Wests Tigers front rower Terrell May has opened up on his exits from the Panthers and Roosters, while revealing why he “will never be loyal to an actual club again”.
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May, who was nominated for Dally M Prop of the Year in his first season at the Tigers, extended until the end of the 2030 season last month in a big boost for the club.
Round 14
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Although speaking on Josh Mansour’s ‘Unscripted’ podcast, May said his ultimate loyalty no longer lies with any club but with coach Benji Marshall after the way he looked after him and his family.
To that extent, an honest May said in the hypothetical scenario that the Tigers ever “got rid” of Marshall “I’m going”.
“I’m just speaking the truth,” May added.
“Benji showed a lot of loyalty to me. I’ll never, as bad as it sounds and it’ll probably get clipped, but I’ll never be loyal to another club because at the end of the day, every club’s a business. But I’m loyal to Benji.
“So, as long as Benji stays at the Tigers, they’ve got my loyalty. As long as Benji’s at the club, I’ll stay there forever. But I will never be loyal to an actual club again… say the Tigers got rid of Benji, I’m loyal to Benji… I’m going.”
While it may sound like a dramatic statement on the surface, May detailed the previous experiences throughout his career which have led to him feeling this way — and it has nothing to do with the Tigers specifically.
“At the end of the day, every club is a business,” he went on to explain.
“As soon as they want you gone, it’s, ‘You’re gone’. As soon as you want to go, it’s, ‘Nah, I’m keeping you here. You agreed to a contract’.
“No one said nothing when the Roosters let me go. It was weird. I was still there for two years. No one said anything because the Roosters let me go, but if I would have done it, I reckon I would have got blown up… because it was the player getting told to leave, what’s the difference?”
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For context, Roosters coach Trent Robinson was reported to have called May and told him he was free to leave the club immediately in October 2024 despite the prop having signed a two-year extension just six months earlier.
May said he “lost all respect” for the club after that phone call.
“I had a lot of love and gave all of me at the Roosters but one thing that everyone knows about me and my brothers and my family (is) we’re very loyal people,” he added.
“If we say we got you, we got you… (when) I signed there I told Robbo to his face, ‘I want to be a one-club man’. I obviously re-signed and I felt I got disrespected a lot when they told me to go and find another club.
“They just lost all my loyalty and respect after I got that phone call. (It) caught me off guard. I signed there for… I don’t want to talk about my wage that I signed there for, but it was half of what I’m on now, like what I could have signed at any other club.
“I was going through negotiations with other clubs and I felt at home at the Roosters, like that’s where I wanted to be. I’ve always said if you’ve got my loyalty I’ve got you forever.
“I wanted to stay there for the rest of my career. If I could have signed a 10-year deal for whatever I was on I would have signed it. But as soon as I got that phone call, they just lost all my respect.”
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As it turned out, May could have actually ended up back at Penrith — where his career started — after revealing he met with the club soon after making his NRL debut at the Roosters in 2022.
May first came through the Panthers system alongside brothers Taylan and Tyrone and was on an under-20s contract when he made his NSW Cup debut alongside the likes of Matt Burton, Stephen Crichton and Spencer Leniu.
May, who admitted to Mansour he had a “massive ego” at the time, left the club after finding out he was being dropped to St Marys ahead of the 2020 pre-season.
“I said, ‘Hell no. I’m out of here, bro’ and then I ended up going to the Tigers and doing a pre-season there,” May added, explaining that he grew up playing for Saints’ biggest rivals, the Minchinbury Jets.
But May later considered returning the club, telling Mansour he met with the Panthers “a couple weeks” after his Roosters debut.
Ivan Cleary was meant to meet with May but had to undergo knee surgery at various points in the 2022 season as he dealt with an ongoing infection. As a result, instead it was Panthers CEO Matt Cameron who he spoke to.
“No one knows this,” May said.
“I was meant to meet with Ivan and sign a three-year deal to come back home, and then I met with Matt Cameron, and the meeting didn’t go too well.
“I don’t want to go into too much detail, but yeah, I was kind of off him, I walked out and said ‘nah, I am re-signing with Roosters’.
“I will give you a little quote. The first thing Matt Cameron said to me was, ‘You are not a gangster, you are not a vlogger or YouTuber, you are a footy player.’ I was like what the hell?
“Then he started talking down on Tiny (Taylan May) and Tyrone (May), and I was like, ‘Nah, this ain’t it’. I sat there and listened to what he said, (I) just apologised to the club for my Under 20s thing, and then I just left and was like this isn’t the place for me.
“I wanted to go back so bad… it was meant to be just me and Ivan, then bro (Cameron) came out, and I was like, ‘Hell no, bruh, I am not signing here’.”
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The Panthers were contacted for comment by foxsports.com.au.
Tyrone May, who in 2019 pleaded guilty to four counts of intentionally recording an image without consent, was sacked by the Panthers in 2021 after a social media post which included a photo of him leaving Parramatta Local Court and was captioned with lyrics from ‘Fair Trade’ by Drake.
The Panthers said in a statement at the time that May’s conduct following the grand final “constituted a serious breach of his contractual obligations”.
Penrith, meanwhile, parted ways with Taylan May after a confidential settlement in 2024. The centre was sidelined at the time under the NRL’s no-fault stand-down policy after being charged with domestic violence offences.
Those charges were later dropped in March last year.
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