The Canterbury Bulldogs are in turmoil, with the club suddenly at odds with captain Raymond Faitala-Mariner over his future.
A report emerged on Monday declaring the skipper was free to negotiate with rival NRL teams over a move for next season.
But a significant sticking point soon surfaced in a rival newspaper.
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Faitala-Mariner’s manager Ernie Santone went public with the claim that the club had not been in contact on the issue.
Regardless, he said the 29-year-old fully intended to see out the remaining two years of his contract with the Bulldogs.
“I have spoken to Ray and he is in the dark just as much as I am at this stage,” Santone told News Corp.
“I have had no official contact from Canterbury to say he has permission to leave or talk to other clubs so l am disappointed with all the talk coming out of the club.
“From my point of view, we signed a new three-year contract 12 months ago.
“So this is all coming from the club because there’s no reason why we would be looking anywhere else, that’s for sure.
“The fact I haven’t been told, one way or the other if it’s true or not, or if there is a denial, I’m a little perplexed by.”
Faitala-Mariner had been offered to the St George Illawarra Dragons, according to the SMH, but the club’s next coach Shane Flanagan has not warmed to the idea.
Despite the frustrations within the player’s camp, the Bulldogs’ movements have opened the door to Faitala-Mariner moving on.
Santone, though, said his hands were tied by the contract as much as the club’s silence.
Faitala-Mariner took over as captain for coach Cameron Ciraldo’s first season in charge but the Bulldogs have found precious little immediate success under the new leadership regime.
The situation has not been helped by Faitala-Mariner spending time in hospital and a month in bed fighting a bad case of pneumonia that robbed him of six kilograms and his match fitness.
While a 66-0 loss to Newcastle in Round 18 became the team’s lowest point, last week’s 44-18 defeat to Ciraldo’s former team Penrith was a reminder of the gap they need to close.
Ciraldo arrived at the Bulldogs this season as the most hyped untested coach in recent memory, having engineered the dual-premiership-winning defence at the Panthers as Ivan Cleary’s right-hand man.
But the Bulldogs sit 16th on the ladder after 21 rounds and leak an average of 31.2 points per game, which will mark their third-worst year for that statistic on record if they continue to concede at the current rate.
The year has been made more difficult by a string of injuries, notably to key forwards Viliame Kikau and Luke Thompson, that have forced the club to lean on their younger players.
Cleary empathised with Ciraldo, having overseen a similar rebuild in his first coaching job with the Warriors in the mid-2000s.
In his first stint at Penrith, Cleary inherited a similarly disjointed roster that finished 15th in his first campaign.
“He’s doing a rebuild. I cut my teeth on that kind of stuff. It’s hard,” Cleary said.
“I look back and think it can make you a better coach.”
Cleary backed Ciraldo to make tough roster decisions and develop a style of play that suited the side he assembled.
“That team that played today, that side’s not going to look like that in the next two years,” he said.
“They’re in that phase where they’re trying to find the players they want, how they’re going to play and stuff. He’ll be fine.”