Brett Kimmorley has revealed star Adam Doueihi gave the Wests Tigers interim coach an ultimatum: that he either be selected in the halves in the NRL, or play in the halves in reserve grade.
This took place when Kimmorley took over the helm in 2022 for the backend of the season after Michael Maguire departed the joint venture.
Yesterday, the club confirmed to News Corp Doueihi will not play in the Tigers' do-or-die clash against the Canberra Raiders after coach Benji Marshall made the call to play his Lebanese international at lock, rather than in the halves.
Original reports surfacing from the Daily Telegraph revealed Doueihi has opted not to play at all if he is in the lock position, and won't take part after not training on Thursday, leaving the club without star personnel for a must-win game to save their season.
It has now come to light that it isn't the first time Doueihi has made a positional demand, with Kimmorley shedding some light on a similar situation four years ago.
“In my time as an interim head coach at the Wests Tigers, as a very green interim head coach, Adam was coming back from an ACL,” Kimmorley told SEN League.
“(He) was playing limited minutes in a couple of games, playing centre in games to make sure his load was unavailable.
“I had a conversation with Adam Doueihi, (where he said) if I've not been picked at five-eighth in first grade, I'd rather play 5/8 in reserve grade.
“I didn't have the balls to do it as the coach at that stage.
“I handed that conversation onto someone else at the club who was much more superior than myself.
“Tim Sheens was the director of football at that stage at the Wests Tigers.
“I was a bit unsure about where that left me as the coach.
“This is after team selection, (he) had been picked to play centre a number of times, and his thoughts was his body was good enough to go back to the 5/8 position.
“I'd been given some advice that centre is probably how he should play the rest of this year and his words were purely, if he doesn't play 5/8 in first grade, I'd rather be picked at 5/8 in reserve grade."
Kimmorley believed that his inexperience in the top role may have led Doueihi to approach him, asking for a position swap following his return from his ACL injury.
“I took it a little bit of a ‘you're coming at a rookie coach' in some regards," he added.
“My mind now, looking back at it, I wish in some regards I was strong enough to go, ‘you come and tell your teammates on Thursday why you're not playing first grade and why you're playing 5/8 for reserve grade'.
“But I didn't have that strength in myself to do that probably as a rookie coach, so that's why I handed it on to Tim Sheens.
“It was obviously a very, very difficult situation at the club.
“When you sack a coach, your club's not going well.
“Michael Maguire had been sacked with 12 weeks to go in the competition. I was given the opportunity to be the interim head coach.
“I look back now… that's probably first grade coaching.
“A lot of it is managing the players, handling your players, keeping control of where they wanna play and how they best suit team ego.
“We've all gotta be working in the same direction…. It was a difficult time.
“I can understand how he would have felt at the time.
“He's been out for a long period of time with an ACL injury.
“That's where I think it would have come from. But, to approach it how you did… that's probably the demand of holding me to ransom, a little bit of saying, ‘hey, you've gotta pick me'.”
Young gun Javon Andrews is set to make his NRL debut alongside Jarome Luai in the halves.
Doueihi successfully downgraded his charge at the NRL's judiciary, meaning he was tentatively named on the Tigers' extended bench, but will take no part in the nation's capital on Saturday afternoon.
