Five clubs in hunt for myles

[timor 2]

Nate Myles poised to leave the Titans as negotiations with rival clubs continue

CHRIS GARRY EXCLUSIVE
THE COURIER-MAIL APRIL 13, 2015 12:00AM



THE Gold Coast Titans are in danger of losing their captain and most consistent player in Nate Myles, who has already held formal meetings with one rival club and is booked to meet three more.

Myles would be a major loss to the Gold Coast as he is their most recognisable player and the cultural rock that bonded the team through their drugs crisis.

Coach Neil Henry wants to re-sign Myles but the club is juggling a complicated roster and have asked for more time to work their salary cap out.

Meanwhile, other NRL clubs are striking.

The rival clubs have tabled attractive offers for the State of Origin veteran who was among the Titans best in their victory over Parramatta.

Myles wants to make a decision on his future within a fortnight.

The Canberra Raiders and Melbourne Storm have been linked to Myles but they are not in the hunt for the prop who is now being courted by Sydney clubs.

Myles’ manager Chris Orr said his client was rightfully exploring formal offers following the Titans’ decision not to activate a one-year extension on his contract.

“Four clubs have contacted me. He has met with one club and will meet with the other three over the next 10 days,” Orr told The Courier-Mail.

“We are yet to receive any formal offer from the Titans at this stage but Neil has indicated he would like to sit down with Nate in the next week.”

Myles has represented the Maroons every year since 2006, playing 26 games in the forwards for Mal Meninga’s team.

The Titans last week lost five-eighth Aidan Sezer to the Canberra Raiders.

While the Gold Coast had tabled an offer to Sezer, he had already made his mind up by the time he saw it.

The Titans will also meet with star centre James Roberts this week to extend his contract.

Roberts wants to stay on the Gold Coast and the club wants him to stay too.

However, he will require an upgrade on his current deal due to his stunning form.

Gold Coast need to fit him in their cap alongside their marquee signing in Daly Cherry-Evans, also managed by Orr, who is being paid more than $1 million a year from next season.

The Titans are still interested in signing a strike centre after missing out on Dane Gagai, who has re-signed with Newcastle.

Then they need to re-sign Kane Elgey, who has received a significant offer from Manly, who want him to replace Cherry-Evans.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/...-1227300654270

[DIEHARD]

Storm may be a risk but I think he will stay with us.

Melbourne would be good for his wife. He has lots of friends in the side and let's face it, a good chance at a Premiership.

[karnage]

That player manager Orr always has his contract negotiations played out in the media. He's a joke. I honestly don't vare if he stays or goes, but what I am happy with is the fact that we are getting a run of good form out of him as he plays for a contract. Let's hope the negotiations continue for a couple of months or more so we get good games out of him right up until the origin period.

[Titanic]

We win a game and suddenly all the useless bastards over the last couple years are superstars? What a load of poop.

[Mexican titan]

Storm may be a risk but I think he will stay with us.

Melbourne would be good for his wife. He has lots of friends in the side and let's face it, a good chance at a Premiership.

Might be wrong as there is so much crap about player movements around but I thought I read last week that the Storm would not be making a play for him.

- - - Updated - - -

That player manager Orr always has his contract negotiations played out in the media. He's a joke.

Yes Orr seems to be the most unethical of them all. He is DCE's manager as well.

[K2G]

Nate Myles opens up on his NRL career, Gold Coast life and his wife’s health battles

JESSICA HALLORAN THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH MAY 10, 2015 12:00AM



FIRST it was the nightmares. Then came the cold sweats. Tessa would tell her husband Nate Myles how she’d wake up confused and in a fright.

She would relay to him how the cold sweats disturbed her sleep in their LA apartment. This was her home while she was auditioning to try and get a Hollywood break.

The night terrors became a small worry for Tessa. Little did they know at that time how these signs were triggers of something more sinister that was about to hit them both and change their world.

“It’s not something which would lead you to say to your wife; ‘get yourself to the doctor’,” Myles says.

On a trip back to Australia Tessa’s doctor instructed her to get some tests.

Tessa, a health loving, non-smoking, non-drinking 23 year old, seemed to be the most unlikely candidate for what was to come.

Myles was on a boys trip in Cairns when Tessa called to say she’d been diagnosed with cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was on the next flight to be by her side. “What are we walking into?” Myles thought to himself on that awful trip home.

It’s by his wife’s side, through the hellish of rides, he’s marvelled at her strength as he’s held her weakened hand in chemotherapy for six months.

“It was sickening,” Myles says. “It was not cool what anyone has to go through because of that.”

“She’s tougher than any footballer I have played alongside with. There’s a euphoric feeling when you walk off a field sore but for Tess when she was doing her treatment, she didn’t know for a lot of the time if it was a win, if it was helping.”

When speaking to Myles it’s hard to get a read on his strength as a husband through all this. He deflects his role in helping her through this and heaps praise on Tess’s parents Stephen and Charis and sister Candy.

Tessa is more to the point; “Nate always underplays his support he gives to me. He is my rock,” she told The Sunday Telegraph.

Everything in his life naturally became secondary to what she was going through. They shaved their heads together. “I was more traumatised than her,” Myles jokes.

When asked how the experience of caring someone with cancer changed him, he replies with his trademark wicked humour; “I probably now listen to her when she says she has a headache.” Myles says laughing. Then he gets serious.

