Star New Zealand Warriors halfback Shaun Johnson has revealed he almost put pen to paper with the Canterbury Bulldogs before his return to Auckland.
Johnson, who originally left the Warriors at the end of the 2018 NRL season, spent three years with the Cronulla Sharks, struggling with injury at the back-end of his stint with the club before being told he wouldn't be re-signed.
The halfback had struggled to make a major difference on the Shire, with the Sharks electing to bring in a new coach in Craig Fitzgibbon, and a new star halfback in Nicho Hynes, who they snagged from the Melbourne Storm in one of that year's biggest signing coups.
Hynes would go on to drag the Sharks into the top four on the way to taking out the Dally M Medal, even if the men in black, white and blue were bounced out of the finals in straight sets.
Johnson, who returned to the Warriors in 2022 during the toughest period of the club's history as they were dragged away from home to play in Australia during coronavirus, struggled during his first season back in Auckland, before flourishing under Andrew Webster in 2023 as the Auckland-based outfit made the finals in a major shock.
Johnson though told Fox Sports' Face-to-Face that he had been just days away on putting pen to paper with the Canterbury Bulldogs.
โI came back to NZ to sign the (Bulldogs) contract with my manager. That was literally what was happening," Johnson said on the show.
โI then got a call from a mate who said that (team owner) Mark Robinson wanted to have a chat.
โWe then had a game of golf and I walked off that course thinking โWhat? Really?'. I rung my manager and asked what was going on.
โThe next day I had re-signed with the club.
โI rang the Bulldogs and said, โI'm so sorry'. Because it was close, it was really close.โ
In a move that has paid dividends for the Warriors, Johnson has once again become the face of the club that he started his career at.
The Bulldogs, on the other hand, have struggled from hurdle to hurdle in recent years, and are yet to escape the bottom four as yet another rebuild under director of football Phil Gould and head coach Cameron Ciraldo takes place ahead of the 2024 campaign.
