learn off Benji in how to dissect, bust-up and manipulate defences.

“Benji was a genius at it. What does Galvin want? Who does he want to coach him? Wally Lewis?”

Too right Blocker. Wally would be nice, but he’s not exactly an option right now.

And that brings us back to the Moses-led farce.

This Sporting Base writer sees something else at the heart of the whole thing: Agent power.

It’s a fairly open secret Moses holds no love for Benji, especially after the way he thinks the Tigers mishandled shedding David Klemmer and John Bateman (both managed by Moses).

Interestingly, Moses wanted to bring a seven-point list to Tigers brass during the whole situation, The Sporting Base has heard, which mainly detailed why Benji Marshall is a bad coach and what Wests are doing wrong. Club boss Shane Richardson turned down hearing the list and told Moses to keep quiet.

This writer can’t help but wonder if Galvin’s thoughts came from someone else.

For the Tigers to stand up to Moses — and expose the farce he often creates — is ballsy.

All this begs up a bigger question: Why do player agents like Isaac Moses have such ruling power in the NRL? If Galvin trundles off to the Eels then that suggests Moses got what he wanted and everything played out to his orchestra. The Tigers will be left without a young gun they developed and Benji’s left badly smeared.

It’s not like this hasn’t happened before either. Moses was the mastermind behind Wests’ “Big Four” in James Tedesco, Luke Brooks, Aaron Woods, and Mitchell Moses all raking the Tigers when they hit free agency at the same time.

This isn’t a problem with Galvin going to the Eels specifically either, of course, but Parramatta does too perfectly fit the shape of a club Moses would have lined up for Galvin before things even got moving hours after Round 6 had wrapped up. Maybe everything happening through this week just fits into that already assigned battle plan.

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If you’d allow this writer one last chance to muse, I’d offer this: It’s time for an NRL transfer window. At least that could save seasons and stop agents ruling farcical power year-round.

“The Baseline” is a Sporting Base column published Wednesdays. All opinions are mine.