“I know for me, without saying it puts things in perspective, it puts things of tiers of where things are in life,” Myles says. “Say if I touch base on my contractual talks, I sometimes think; ‘everyone take a chill pill here, no one needs to be narky or stupid’.

“This is something that is not the last thing on my mind, but it’s something we all don’t need to get so serious about, let’s be level headed, let’s be cool about it, because at the end of the day health is wealth.”

On those contract talks there are four clubs seriously chasing his signature — including Manly and Penrith.

On the day The Sunday Telegraph meets Myles he is in a relaxed state of mind despite the chaos of contractual talks playing out around him.

He has not taken up the Gold Coast’s current offer, said to be significantly less than his current pay packet, and he didn’t imagine he would be in this predicament at the start of the year.

“In the beginning it was a shock to be in this position regarding my contract negotiations with the club,” Myles says. “However, I totally understand football is a business, I’ve been aware of that since I left the Roosters.”

He’s been labelled by some an “ageing” footballer — an Origin warhorse with not much too more give. Myles, 29, addresses these assessments with good humour.

“I think people get thrown off by how old my head looks,” Myles says.

“I know that football wise I have years ahead of me. I have so much more to offer. I’m learning every game. I don’t think footballing wise I need to worry it about being my last year. I know I have a whole lot more to give. I am fortunate now I get to weigh up a few options.”

“To be honest I didn’t think I would be in this position coming into this season. But look I am going to be positive about it and now I do get to weigh things up.”

“My goal is in the next week to have all the cards on the table and then I can nut out a good plan for myself and Tess.”

When the cards fall right, Myles is expected to decide his future this week.

Tessa, who will leave this Friday for the States for meetings in Hollywood in a few weeks time, is a “big factor” in where he may go. “She is a bit undecided [on what club], in a perfect situation it would be an NRL team in LA,” Myles says.

If he leaves, he would like to go to a club which could help him grow as a footballer and, of course, there’s the dream of finally winning a premiership.

“I haven’t won a competition, so the playing roster is a big thing, it’s not the be all and end all, but my decision will be weighing heavily on that,” Myles says. “I don’t plan on trying to play until I am 40 but I know I have a lot of years left. I need to make sure if it is my last contract it needs to be the right one.”

As we sit in the humid shade outside a Burleigh Heads’ cafe it seems like every second person that walks past he knows. He is an affable guy, friendly and a quietly spoken person who gives time to everyone.

It completely counters the old public image of Myles, an NRL club ratbag, and it’s clear the embarrassing days are well behind him. And he knew he had to change. Now he has a settled home life and a new perspective.

He’s a club captain now and someone who Titan’s coach Neil Henry realises is important for the club. “If Nate looks after himself he has good time left in him. He brings leadership to this club. He has a connection to the community so there is certainly positives in keeping Nate for more than one year.” Henry says.

Myles will tell you that his time on the Gold Coast has been the making of him.

“If I was to compare myself to even two years ago I am a very different person,” Myles says.

Here he’s become far more charitable with his time. An animal lover, he’s favourite thing to do in his downtime is hang with his two bulldogs Snoop and Biggie and take them skateboarding, and he also donates whatever time he can to the RSPCA. “They are so proactive,” Myles says. “They are fantastic charity to be part of.”

There’s his gym an F45 franchise he started up in Burleigh, he enthusiastically shows The Sunday Telegraph around the business he attends to every night and is packed out most days. Running a business has made him more accountable. “I am understanding more why now, coaches, CEOs, get the ****s if we don’t just turn up, because it hurts the business, it hurts the brand,” Myles says.

He’s started fixing up an old 1951 Chevrolet ute he sourced in Pasadena, California and when it gets a new engine he plans to road trips down to Byron Bay with Tessa on every day off. Myles, who grew up ripping through the cane farms in Cairns on motorbikes, also just bought a Honda CB 400F which he is painstakingly sourcing parts for.

“I try not too spend too much cash on them, the boss will get angry,” he says.

Later as we drive away from the gym along the Gold Coast highway looking at the beach, Myles pointing out his favourite cafes, he reveals it he has finally realised how good his footballing life is.

“Sure there are injuries, there can be some intrusion into your personal life, but once you realise how good it’s to be a professional footballer for a living, you realise we are so fortunate,” Myles says. “I discovered how good it is to be a footballer too late for my liking.”

“It was only when I came up here that I realised what I had.”

On Tessa’s final treatment day on February 25 this year it was Myles who decided their should be a celebration. He organised streamers, balloons, flowers and the caring hospital staff organised a “DONE & DUSTED” sign. Myles decided everyone should dress up. Myles dealt out costumes. Her dad Stephen was a pimp, her mum Charis ended up in a Minnie Mouse costume, sister Candy was in a “Disco 70s” dress and Tess was Wonder Woman.

And Myles? “Well, when their whole family is together nobody gives a **** where I am. So I was Where’s Wally,” Myles laughs.

For now life only seems to be on the up.

“I now know where life can sort of go,” Myles says. “We are very lucky, very lucky. It’s hard to not sound, not disrespectful to contractual talks, but I am happy going through things and taking my time, because I now know in a day or two your life can be tipped upside down.”

[DavidBouveng]

if he stays he stays.if he doesn't, both parties will be fine.

he sounds grounded and will enjoy his life and wife no matter where he is, so all the best to him.