"Holding to ransom": Doueihi’s demands crisis takes new twist

NRL legend Brett Kimmorley has revealed Adam Doueihi demanded to be selected in the halves or play reserve grade while he was interim coach at the Wests Tigers.

Doueihi today stepped down from the Wests Tigers first grade side to play the Raiders after reportedly being told by coach Benji Marshall he would line up at lock, not halfback like he wanted.

Instead of play lock, Doueihi will refuse to play this weekend in the Tigers must-win clash with the Raiders.

Kimmorley revealed this is not the first time Doueihi has made such a demand, recalling an instance back in 2022.

Kimmorley was appointed interim head coach of the Wests Tigers in 2022 after Michael Maguire was sacked.

It was in this time that Doueihi was coming back from an ACL recovery and playing centre as he rebuilt his form in first grade.

Doueihi told Kimmorley he would rather play five-eighth in reserve grade than play centres in first grade, in an attempt to force the arm of the rookie coach.

“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 5/8 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.

“I took it a little bit of a ‘you're coming at a rookie coach’ in some regards.

“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’.”