Losing Luke

Look, I know that we have been desperate for something to get us all talking about Saints again but this wasn’t what I had in mind. In a terse statement by Eamonn McManus Saints announced today that Luke Thompson will join up with Canterbury Bulldogs with immediate effect. The England prop had already signed a deal with the NRL side which was due to start in 2021. He will instead fly down under straight away after the Bulldogs agreed to pay what Saints are calling an undisclosed sum.

Yet it was not so much the immediate sale of Thompson as the backdrop to it which caused the biggest stir. In his statement McManus revealed that Thompson ‘had opted not to participate in our club wide squad and staff pay reduction arrangement for the 2020 season’. The implication here is that Thompson’s decision not to take a pay cut was instrumental in the club’s decision to let him go to Australia earlier than planned. These are troubled times for everyone financially as the country bids to recover from a health crisis that has cost tens of thousands of lives and crashed the economy to the tune of a 20% downturn in the month of April. Saints desperately needed whatever money they have managed to get from Canterbury. That need was even greater if Thompson had already refused a pay cut.

Clearly the negotiations have left scars. The club ended the brief message by adding that ‘Thompson spent 13 years at Saints, having progressed through our successful academy system to make his debut in 2013. The club wish Luke all the best in the next stage of his career.’. As a tribute to Thompson’s contribution to Saints since joining as an 11-year-old in 2007 it was fairly minimalist. No mention of Thompson’s two Grand Final wins, his three League Leaders Shields, his 157 appearances for Saints or his development into an international player with few equals in his position anywhere in the world. Just an acknowledgement that he was here. For 13 years. And then he left.

Perhaps it is right that some have criticised the club’s statement. It arguably veers too far into dummy spitting territory and is not really a fitting end to the years that Thompson has been part of the fabric of the club as man and boy. Yet equally there is understandable anger, barely disguised, about Thompson’s insistence on receiving his full salary. Thompson is thought to be a very wealthy man outside of rugby league. He doesn’t really need the money even if the argument that he is entitled to it is legally sound. Other players in less fortunate financial circumstances will likely have put their hands up and accepted the reduction. It’s been claimed that Thompson’s decision not to follow suit was an act of altruism aimed at showing the rest of the players and those who might come after that they should not let the club push them around or make them feel like they have to bow down to their demands. After all, it is not yet clear how much of a pay cut McManus has taken to help the club out during the pandemic. If we are all in this together then it should not fall only on the players to be the philanthropists.

And yet for me it seems a stretch to believe that Thompson’s actions are motivated by the need to look after other players or make political points. The kid is not Arthur Fucking Scargill. He’s a young, world class sportsman who would probably tell you that he is entitled to make as much money as possible in what is, after all, a short career. But I come back again to the point about need. Already wealthy and with a lucrative NRL contract in the bag did he need to dig his heels in over the wage cut? Could he not have worn it for a few months knowing full well that he would soon be paid something closer to his actual worth?

Did the notion that such a gesture would go a long way to allowing his hometown club to operate in the way to which they have become accustomed not enter his head? If this were Ben Barba, standing behind the posts miming the counting of his dollars there’d be knowing shrugs all around. Oh aye, another mercenary come for a jolly and jumping ship at the first sign of a better offer. You accept that. But this is a hometown boy. A lad steeped in the club. A symbol for every child in this town of what can be achieved through hard work, discipline and willingness to learn. It’s all just so......disappointing.

If my inclination is to be highly critical of Thompson there are others of a Saints persuasion more than happy to come to his defence. There is a school of thought developing that argues we should not burn our bridges with him just in case he might want to come back to the club somewhere further down the track. This need of some Saints fans to cling on to ex-players baffles me. There are still some people doing the joke about Mal Meninga returning for a second stint. It has only been 36 years since his first and at 59 years of age Big Mal might still be a level or two above all but about three Super League centres. But whether it is Meninga, Barba, Jamie Lyon, James Graham or Sia Soliola there is always a sizeable section of the fan base getting all misty-eyed and insisting that the past has not gone from our grasp. It is delusion. Even before this spat between Thompson and the club there was never any prospect of the 25-year-old returning to Saints in his prime years. This is not Wigan. Once they’re gone, they’re gone until their agent notices that their contract is almost up and tries to sell you a 33-year-old version for top dollar. Three careless owners, 25% effectiveness.

Whether Thompson dons the red vee again or not his departure leaves us with a huge hole to fill in our squad in the here and now. Though it is not yet guaranteed it looks ever more likely that the 2020 season will take place in whatever adapted format is voted through by the 12 disciples of self-interest who run our top flight clubs. If it were to start tomorrow then there would only be Alex Walmsley among our prop corps who could be regarded as 100% reliable and the envy of all our competitors. Matty Lees may see Thompson’s exit as an opportunity to step up and start more regularly with his bench slot back-filled by Jack Ashworth or Callum Hazzard.

The NRL has been under way again since May 28 and with Super League not slated for a resumption until August it is hard to see any of their top line stars being persuaded to come over here in 2020. An import would likely be one not currently enjoying game time in the NRL. Anyone not good enough to secure regular game time in the NRL is not going to be close enough to Thompson’s level to fill our requirements. At home the only name that stands out for me is Liam Watts. Even with Ashworth as a sweetener that would probably require a hefty investment. It would be difficult for McManus to garner much sympathy if he is calling out Thompson for not understanding the club’s financial need on the one hand but then splashing the cash needed to get Watts on the other.

We haven’t started the season all that well. As things stand we could be set to take a little more pain in 2020 before head coach Kristian Woolf can make some important recruitment decisions for 2021 and beyond. The Luke Thompson chapter in the Saints story is closed. We must move on and not let our disappointment fester for too long.