Inside Wests Tigers rookie Lachlan Galvin’s rapid rise, Parramatta Eels background, contract, Spoon Bowl – MASHAHER

Lachie Galvin, with a grin, will tell you he’s the most boring kid anywhere in the NRL.

Which if true, is more ironic than, say, anything ever sung by Alanis Morissette.

Especially when even the Wests Tigers rookie admits, yeah, he has heard about Phil Gould labelling him the greatest teenage footballer he’s ever seen.

“My mates have even started calling me superstar,” he cackles.

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Same as they’re demanding ‘superstar’ also start shouting their regular lunch catch ups too, what with Andrew Johns listing his potential value at $2.5 million.

Or more than any NRL player ever.

But Galvin?

Well, for him it doesn’t seem so long ago that Parramatta were selling him off for just $5,000.

Only problem?

The kid wasn’t sure anyone would buy in.

Or not unless his old man James, a greenkeeper at Camden Lakes golf club, dipped into the family’s bank account to cover that transfer fee Eels officials were demanding for a move to Western Suburbs, or anywhere else.

“So dad and I talked,” Galvin recounts, “about paying it all”.

Which seems ridiculous now, right?

Especially with Joey valuing the kid north of $2 million. Or Gus crowning him the greatest teen he’s ever seen.

And all of it too, coming in the same week this hyped Wests Tigers No.6 – geez, are they ever anything else? – finds himself looking to ignite something of a blockbuster Friday Night Football ‘Spoon Bowl’.

Which keeping with the Alanis theme, also comes against the Eels.

And at a sold out Campbelltown Stadium.

Which for those keeping count, is the third ‘Full House’ sign to be raised at The Cauldron this year.

A record due, in no small part, to this boring kid with no ink, no earring, no ceiling.

In Galvin, truly, you have the hope on whom a Wests Tigers franchise can rebuild.

Greatest story of the NRL season?

Maybe.

Not that the kid himself sees it that way.

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“I’m probably the game’s most boring player,” he shrugs, kicking back this particular Wednesday in the Gregory Hills home he shares with his parents and two brothers.

“I don’t really do much.

“On a weekend if I’m not playing, or not watching my brother play, then I’m usually here at home watching NRL on TV, watching NRL replays, or watching over tape of our game.

“Really, that’s all I do …”

At which point, he then flashes the type of smile that could front a cereal box.

Same as over the next hour, this 19-year-old prodigy will also laugh his way through everything from sucking at golf, and being “schooled” by Benji Marshall at training, to conceding how, um, no, he isn’t really paying off the family mortgage.

“Although I probably should run with that one,” Galvin laughs of a yarn which, only recently, did the rounds on social media.

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“I mean, it definitely makes me look good.

“But no, it’s a myth.

“Mum and dad own their own home … and I’m actually a bit of a tight arse”.

Really?

“Oh, even paying board hurts,” Galvin cackles.

Biggest spend of your rookie season then?

“Well, I had to buy a car,” he says, referencing the brand new Kia Cerato Sport parked out on the driveway. “I only got my Ps in October and was driving mum and dad’s car to training.

“Eventually they said to me ‘cmon mate, you’ve got to go buy your own’ …”

Anything else?

“Ummm, spent 200 bucks on shoes,” he shrugs. “But even that I regretted two days later”.

At which point, the kid again flashes that Colgate grin.

Which isn’t how it’s always going to be, of course.

No, not when you know how rugby league, and those of us in it, have a habit of wearing down Lachie Galvins like, say, Cliffy Young once did gumboots.

And for proof, ask Luke Brooks.

Or Nathan Cleary.

Hell, ask any young playmaker whose NRL career lasts longer than it takes to drink a cup of coffee.

Still, know too that where Galvin sits when he runs out against the Eels tonight, it really is something of a sporting sweet spot.

Like those last couple of days before an overseas holiday.

Or back in ’03, those first few weeks of The Benji Step.

Understanding that outside of wins, the greatest thing any athlete can give their fans is hope.

And Galvin, right now, boasts that in bucketloads.

Has done ever since pre season when, after first breaking the Tigers 1.2km run record, he then hurled headlong through a swirl of 20 appearances all running, jinking, Leichhardt Oval hill gasping.

Undeniably too, the NRL Rookie of the Year were it not for that hip drop tackle on Eels forward Kelma Tuilagi which, during their Easter Monday clash, saw him outed for two weeks.

Indeed, while he may have been born 81 days before the Wests Tigers’ last premiership, Galvin is now the hope on which the franchise’s title future is being shaped.

A truth proved earlier this year by the saga that was those release requests, then denials, meetings being called, a supposed dressing room spray in defeat against Dragons, since denied, before eventually, and finally, Tigers CEO Shane Richardson shouted loudly about the kid not going nowhere.

But exactly what surprised Mr Boring the most?

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“Just how big it all got,” Galvin shrugs. “I’d only played five, six games of NRL and suddenly the story was everywhere.”

Which again, comes back to hope.

So who cares if Galvin has never watched the ‘05 decider right through? Or taps out after naming six members of said premiership team?

Hell, we aren’t even sure how well he knows the Benji Step.

“Oh, every kid my age has tried copying that one,” he grins, referencing that signature move of a man he not only grew up mimicking, or whose jersey he now wears, but whose own coaching future exists in lockstep with his own success.

