Brent Naden has quit the club in protest following Canterbury’s decision to
part ways with former coach Trent Barrett.
The bloodshed has continued at Belmore with two players and one of Barrett’s closest allies about to exit the club.
Trumpeted recruit Naden has lasted just eight games as a Bulldog with the ex-Panther linking up with the Tigers immediately and will line-up against his former side on Friday night.
He may not be the last player to exit the club.
Hard-hitting forward Jack Hetherington is also likely to become another casualty of Barrett’s departure.
High performance manager Dan Ferris became the first major victim in the
Bulldog’s football department cleanout.
Former All Blacks coach
Steve Hansen, who is a consultant for the Bulldogs, could be the next to sever ties with the club after taking aim at the way the Barrett exit was handled.
Like Naden, Hetherington’s overriding lure to join the Bulldogs was to play under Barrett.
But now the coach is gone, Hetherington’s hopes of being retained have diminished.
The 25-year-old worked with Barrett in 2020 at Penrith and it was their strong relationship that led to his arrival at Belmore in 2021.
Physical and renowned for pushing the envelope, it was Barrett who pledged to keep Hetherington focused on the football field.
However, the nephew of Raiders legend Brett Mullins has been told he can leave the club at the end of this season with the club unwilling to take up an option in his $500,000 contract.
Recovering in positive fashion from a serious shoulder injury suffered round three, Hetherington has already attracted interest from the Knights and Dolphins.
While Hetherington faces an uncertain future, Naden wasted little time in sorting out his after he inked a deal with the Tigers until the end of next season. The paperwork was only finalised just before the 4pm deadline the club’s have in order to submit their teams for this week’s matches.
He was named in the Tigers extended squad on Tuesday afternoon and is in line to play the Bulldogs on Friday.
Naden, who is close friends with Tigers fullback Daine Laurie, is expected to train with the squad for the first time on Wednesday after his new side had Tuesday off.
The Tigers tried to land Naden last season but he opted to join Canterbury largely based on his relationship with Barrett. His name had been mentioned as a possible mid-season recruit in recent weeks but the move only took shape on Tuesday.
Tigers coach Michael Maguire said Naden’s arrival was exciting for the club.
“Brent is a quality player and will be a welcome addition to the group of players we already have at the club,” Maguire said.
A mass of players including Tevita Pangai Jnr, Jeremy Marshall-King, Joe Stimson, Matt Dufty and Paul Vaughan may be nearing exits from the club.
Ferris met with Bulldogs general manager Phil Gould to discuss his own future following Barrett’s resignation. It is understood the duo agreed it would be in the best interests of the Bulldogs for Ferris to leave the club.
Barrett recruited Ferris to join him at Belmore after the two worked together at the Manly Sea Eagles between 2016 - 2018.
Like Barrett, Ferris left the northern beaches club in 2018 and went on to join the Gold Coast Titans.
The close friends linked up again at Canterbury when Barrett hired the veteran trainer last year to lead the high performance unit.
Ferris has come under fire in recent weeks from former Bulldogs premiership winner Braith Anasta and club great Michael Ennis.
The duo have criticised the Bulldogs’ lack of fitness this season, citing it as one of the reasons the side is struggling in 2022.
Anasta said the Bulldogs had lost the steel and grittiness gained under iconic Canterbury trainer Garry Carden, who was punted from the club in 2020 after 37 years of service.
“We had Billy Johnson and Garry Carden flogged the ‘you know what’ out of us… they built that character, that Bulldogs trait, that Dogs of War. You were so proud to be a Bulldog, you wouldn’t let your mate next to you down. That’s gone, the DNA is gone.” Anasta said.
“When you’re a Bulldogs player and you have stepped into Belmore, you knew what the expectations of you were as a player on the field and off the field… tough, resilient, they wanted to break you.
“The second you got in there you were broken and if you didn’t turn up the next day that’s a good thing because you weren’t a Bulldog.
“The last five minutes of your game were as strong as your first minutes, in every game that we played back in that era. We followed off the backs of Kevin Moore, and (Steve) Folksy, and Terry Lamb.”
