Luke Lewis seeking fresh NRL challenge

IT was while preparing for last month’s second State of Origin clash that Luke Lewis decided he had to end his 17-year association with Penrith. Frustrated with the club battling once again at the wrong end of the NRL ladder, Lewis was still angry at being stripped of the captaincy by Coach Ivan Cleary. He was also unhappy that the club was doing little to douse speculation his close friend and NSW teammate Michael Jennings was being shopped around to other teams after being dumped to reserve grade by Cleary.

The Kangaroos back-rower, who made his NRL debut in 2001, is the highest earning player at the Panthers, who are crippled by a salary cap that is hampering their attempts to rebuild. However, general manager Phil Gould, who agreed to Lewis’s request to be released from the final two years of his contract, denied the 28-year-old was being shipped out to ease the club’s salary cap woes.”No one here at Panthers has ever suggested or initiated a plan to remove Luke from the club prior to the expiry of his current contract,” Gould said at a media conference at Centrebet Stadium on Monday.”Luke doesn’t want to go through the pain of a club rebuilding and his goals don’t marry up with ours. He wants to play at a club with a chance of winning a premiership.

“No one here at Panthers has ever suggested or initiated a plan to remove Luke from the club prior to the expiry of his current contract,” Gould said at a media conference at Centrebet Stadium on Monday.”Luke doesn’t want to go through the pain of a club rebuilding and his goals don’t marry up with ours. He wants to play at a club with a chance of winning a premiership.”Because he is a long-serving player we get a heavy discount on the salary cap. It most certainly wasn’t a salary cap decision.”