Manly have reportedly swooped on young Tigers forward Kelma Tuilagi from 2023.
The 22-year-old has played five matches for the Tigers across his raw career with the venture club, having joined from the Melbourne Storm at the end of the 2020 season.
Tuilagi made his debut last season in Round 20 against the Warriors, featuring from the interchange in each appearance under Michael Maguire last year to tally 132 minutes for the season.
The 108kg front-rower has been a highly-rated addition to the Tigers' junior stocks across the past 12 months, however his tenure at Concord looks set to be short-lived.
According to former Parramatta and Manly forward Peter Peters, Tuilagi will link up with the Sea Eagles at the end of this season.
“There are plenty of people at Manly who think he has a lot of ability and he will be a good buy for them,” Peters said on The Big Sports Breakfast.
While Tuilagi's reported exit will be a disappointing loss for Maguire, the Tigers are set to welcome Eels star Isaiah Papali'i and Blues representative Apisai Koroisau from 2023.
Manly's gain of Tuilagi will also be a welcoming one for the Northern Beaches club, who are yet to sign forwards Martin Taupau, Andrew Davey, Morgan Boyle and Sione Fainu for next season.
This is just another case of Tiger’s management letting a future star slip by to another club. Just as they let Addo-Carr go to Melbourne, when it was obvious that he was going to be an excellent player. With Blore out this season, Tuilagi would have the chance to really step up and show people how good he will be. I’m sick of other clubs seeing the potential in the Tigers players and the club just letting them go. Instead Wests will continue to over pay for players (often out of form bad boys )from other clubs that are near retirement or past their prime (Tamou, Api Koresai, Reynolds), unwanted by current club at time (BJ Leluai, James Roberts, Moses Mbye etc), and unpredictable like Gildart, Hastings, whom have spent many years in Super League and Papali’i who had a great season last year but before that hasn’t done anything close to deserve the money the Tigers are throwing at him for “next year”. Its extremely frustrating as a Tigers fan to watch the way the club goes about their recruitment. The worst part is that recruitment for 2022 is probably the best the club has done in a long time. There has been some positives like Utoikamanu being signed long time, but not nearly enough. Letting Tuilagi go to Manly will be a mistake.