Wests Tigers football boss Shane Richardson has drawn parallels between the club’s decision to part ways with rising hooker Tallyn Da Silva and South Sydney’s controversial call to let premiership-winning halfback Adam Reynolds walk out the door.
Speaking on ABC Radio, Richardson described the loss of Da Silva—who recently signed with the Parramatta Eels—as “a great disappointment,” but said it ultimately came down to balancing the future against the proven leadership of veteran No.9 Api Koroisau.
“It was a great disappointment to me, losing Da Silva,” Richardson admitted. “And it was because he’s a great kid. He wanted to be here, et cetera, et cetera.”
Richardson likened the Tigers’ dilemma to the Rabbitohs’ infamous 2021 decision to back young playmaker Lachlan Ilias over club legend Reynolds—a call that sparked intense debate and scrutiny in the years that followed.
“It got down to a decision, though, where you sit down—and I’m sure Souths did this with their halfback a few years ago,” he said. “You’ve got this young kid coming through, but we’re going to let this kid go. He’s won premierships and won everything else with you because we think this kid’s going to do the job. And he didn’t.”
In the Tigers’ case, Richardson said the club believed retaining Koroisau was essential, despite the promise Da Silva showed.
“Now, our situation was you’ve got Api Koroisau, who’s won premierships, who’s a leader of the club, captain of the club, loyal, puts in every week,” Richardson explained. “You see it every week. He’s Fijian, he could play till he’s 56, be in the Fijian [side]. But the bottom line was, we felt for the good of the club that we had to re-sign Api Koroisau.”
Richardson also revealed the personal dimension to the decision, including his commitment to Da Silva’s family.
“I promised his parents, Da Silva’s parents, that I’d tell them when we made that decision. And we made that decision,” he said. “Now, we could have hung on to him for another year and made him play reserve grade and come up underneath. But from our point of view, that wasn’t the right thing to do.”
While acknowledging the risk inherent in letting a young star slip away, Richardson stressed the club had to back its call.
“You have to be honest with people. Sometimes that means you make tough decisions. You hope in the long term you’re proven right.”
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