David Nofoaluma's startling new claim about Benji Marshall after Wests Tigers exit
The former Wests Tigers winger unceremoniously left the club during pre-season.
David Nofoaluma has broken his silence about his messy split from the Wests Tigers after joining Super League club Salford Devils. The veteran winger scored 100 NRL tries - the most in Wests Tigers history- across 192 matches but was told by Tigers coach Benji Marshall in pre-season that his time at the club was over.
Nofoaluma says negative stories leaked to the media during pre-season tarnished his reputation and that left him with little choice but to take a $300,000 payout to leave Concord. The Tigers legend says he was deeply hurt by his unceremonious departure after so many years at the club. "Obviously, it’s disappointing. It hurts me personally, Nofoaluma told The Sydney Morning Herald.
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"A lot of times, people don’t realise we're humans before athletes. Instead of dealing with it on a personal level … there’s no need to go to the press (to leak negative stories). I don’t think it’s a nice thing to do. It shows what type of club you are. I don’t have to deal with that any more, which is a good thing."
But Nofoaluma insists his relationship with Marshall is still strong despite the Tigers coach moving him on, revealing that he is the reason Marshall came back to the club. "Me and Benji were really close," he told News Corp.
"I still remember he reached out to me when he was at the Broncos' feeder club to see if he could come back to the Tigers, to speak to the hierarchy at the Tigers to help him come back. I kind of got him back, because we played in the earlier years and when he came over he set up a lot of my tries in 2020 when I got the Dally M winger of the year and player (of the year) for the Tigers.
"There’s a lot of good things we’ve done together. I understand it’s a business and, for me, I do have a lot of respect for him. Even though things happened the way they did, at the end of the day, he is a coach who needs to make decisions and I respect that a lot."
Adam Doueihi says Benji Marshall the right man to rebuild the Wests Tigers
Injured Wests Tigers star Adam Doueihi has praised Marshall's coaching style ahead of the 2024 season, as the club looks to break their finals footy drought. "Even watching from afar when he’s directing training and directing the video reviews and previews, you can see that he’s really in charge in giving the boys a simplified game plan for what we want to do this year," Doueihi said on Marshall's coaching style.
"I feel as though the more pre-season has grown on us, the more the boys have bought in. Benji is a well-respected person, and that goes a long way for a coach. He’s a very honest coach which is sometimes very hard to find in a coach, so we’re lucky that Benji is very honest with us. It’s great that he sometimes jumps into some drills and physically shows us how to do them and then we follow."
The Tigers finished last season at the bottom of the ladder, with Marshall taking over towards the end of the campaign. The Tigers coach has a difficult task ahead of him, trying to bring life into a side that has offered very little for more than a decade.
In an attempt to bring about a change of fortunes, the club legend has brought in Canberra halfback Aiden Sezer and ex-Melbourne centre Justin Olam and for the 2025 season Penrith five-eighth Jarome Luai. The Tigers have a bye in the first first round, before kicking off their campaign against the Raiders at GIO Stadium on March 16.
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