Josh Reynolds has spoken on two grand final appearances during his time at the Canterbury Bulldogs, admitting it hurt him to never win one.
One of the club's favourite sons, Reynolds played 138 games for the Bulldogs between 2011 and 2017, before heading back to the club in 2023 for another seven games following ill-fated stints at the Wests Tigers and Hull F.C.
In the end, injuries got the better of Reynolds, who hung up the boots eight games short of 200 in the NRL.
While State of Origin in 2013 and 2014 were the highlights of his career, Reynolds also played in two grand finals for the Bulldogs in 2012 and 2014.
Speaking on the Unfiltered with Andy Raymond podcast, Reynolds revealed he was left hurt by the two grand final losses.
"For me, all I had to do was use my best asset, and that was run. Teams were too worried about him [Ben Barba], worried about James Graham, and then I'd just sort of sneak around the back and me and old Krippy [Kris] Keating would just do our best," Reynolds said on the club's 2012 season.
"We fell short. It's probably the one that hurts me the most, to be honest mate. You can't say we should have won, but that was the closest we were. We will talk about 2014 a bit later, but we just had such a good season.
"Melbourne just out-Melbourned us in the grand final. When you look back at it now, even though at that time it hurt me so much and I was like nup, we should have beaten them, we got beaten by a very good team, who knew, who picked us apart and read us like a book. That's footy, but it was still a great season."
Reynolds revealed that the 2012 grand final was also memorable for the crowd, and the fact he got to sing the national anthem in front of his family.
"Honestly, the thing for me away from footy was running out into that crowd. A sea of 75,000 Bulldogs supporters close enough. You know, like, I've never seen anything like it. Shivers.
"And you know the one thing for me that I always remember, super proud of. A lot of people would think it's not cool, but I'd never got to sing the national anthem in front of my family. I'd never played Australian Schoolboys, I'd never done anything like that, I'd never got to do that in front of a big crowd. And I just remember gazing across, seeing my family and I was crying just because I was so proud to do that in front of my family and represent everyone. It was a very special moment."
2014 would be Canterbury's other shot at a grand final with Reynolds in the team, but this time, they fell short against the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
Reynolds, who played through the pain of shoulder issues all year, said the club never actually should have been in the decider, but belief got them there after they finished the regular season in seventh before a grand final "set up for the Rabbitohs" saw South Sydney break the competition's longest premiership drought.
"My shoulders were absolutely gone. I'd had a really bad season with my shoulders, they kept popping in and out. Souths ran some traffic at me that's for sure, so I remember that, but yeah, we were in it up to our eyeballs. It was very, very close, but Souths just had some class," Reynolds said.
"Inglis, Reynolds, they just blew us off the park. There was one try there about 50 minutes in, we were down by maybe two or four. Then they scored one and then that was it. Floodgates opened and they were too classy.
"We probably didn't deserve to be there that year. We had come seventh. The thing I will say - the reason we got there was that we brought what we had from 2012 into that year. We had to play Melbourne in Melbourne the first semi and we blew them away. In a semi-final, we would have been at at least $5 [to win]. I just remember that game. Timmy Lafai was unbelievable. One of the best individual performances I've seen.
"We won that game and it gave us belief. We knew we could do it. We got to the grand final and it was made for Souths. They were ringing the bell before it. It hurts me that I didn't win a grand final. It's the one thing I didn't get closure on. Being in two makes it worse.
"It didn't happen, but I've still got some very fond memories of those two great years and I'll never forget them."
