{"id":383423,"date":"2026-04-17T01:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T01:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/383423\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T01:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T01:25:09","slug":"toughest-decision-marshall-considered-taking-up-luais-reserve-grade-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/383423\/","title":{"rendered":"“Toughest decision”: Marshall considered taking up Luai’s reserve grade offer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wests Tigers<\/a> fill in Jock Madden’s form has been so good that it caused Jarome Luai<\/a> to offer a return via the bench or reserve grade.<\/p>\n

That is the revelation from head coach Benji Marshall<\/a> who labelled the call to return Luai to the halves for the Tigers as one of the toughest.<\/p>\n

Madden’s form has been spectacular for the joint-venture outfit who are enjoying their best start to a season in well over a decade.<\/p>\n

In front of a packed Campbelltown Stadium last Sunday, Madden, alongside Adam Doueihi<\/a> piloted the Tigers to a crunching win over the Newcastle Knights<\/a>. Prior to that, the Tigers came away with wins over the Parramatta Eels<\/a> and New Zealand Warriors<\/a> with Madden at the helm.<\/p>\n

Luai, who is one of the game’s highest-paid players, is fit to go again this weekend and will return at five-eighth for his side against the injury-ravaged Brisbane Broncos<\/a>, while Madden will play in jersey 14 from the bench.<\/p>\n

Coach Marshall, speaking to the media, said that Luai had offered not to knock Madden out of the side in his return.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo Jarome’s credit, he came to me and said, \u2018if you need to put Jock in and put me on the bench or play me in reserve grade, I will,’\u201d Marshall said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ll be honest, the Jock selection and Jarome selection was probably one of the toughest decisions, given how Jock’s been going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luai last played in Round 2, suffering an MCL injury during the Tigers’ only loss of the campaign against the South Sydney Rabbitohs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Latu Fainu<\/a>, who now appears to be more in the forward rotation plans for the joint-venture than being used as a half, is also on the bench this weekend.<\/p>\n

The Tigers are also expected to play Samuela Finau for this weekend’s clash with the Broncos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wests Tigers fill in Jock Madden’s form has been so good that it caused Jarome Luai to offer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-383423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}