Luke Brooks reignites his career by running away from the Wests Tigers

NRL star Luke Brooks is reigniting his career by opting to run as far away as possible from one of the NRL’s biggest basketcases.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - APRIL 10: Luke Brooks of the Wests Tigers looks dejected during the round six NRL match between Wests Tigers and Parramatta Eels at Accor Stadium on April 10, 2023 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

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It’s become commonly accepted in recent years that to save his career, Luke Brooks needed to reignite his running game and use it to run the hell away from the Wests Tigers.

By finally breaking free to join Manly in 2024, the embattled halfback will now transform from longstanding meme in to a serviceable halfback and it has nothing to do with ability.

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Simply by distancing himself from the contaminated Tigers brand – while also taking a pay cut – the narrative around Brooks should now grow as unseasonably warm as Sydney’s winter.

If anything, it’s already begun.

News of his signing has seen him proclaimed as “world class”, “the buy of the year” and “a halfback”, all sparkling PR for a bloke who hasn’t seen a September outside Bali in over 200 games.

While not discounting the encouraging returns of recent weeks, there’s no escaping Brooks has been the poster boy of the Tigers entrenched malaise, an individual dogpiled for every cross-eyed decision at the club from poor fifth tackle options to the Ben Matulino contract.

Brooks himself has not been entirely faultless either, with the eternal wait for his arrival as an elite halfback making him an easy target for starving fans and click-lust.

But now, by lasering-off his Tigers tattoo, his profile is set to undergo a facelift as rapid and barely believable as a Reece Walsh apology post.

Freedom, finally. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

Many claim it’s scientifically impossible to sweeten the image of something using a Manly jersey, but this probably says more about the Tigers than anything else.

Nevertheless, Brooks decision to leave behind Concord for the equally bottle-necked Brookvale puts a relieving full stop on an era working under more coaches than a depot mechanic, with Mick Potter, Jason Taylor and Michael Maguire all predictably ending their stints with caretakers and a spat with Robbie Farah.

It also extinguishes the last embers of the Big Four, an era that began with bristling expectation for a quartet of Brooks, Mitchell Moses, James Tedesco and Aaron Woods and ended with all four elsewhere and happy.

As for Manly, Brooks acquisition is the latest in the peninsular club’s obsession with procuring Tigers hand-me-downs, a move that has been met by Sea Eagles fans with major stink-eye.

Brooks will instantly turn his career around. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

While acknowledging the satisfaction of evening the ledger for Scott Fulton, the Brooks coup has further amplified the Brookie faithful’s anxiety towards the growing influence of Isaac Moses, with the player agent already boasting a handful of his stable on the books including coach Anthony Seibold and now also Brooks.

It’s a disproportionate grip on the Manly club for someone that isn’t Des Hasler or a descendant of Bozo, even though fans acknowledge at least this time he didn’t try sending them Kyle Flanagan.

Additionally, questions are being asked about Brooks creating a logjam in the halves, with Daly Cherry-Evans immovable as club skipper and Josh Schuster clinging to the promise of Kieran Foran’s position and money.

But it will all become academic the moment Brooks arrives in 2024 as the game’s latest overnight sensation.

This contract will be the hugest turnaround in the halfback’s career, and provided we don’t put too much expectation on the kid, there’s no reason he still can’t be the next Andrew Johns.

– 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.

Originally published as Luke Brooks reignites his career by running away from the Wests Tigers