Sheens dissapointed in Brooks’ departure

Tim Sheens is disappointed and frustrated with how Luke Brooks left the club for Manly but insists there is no bad blood between him and Scott Fulton.

It has been less than one week since the Manly Sea Eagles announced the arrival of Luke Brooks on a four-year contract, a decision that reportedly caused strife within the Wests Tigers head office.

In his pre-game media press conference, Tim Sheens admitted there is no drama between him and Head of Recruitment Scott Fulton regarding Brooks' departure.

This comes on the same day that assistant coach Benji Marshall was forced to shut down rumours that he was set to leave the club.

“Brooksy has made his decision, people know where I stood with that,” said Sheens via the Herald, when asked about his thoughts on the move.

“There was no divide about wanting Brooksy to stay. The issue is he decided to go, I think there's more money involved and other things, so we have to live with that.

“I deal with Scott every day. The coaches make recommendations, the amount of money the club has with the cap weighs in on that sort of stuff.

“But you'd like to hope the coach gets what he wants. Brooksy will leave the club, I'm not blaming anyone particularly – I'm not blaming Brooksy nor his agent, or anyone else. He's made his decision and we have to live with it.”

As Luke Brooks will leave the club at the end of the season, and Adam Doueihi is out with a knee injury for the majority of next year, the Tigers don't have a playmaker contracted for next season.

This weekend, the club will line up with a new-look halves pairing of Brandon Wakehama and Daine Laurie, both of whom are off-contract at the end of the season.

“Something falls out of the tree all the time,” Sheens added.

“We're not overly concerned about that at the minute, we're about the next 10 rounds and getting away from the bottom of the table.”