“And Benji, he’s still got it.

“At training he’s schooled us – well, schooled me – more than a few times.”

At which point, Galvin then explains how he’ll be defending ‘Coach’ in an opposed session when Benji runs, bounces off that left foot and – bang – “turns me inside out”.

Which seems like as good a time as any to see what else this kid really knows about those years of Benjimania; asking not only about Tests and titles, but if he remembers coach fronting that craze otherwise known as Power Balance wristbands?

“Huh? Never heard of them”.

What about Tazos?

“Don’t know what they are, either”.

X Blade boots?

“Oh, I’ve heard of those,” Galvin says, his voice suddenly rising in pride at having picked something out. “But I’ve never actually seen a pair”.

Surely, you’ve seen the Benji Flick though?

“Everyone has seen that,” the playmaker laughs. “And if you haven’t, Benji will show you.”

Then, after a brief pause, Galvin cackles: “And be sure to put that in there”.

So we have.

Just as we must also mention Galvin’s affinity with winning.

Understanding that along with the impending arrival of Jarome Luai, along with the continued development of this year’s dozen debutants, the new Campbelltown Centre of Excellence and ever improving Tigers pathways programs, there is also something undeniably exciting about a junior prodigy who not only won 11 titles, or premiership in his first year with Wests, but last year a national championship with Westfields Sports High.

Lowest he’s ever finished in a season outside this one?

“I’ve made the grand final every year through juniors,” Galvin shrugs. “Then for school went undefeated last year, and won it the year before, too.”

Any decider you haven’t played in?

“Two years ago,” he says, “our school was knocked out in the semis.

“That’s probably the worst result”.

But the best numbers involving this kid?

That would have to be the five grand Parramatta put on his head when, during year one of Harold Matthews, it was suggested there wasn’t a position anywhere on the field they could see him fitting.

“Which killed me,” says Galvin, who grew up an Eels supporter like his father, and grandfather before that.

“I was gutted.

“As a kid, I wore the same yellow Nikes as Jarryd Hayne for five years.

“All I wanted to do was play for them.

“Even when people would tell me I may have to play with somebody else I’d always say ‘nup, it will be Parramatta’.”

But more than not wanting him, Galvin says the Eels then lumped him with a $5000 transfer fee.

“Which is why initially, Wests were a bit iffy,” he recalls. “They hadn’t seen me play, so paying the money was a risk.

“At one point dad even said he’d just pay the transfer fee …”

Eventually though, Wests sorted a deal, Galvin won a Harold Matthews title and, within little more than a year of that, would make his NRL debut with that chip still carried on his shoulder now.

“Just wanting to prove,” he says, “that I can make it somewhere”.

Which under the guidance of Marshall, he is.

Asked about teaming up with the now NRL Hall of Famer in his first season as a top grade coach, Galvin says: “I’m just so thankful with how Benji lets me be the player I am.

“We’ll also have our talks where he says ‘mate, you’re 19 and playing NRL, there isn’t one bit of pressure on you’.”

Which again, won’t always be the case.

What with Cliffy Young, gumboots and all that.

“But Benji keeps reminding me that I’m young, and we’re building,” Galvin says of a coach who understands, intimately, everything coming for this kid. “So I’ve tried to keep playing that way.”

And as for being deemed ineligible for that Dally M Rookie gong?

“Yeah, that hurts,” the playmaker admits. “And while they’re the rules, I do think it’s a bit harsh.

“But still, stupid me did the tackle …”

Remember where it went wrong?

“Honestly, I didn’t even know I’d done anything wrong until after the tackle, when there was a Captains Challenge,” he recounts. “I looked up to the big screen, saw the replay and went ‘oh s***, that ain’t good’.

“But with this year, I never thought it would pan out anything like this.

“I was expecting to play SG Ball.

“Maybe work my way into jersey Flegg, get a game of NSW Cup.

“Even when we had the bye in Round One, I was surprised when Benji put me into the NRL side for an opposed session, with Aidan Sezer out.

“Straight afterwards too, he called me into his office.

“I thought it was to do video.

“I’d just finished the opposed session, was pretty tired, and that’s when Benji said ‘I’m going to name you to debut this week’.

“He then asked me to keep it quiet though. Said he’d announce it to all the boys tomorrow.

“So I walked out, trying to keep myself together.

“I got to the car, called my parents and broke down crying.

“(Laughs) It was probably a bit dangerous, me driving along and wiping my eyes …”

All of which is now the same kid looking to ignite Friday night’s ‘Spoon Bowl’.

Same as Galvin is eagerly anticipating the arrival of Luai, another pre-season under coach Marshall and the chance, a year from now, to continue building around a side that, after those dozen debutants this year, “will be playing our way into an NRL finals series”.

And all while maintaining his mantle as the NRL’s most boring man.

Asked, for example, the biggest sledge he’s received this year, and Galvin shrugs: “You know what? People have been really nice.

“I think the worst somebody called me was soft.

“It was after they landed on me and I’ve said something like ‘oh, mate, c’mon’.

“They got up and said ‘Galvin, you’re soft’ … that’s it.”

Weirdest request you’ve got from a fan then?

“Well,” he grins, “somebody did ask me to train an Under 11 netball team. It was out at Narellan.”

So what did you do?

“I went,” he says simply. “Didn’t have anything else on.”