Lachlan Galvin has already ditched the Tigers to join the Eels once, now the stakes are higher
In barely 12 months, Lachlan Galvin has gone from being a promising rookie to being at the centre of a multimillion dollar bidding war – and the Eels could be his home, writes Brent Read.
Want to know the easiest way to get under the skin of Wests Tigers pathways and recruitment manager Shannon Gallant? Suggest to him that Lachlan Galvin is a Parramatta junior.
“To be clear, he is a local junior of ours who spent a couple of years in the Parramatta comp,” Gallant fires back.
“My goal was when I first got the job to get our local juniors back and Galvin was top of the list. He was a local junior.”
Gallant, a former Wests Tigers player himself, played a central role in luring Galvin back to the Tigers after he had defected for a couple of seasons to play for the Eels.
It has been a masterstroke. In barely 12 months, Galvin has gone from promising rookie to one of the best young players in the game.
So good, he is expected to find himself at the centre of a multimillion dollar bidding war if the Tigers can’t tie him to a new deal before November 1.
The Tigers will exhaust all avenues in their attempts to do so and the expectation is that they will table a mega-deal of their own.
If that doesn’t get it done, there have been suggestions the Eels could try to convince Galvin to return to the club and take over the No.6 jersey that will be vacated when Dylan Brown leaves at the end of the season.
It’s a lot for a 19-year-old to handle but Gallant insists that money will be the last thing on Galvin’s mind as he prepares to meet Parramatta at CommBank Stadium on Sunday.
“He’s a footy player mate,” Gallant said.
“He just loves the game of rugby league. The conversations that I have with him, he just loves playing football. Money, in my conversations with him, is not a huge motivator.
“He just loves the game of football and loves to learn the game of football. He lives and breathes it. He’s one of the rare kids these days that will go home and watch games on the weekend that aren’t his.
“There’s not many students in the game anymore. He just wants to enjoy his rugby league. That’s the main thing.”
For the record, Galvin was born in Campbelltown and started his junior career with Eaglevale-St Andrews Magpies in the Western Suburbs system.
His family grew up Parramatta supporters and Galvin temporarily switched to the Eels before returning when Gallant came calling.
“He’s exactly what you see now,” Gallant said.
“That’s what he was doing back then. I was pretty clear with him at the start that he’d have to probably play in the back row because we had two signed halves in Heath Mason and another young fella.
“He came into that Harold Matthews team and just took it over. He was the difference. We went through the season undefeated and then … he wasn’t quite physically built enough to go play back row the (next year) and we put him back into his preferred position of six.
“He just jumped leaps and bounce from there. It’s just his ability to be around the football. So he didn’t go missing in situations where there was a close game.
“I look at players like that – we had a fair few in that age group that ….when the going got tough, they gravitated towards the ball and they were around it.
“He just did all the little things. You could tell – not so much verbally – but he was a leader of the group. All those boys, loved having him around.”
They still do. Galvin is part of the reason the Tigers start this season with rare optimism after three consecutive years of the wooden spoon. His partnership with Luai has even the most pessimistic Tigers fan dreaming of top eight charge.
Throw in the return of Jahream Bula and Api Koroisau this weekend the Tigers fans will head to CommBank Stadium confident hat they can topple the home side.
If – and it’s a big if – they can tie Galvin down to a long-term deal, there is hope that the Tigers can win the second premiership in their history.
“I think it was Andrew Johns that said it last year – he’s got the opportunity in Macarthur (region) to create a legacy for himself and others around him to be the turning of the West Tigers,” Gallant said.
“So he understands that. He would love to be a part of that. But as always, other clubs are interested.
“We understand what kind of player he is and he’s one that clubs will no doubt try to grab, but ultimately we just have to make sure from a club’s perspective we’re putting in the right things that make it hard for him to make a decision to want to leave.
“We’ll leave all the drama and the headlines. Ultimately, I know Benji (Marshall) and all the staff are working hard to make sure that they’re playing good footy.
“We understand that the outside noise will be there and it’ll probably always be there. It’ll be there until everything’s sorted.
“But what I suppose Galvin can control is his performance on a footy field and I dare say that he’ll do his best to do that.
“Without being too political around it, like we’d love to see him stay at the club. Yes, I was a part of him being here and coming over. It’s been nothing but great since he’s been here and we hope that it continues.”
