How Jarome Luai can make Tigers great again as parties move closer to $4.5m deal

Tigers fans have seen plenty of overpriced offers to risky saviours like Jarome Luai, but there’s a key reason why this $4.5m deal is money well spent.

NRL 2023 GF Penrith Panthers v Brisbane Broncos - Jarome Luai NRL PHOTOS

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Tigers fans have seen plenty of overpriced offers to risky saviours like Jarome Luai, and every time it feels like an addict’s first draw on a cigarette.

Sure, it looks cool and you think you can keep it under control, but not only is it bloody expensive, every puff that soothes now could take years off your life later.

Yep, the outlandish four-year proposal to Luai looks like another ‘good’ Tigers offer; an offer that looks good for everyone except the Tigers.

But their worried fans can rest easy.

While the reported $4.5m deal may appear like another down payment on an early payout, it’s not the dud it seems.

Despite being a wild child raised behind a marauding pack who’s leaving home to play under a rookie coach for a team coming off twin spoons, Luai’s signature - if secured - is guaranteed to be a raging win.

How?

Because whatever happens, the bad boy five-eighth will be the circuit breaker the joint venture badly needs.

Jarome Luai is reportedly little chance of re-signing with Penrith. Picture: NRL Photos

That’s a circuit breaker that either jolts the club back to life or fries the last of its remains, but a circuit breaker nonetheless.

Luai may be an on-field provocateur and an online arsonist, but what separates him from most footballers is not only his ability, it’s that he’s actually willing to join the Wests Tigers.

This is handy for a club that couldn’t pull a calf muscle.

After operating in the recruitment space for years like a fruit bat with no sonar, landing a big fish like Luai will make the Tigers more attractive to prospective recruits by shaking off the club’s odious desperation.

Never mind paying him like a LIV golfer, nor that a four-year deal is a lifetime for a club that recently abandoned a five-year plan because a few player agents threatened to write a letter.

At the end of the day, you gotta break bank to make bank- although fans are best not to think of Josh Reynolds as the cheque is written.

But it’s not just snapping the existential anguish and rank bargaining status, Luai also offers plenty to excite Tigers fans football-wise.

Benji Marshall has made Luai his number one target. (Photo by Izhar Khan/Getty Images)

He’s won three premierships and guided Samoa to a World Cup final, and better yet, has experience behind a beaten pack after representing NSW seven times at Origin level.

And don’t forget he’s reuniting with former teamie Api Koroisau, one of the rare elite talents to don the Tigers jersey that hasn’t played like a flickering hologram.

With his former alum at dummy half feeding his demands and self-worth, Luai could finally flourish as a true ‘owner’ of a team, a concept impossible under a 105% shareholder like Nathan Cleary.

And for an attack that can go full winters without seeing a tryline, Luai’s famous running game will also be warmly welcomed because it’s as super-direct as his mouth.

As for his famous ‘attitude’?

While a winner’s swag will conflict with the Tigers jersey in the initial stages, fans won’t mind a few spicy standovers and a beat-box if he retrofits his Penrith mindset to a Tigers resurgence.

Jarome Luai is keen to step out from under Nathan Cleary’s shadow. Picture: Jonathan Ng

And if Luai joins the joint venture and it goes belly-up?

For fans who are merely trying to navigate a season without bursting an artery, at least the Panther sells hope, a commodity harder to find at Leichhardt than a toilet on the hill.

Nevertheless, there is one drawback- and it’s not Luai’s bung shoulder or best man speeches.

Not only does his acquisition sell hope, it probably sells a five-eighth too.

With Aidan Sezer, Jayden Sullivan, Latu Fainu and Adam Doueihi on the books, one may be free to ‘chill because they won’t have work tomorrow’ if the Tigers lands their man.

- Dane Eldridge is a warped cynic yearning for the glory days of rugby league, a time when the sponges were magic and the Mondays were mad.

He’s never strapped on a boot in his life, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt.