A day after it was revealed that the Parramatta Eels are preparing to offer a $1-million per-year deal to playmaker Mitchell Moses and make him an Eel for life, reports have emerged that Wests Tigers are under pressure to try and bring the playmaker back to the club where he started his NRL career.
Moses spent the first three-and-a-half years of his NRL career at Leichhardt before leaving in controversial circumstances, asking for an early release from his contract which was initially rejected by the Tigers.
His request was finally granted 10 rounds into 2017 and Moses has since become one of the game’s best halves, making regular finals appearances and an Origin debut since his arrival in blue and gold.
According to The Daily Telegraph, the Tigers could be forced to enter the homecoming conversation with current contract uncertainty over playmakers Adam Doueihi and Jackson Hastings and rumours linking long-term half Luke Brooks with a move away from the club he’s led for nine years.
Though it seems unlikely Moses would sacrifice his role on a team with a genuine premiership window for an organisation reeking of instability and rooted to the foot of the table, his uncle and Balmain club legend Ben Elias suggested Moses never wanted to leave in the first place but was forced to as the club doubled down on their efforts to retain James Tedesco and Aaron Woods.
“Mitchell did not want to move, he never wanted to move, he loves the club,” Elias told Fox Sports at the time.
“Rightfully, you look for stability. You look for everything that makes a footballer better and unfortunately the Tigers have had a rough trot. The last couple of years have been unsettling.”
If that was a motivating factor for Moses’ departure in 2017, it’s hard to know how seriously to take any suggestion that he’d return to the club in its current state.
