Outcast Wests Tigers player’s bitter swipe at club, Benji

A Wests Tigers outcast has given the club and coach Benji Marshall a brutal drive by after he was “hurt personally”.

David Nofoaluma has given the Wests Tigers and coach Benji Marshall a brutal drive by after a messy divorce from the club earlier this year.

The 31-year-old winger’s swipe at his old club was there for all to see when he referenced the club’s three consecutive wooden spoon seasons in a photo shared to Instagram.

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Nofoaluma’s roast was a sad way for the club’s miserable season to end with Marshall failing to pull the team up from the bottom spot on the NRL ladder.

The speedster famously fell out with Marshall and club officials before reportedly accepting a $300,000 payout for the final two seasons of his contract before eventually signing with the Salford Devils on a 12-month deal.

Nofoaluma showed how bitter the divorce from the Tigers has been when he shared a photo on his Instagram stories which showed him wearing three NRL premiership rings with a caption: “3 wooden spoons”.

Mystery remains over where the veteran sourced the premiership rings. Nofoaluma never won a premiership ring in his 198-game NRL career.

The post was widely mocked on the official NRL group on Reddit, which has 280,000 members.

One fan posted: “This might be the saddest thing I’ve ever seen”.

One Reddit user wrote: “Petty. 10 years of your life, and prime, you are looking back and s***ting on. Pretty pathetic. You contributed to 2 of the 3”.

David Nofoaluma sticks the boot in. Photo: Instagram, @davidnofoaluma.

Another commented: “How embarrassing to ask another player to wear there rings though”.

The smiling footballer appears to be content with his professional career coming to an end, having played just to games with Salford before returning to Australia.

He scored two tries for the for the Glebe Dirty Reds in their 19-6 defeat of the Wentworthville Magpies at Leichhardt Oval last month in the Ron Massey Cup Grand Final.

It was the same ground where he played countless games for the Tigers before it ended in such ugly fashion.

His departure — as the club’s greatest try-scorer — marked the end of an era for the Tigers.

He had been loaned out to the Storm and played six games for Melbourne in 2022, but his final season back in black, white and orange in 2023 ended with him playing reserve grade when Marshall replaced Tim Sheens as coach in August that year,

Nofoaluma admitted he was he was “hurt” by the way in which his time at the Tigers ended.

“Obviously, it’s disappointing. It hurts me personally,” Nofoaluma told The Sydney Morning Herald.

“A lot of times, people don’t realise we’re humans before athletes. Instead of dealing with it on a personal level … there’s no need to go to the press (to leak negative stories). I don’t think it’s a nice thing to do.

“It shows what type of club you are. I don’t have to deal with that any more, which is a good thing.”

David Nofoaluma’s 2023 season summed up in one photo. Photo by Brett Hemmings/Getty Images.

Nofoaluma said he “got over losing” at the Tigers, especially having experienced a new environment while on a loan deal at the Storm in 2022.

Nofoaluma told News Corp: “I was in a similar position last year (2022), I was playing reserve grade for the Magpies and I still remember the phone call from Craig Bellamy. I got named to play for reserve grade in the same week got named to play NRL for the Storm when I did the loan deal.

“Everyone could see how I played down there. I enjoyed the new environment, it was nothing against the Tigers. I just got over losing. It’s a team sport, you can’t do anything individually and no matter how good you are if the team is not performing it affects you as a person. As I got older it affected me.”

He added that the Tigers made clear they didn’t want him back.

“It really started when I stopped being included on members days. I could just sense an aura that they didn’t want me to be there. I didn’t want to go back from Melbourne and that’s where it started,” Nofoaluma said.

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“I made it clear to the club that I didn’t want to come back. I know that it was only a loan but I think that played a part in it. When I left for Melbourne, I thought I left for good.”

He added: “They obviously didn’t want me there and I made it clear to them I didn’t want to be there. So, it was best for both of us to part ways.”

The star winger was widely criticised over an alleged laziness and claims he missed training sessions in pre-season in a bid to seal his exit.

But Nofoaluma hit back, telling News Corp: “There were a lot of outside people saying I was lazy. But you’re not lazy if you’ve played 12 years of NRL... It also takes me a full two weeks to get back to full fitness. Some boys had started training earlier, I got put in with them and I was at the back of the pack when I started back.”

Speaking about missed training sessions, he said: “There’s always things going on in the background. Certain actions, maybe I shouldn’t have done it. But it’s just what I felt… I didn’t want to be there because I didn’t feel wanted.”

He admitted there was “tension” between him and Marshall, but also insisted there was no bad blood from either of them.