FORMER Castleford Tigers and Salford Red Devils winger Justin Carney is set for a new club after walking away from the final year of his contract with Albury Thunder.
Carney is being linked with a move to the Nyngan Tigers, but he has been playing with the Thunder in the Peter McDonald Premiership competition in 2024.
The hulking winger, who is now 35 years of age, walked away from the final year of his contract with Thunder to set up a return to the Tigers.
“I sat down with him a couple of weeks ago and we had a very good talk, a long talk and gave him a little bit of advice that family comes first and the club is bigger than the individual,” Albury Thunder president Herb Stratton told The Western Advocate.
“He’s done a great job and like me he’s big on culture. We made the finals this year and I thought we could have gone a little bit further but we didn’t.
“Reserve grade played in the grand final and the club is in really good stead.
“There’s some really good kids in the 18s coming through, there’s probably three or four who I think will play first grade. Overall he’s done a good job.”
In 62 games, Carney scored 63 tries for Castleford before being suspended by the club in August 2015 – the ‘Tank on the Flank’ did not play again for the rest of the season.
With his future at The Jungle up in the air, Carney joined Salford in November 2015 on a one-year loan deal, which was converted to a permanent three-year deal in April 2016.
After leaving Salford, Carney joined Hull KR for the 2018 season before retiring at the end of that year and returning to Australia, where he joined Nyngan Tigers as captain-coach for 2019.
He would then go on to join the Trangie Magpies where he played during 2022 before joining Albury Thunder as player-coach ahead of the 2023 season.
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