May 8th, 2017

May 8th, 2017

The Sharks are set to lose another member of their historic 2016 premiership-winning team, with talented centre Ricky Leutele poised to quit the club and join the Titans next season.

Leutele is under contract to the Sharks for next season but will get a release on compassionate grounds.

The 27-year-old’s wife recently gave birth to twins and the pair they want to move to the Gold Coast where they have family support.

The Sharks are keen to keep the Brisbane born centre, who has played all his NRL football for the Sharks, but will reluctantly agree to the release.

Leutele was one of the unsung heroes of the Sharks’ grand final win, making the final tackle of the game on a runaway Storm winger Marika Koroibete as Cronulla hung on for a gritty 14-12 win.

The Sharks are finding – as other successful teams have in the past – that it is difficult to keep a premiership-winning team together.

Hooker Michael Ennis retired immediately after the premiership win, while Ben Barba left for French rugby after testing positive to recreational drugs.

Jack Bird has accepted a huge deal to join the Broncos next year, while skipper Paul Gallen has still to decide whether he will play one last season in 2018.

St Helens adopts novel approach



English club St Helens used an approach that could have been taken straight from Channel Nine’s hit TV show ‘The Voice’ blind auditions in appointing Aussie Justin Holbrook as their new coach last week.

Saints chief executive, Mike Rush, came to Australia recently and interviewed a series of candidates including Holbrook, former Titans coach John Cartwright and ex-Raiders coach David Furner.

Rush then compiled a report on each coach for the board – but left their actual identities off the document he sent back to the club board.

He decided on that approach so the board would select a coach not on reputation but purely on how he interviewed.

So the board, in effect, was choosing ‘blind’ – and came up with Holbrook, who is rated as a future NRL coach.

(AAP)

Who was with SKD?



The inside mail on Shaun Kenny-Dowall’s arrest for drug possession last week is that the Roosters star was not alone at the Ivy nightclub in the Sydney CBD.

I’m hearing another prominent NRL star was with SKD at the fateful moment he got into strife but managed to sneak out the back door undetected.

In the unwritten code between rugby league players, Kenny-Dowall refused to name his ‘partner’ and the player will get off scott free.

Mbye likely to remain a Bulldog

There’s been plenty of speculation about the future of Bulldogs halfback Moses Mbye, particularly as the club is set to sign Kiwi international halfback Kieran Foran from the Warriors.

Mbye is in demand and the Bulldogs would be prepared to release him but I’m hearing the nuggety halfback is set to dig in his heels and stay at Belmore.

Mbye signed a four year, $750,000 a season deal with the Bulldogs early last year and is unlikely to get the same sort of money elsewhere.

The Mole's articles appear exclusively on Wide World of Sports each week.