‘It’s not normal’: Kevin Walters unloads on Tigers’ Luai contract chaos

Australian Kangaroos head coach Kevin Walters has questioned the circumstances surrounding Jarome Luai’s Wests Tigers contract saga and the way it’s led to the rapid unravelling of the club’s 2026 NRL season.

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Speaking on the Inside Ball podcast Walters didn’t hold back, pointing the finger of blame not at the player — but at the highly unusual timing of trigger clauses in Luai’s original five-year contract.

“It’s not normal what happened there,” Walters said of Luai’s mid-season visit to Port Moresby to tour the PNG Chiefs’ set-up, describing the whole affair as ‘horrible’.

The Tigers have lost eight of ten matches since Luai announced on April 29 that he’d be linking with the PNG Chiefs from 2028, before last weekend’s confirmation that Luai will now in fact leave at the end of 2026 after just two years at Concord.

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“Nobody’s won out this,” Walters lamented as the Tigers have slumped from 3rd to 13th since Round 8.

“The thing that puzzles me is Jerome’s contract, where he had to make a decision to trigger the clause to continue to play for the Tigers (before the end of the season).

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“Because of that he had to fly up to PNG to have a look at the Chiefs and their facilities — that was a huge distraction for the club.”

Walters reiterated he had no problem whatsoever with Jerome Luai signing with the Chiefs, just the timing of the announcement and the way it was done.

“It should have been at the back end of the season, when the season was over,” he said.

“That’s where the clause should have been.”

Earlier this year former Tigers CEO Shane Richardson defended the unusual trigger clauses within Luai’s original five-year $6 million deal, explaining they were necessary to lure player of his calibre to a struggling club.

It remains to be seen where Luai ends up in 2026 with both Parramatta and Perth believed to still be in the running.

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