Well, THAT was #awkward.

I’m talking about the Eels’ thumping of a Tigers team sans its wunderkind, Lachie Galvin.

See, if you’re Tigers coach Benji Marshall and hang your hat on the claim that the “best thing for the team” is to drop one of the two best players you’ve got – and proceed to get nearly 40 points scored against you by the lowest-ranked team in the comp, you’ve got a case to answer.

Yes, you have, Benji.

So, for the hell of it, let me make the case. I say that in terms of fluster-clucks, there was the Hindenburg, there was Chernobyl and … there was the Tigers’ management of this whole sad affair over the last 10 days.

Oh, do calm down.

Lachlan Galvin played for the Magpies on Monday after being dropped by Wests Tigers.Credit: Getty Images

The defenders of Benji – many of whom I know to be good people, and this is nothing personal – have a fairly standard narrative for the whole Galvin saga, and you can see it replicated on social media, tens of thousands of times over, albeit with vicious epithets about Galvin added.

The narrative runs like this: Benji Marshall is a great man, and fabulous coach, who spotted Galvin early, nurtured him from nowhere, and personally made him a star – only for Galvin to publicly turn on his mentor, and humiliate him by telling everyone that Benji couldn’t coach, even while knocking back a multimillion-dollar offer. How dare that young PUNK? Who does he think he is?

(To which, social media added, LET’S GET HIM!)

There is, however, another narrative, and one I believe is the truth.

Galvin did indeed come to the conclusion that Marshall was not a great coach and did indeed feel isolated by some of his actions. For that reason, the young man decided, quietly, he didn’t wish to sign up to the........

© Brisbane Times