July 13, 2026 — 5:00am

Jarome Luai will mark up directly opposite former halves partner Lachlan Galvin on Saturday night, bound by two of the most dramatic contract sagas in modern rugby league and separate NRL campaigns blown up by them.

Instagram posts, six-figure transfer fees, endless innuendo and, just for fun, a Provan-Summons Award nomination for a PR-friendly, post-game embrace between the pair, all feature in a made-for-NRL narrative between the playmakers, Tigers and Bulldogs.

That Luai and Galvin do the dance once more, with a loss for either surely the death knell on their respective seasons, is just further proof rugby league’s deities truly get comedy.

Luai has made his point via cryptic (and not-so cryptic) Instagram posts throughout his career, and over the weekend his father Martin left an ‘OK’ emoji on a post questioning how close the Tigers star and coach Benji Marshall still are.