Cronulla Sharks coach Shane Flanagan has rubbished rumours star five-eighth James Maloney is on the outer at the club and expressed his disappointment at missing out on Josh Reynolds.
Speculation has circulated that Maloney was unhappy with Cronulla’s pursuit of Canterbury five-eighth Reynolds. Reynolds has since agreed to join the Wests Tigers on a four-year deal reportedly worth $3 million.
Maloney and local junior Chad Townsend formed the halves partnership that led Cronulla to their first premiership last season. Townsend re-signed with the Sharks for three more years last week.
But while Flanagan was disappointed to miss out on Reynolds he said there was no truth to the speculation surrounding Maloney and that the two issues weren’t linked.
“I don’t know where [the rumours] come from. Obviously probably [from the] interest [and] talk about the possibility of Josh Reynolds coming here but it wasn’t in place of James Maloney,” Flanagan said.
“James has got a contract for another year here, he’s not even halfway through his existing contract. I’m not quite sure where they start. He’s just won a grand final for us, played for Australia, played Origin, named in our 50-year team. He ain’t going anywhere.
“I would have loved to have had Josh in our club. He’s a quality player. I really like Josh Reynolds. It would have been great for our club but timing and other things just wasn’t right so good luck to him. I’m glad he got a great deal.
“I think everyone sees what Josh Reynolds brings to a club. How he competes. He’s a quality football player. He can score points. I think it’s on show every time he goes out.”
The Sharks take on the Wests Tigers at Leichhardt Oval on Saturday night looking to bounce back from their upset loss to the Gold Coast last weekend.
Cronulla will again be without veteran back-rower Luke Lewis against the Tigers with the club cautious over his return from a minor hamstring problem. Former Manly and Canterbury forward Tony Williams is in line to make his debut for the Sharks.
Flanagan said his side had needed to improve their attitude after an indifferent start to the season, with Cronulla desperate to pick up as many points as possible before a potentially difficult State of Origin period.
“There’s a smell of [complacency] but I’m pretty sure I shook it out of them this week with my attitude towards their training and so on. Hopefully we’ll see the old Cronulla Sharks back tomorrow,” he said.
“It’s hard to judge attitude. I don’t think it was poor, I just think it wasn’t up to our standards. We need to get back to our standards. Some of those things are measurable and some aren’t and the measurables were down. So we need to pick that up again tomorrow against a Tigers team who have come into a bit of form. Change of coach, change of attitude has made a big difference.
“We’ve been inconsistent. We’ve put four wins together and two of those were good and two of those were pretty ugly but you take them. But on a whole our first eight rounds have been up and down at best so we need to make sure we perform well tomorrow and then we’ve got two [weeks] off then we’ve got the Dragons after that.”