{"id":822009,"date":"2026-07-25T01:27:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T01:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/822009\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T01:27:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T01:27:13","slug":"nrl-news-2026-wests-tigers-adam-douehi-saga-doesnt-want-to-be-fall-guy-comments-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/822009\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Wests Tigers Adam Douehi saga, doesn\u2019t want to be \u2018fall guy\u2019 comments, reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adam Doueihi<\/a>\u2019s decision to make himself unavailable for Raiders<\/a> clash on Saturday night has nothing to do with being moved out of the halves, according to The Sydney Morning Herald<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Doueihi on Thursday withdrew from the clash, reportedly following a blow up<\/a> with coach Benji Marshall<\/a> and the decision to move him to starting lock, allowing Javon Andrews to debut at No.7.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Adam Doueihi.\u00a0NRL Images<\/p>\n

But on Saturday morning, the Herald reported that was not the case. <\/p>\n

Doueihi first heard of the plan on Monday \u2013 before his judiciary appearance to fight a one-game ban<\/a> \u2013 but was unable to get confirmation from Marshall until Thursday.<\/p>\n

In a meeting in Marshall\u2019s office, the coach confirmed Doueihi would be the one moved out of the halves instead of the Parramatta<\/a>-bound Jarome Luai<\/a>. That decision, rather than being moved to lock in itself, was reportedly what aggravated Doueihi the most.<\/p>\n

Once he left Marshall\u2019s office, Doueihi then had a lengthy conversation with chief executive Shaun Mielekamp and explained he didn\u2019t want to be the \u201cfall guy\u201d for the club\u2019s problems. After that, he then reportedly had another conversation with club legend and football manager Pat Richards.<\/p>\n

After news broke on Thursday he would not play, the perception Doueihi had thrown the toys out of the cot enraged fans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brett Kimmorley, who was interim coach in 2022 after Michael Maguire<\/a> was sacked, also claimed Doueihi had pulled a similar stunt then.<\/p>\n

The Herald reported Doueihi told the club he would cop any criticism directed at him, and will train as usual on Monday. He is signed to the club until the end of 2029, and reportedly has no intentions of breaking the deal.<\/p>\n

Doueihi has not been named for Wests Magpies\u2019 NSW Cup clash against the Raiders \u2013 the curtain-raiser to the NRL<\/a> match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adam Doueihi\u2019s decision to make himself unavailable for Raiders clash on Saturday night has nothing to do with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":822010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-822009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}