NRL 2020: How Shaun Johnson-Warriors divorce ended up working for both parties
For eight years the Warriors pinned their hopes on Shaun Johnson leading them to the promised land. When it didn’t happen, an uncomfortable divorce eventuated. Now it’s Cronulla’s turn.
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Shaun Johnson sat down at an Auckland cafe as a Warrior of eight years.
As he stood to leave half an hour later, those at the table knew the former Golden Boot winner had played his last game for the club.
Former Warriors coach Stephen Kearney, Warriors CEO Cameron George, club recruitment manager Peter O’Sullivan, Johnson and his agent, Peter Brown, were seated across from each other. The meeting, in November 2018, was tense and emotional as both sides shared honest views, with Johnson making it clear to management he wanted an immediate release from his contract for the next season.
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Johnson and Brown arrived at the cafe having already been informed by O’Sullivan and George that the Warriors weren’t willing to offer their highest-paid player a contract extension beyond the 2019 season until they saw something more from him.
Given their massive salary cap investment in Johnson, the Warriors powerbrokers wanted him to play with a greater level of leadership, marquee-level influence on games and with consistency in appearances and performances.
While not pointing the entire blame on Johnson for the club‘s faint pulse over the past eight Septembers, they made it clear they expected the Warriors to play finals footy in 2019.
Without a ready-made halves replacement for 2019, the Warriors initially rejected Johnson’s request in the cafe to leave the club immediately.
But everyone knew the relationship that had catapulted Johnson’s name and image into homes and up on billboards across New Zealand over the past eight seasons had reached its expiry date. So a few hours after the meeting, O‘Sullivan returned to Warriors HQ and phoned Brown to grant the release.
In a bombshell move, the Warriors’ favourite son confirmed via Facebook he was leaving the club to “spread his wings”.
Johnson‘s chance to fly past the doubters now falls at Cronulla.
Two years after what George describes as “one of the two toughest calls” of his tenure — the other being the sacking of Kearney earlier this year —- Johnson is in charge of steering the eighth-placed Sharks not just into the finals, but far beyond.
“I think it rests solely on the shoulders of Shaun,‘’ suspended Cronulla halfback Chad Townsend said.
“The consistency, the confidence he’s played with, if we’re going to have a good next three weeks, it’s going to be on the back of him.’’
Johnson, who turned 30 last Wednesday, has been named captain on Sunday night at Kogarah Oval — remarkably, the first time he has led a team at any club in his 194-game first-grade career.
Not unlike his 20 try-assists or pinpoint “rainbow passes” this season, the timing of Johnson’s elevation to skipper of the Sharks against the club that let him go — three weeks out from the finals and with Cronulla missing suspended premiership-winners Wade Graham and Townsend — is pure sports theatre.
Johnson, after missing the past two matches due to a hamstring injury, rejected an approach by News Corp this week to offer fans an insight into his intriguing journey from the Warriors to the Sharks.
But George says it was a “massive” decision that both parties would be happy with now.
“At the time, it was a huge decision for our club,‘’ George said.
“That and (sacking) Stephen (Kearney), by far the two biggest calls of my tenure.
“Shaun had been here a long time and it wasn’t just Shaun, but I think the time was right for a change in direction.
“I look back on that day and it was bloody hard to come and front it. Shaun was a big part of our club and a big part of our history.
“It was a decision that I had to front up, too, and I look back now and I probably didn’t appreciate how big a decision it was at the time.
“You all live and learn by things that many have been taken out of context, but at the end of the day Shaun is a champion bloke. There‘s no animosity whatsoever.
George said the decision to let Johnson go is evident in the rise of prodigious talent and playmaker Chanel Harris-Tevita’s influence on the Warriors.
“On the back of that decision, we’re seeing some really good progress in some tremendous kids we’ve got coming through our system and (Johnson) would be as equally proud in what we’re bringing through in Chanel and (halfback) Paul Turner,’’ George said.
“They’re our Shaun Johnsons of the future who are going to make their own name in our colours.
“The benefit of making those big decisions is the growth and progress of what we‘re seeing through our team now.’’
Warriors hail their Captain Fantastic
The leadership of Warriors captain Roger Tuivasa-Sheck to keep the transient club going this season has been described as “out of this world” by his Auckland-based boss.
While Warriors CEO Cameron George remains in New Zealand, Tuivasa-Sheck and the rest of the Warriors players and coaches have been based on the Central Coast.
The Warriors clash with Cronulla will mark 19 weeks since the franchise farewelled their family to set up life in Australia for the remainder of this season.
Aside from the personal pressures of being away from family, the Warriors players have also dealt with the sacking of former coach Stephen Kearney in June, a horrid injury toll and the need to borrow loan players to field a side each week.
However, the one constant has been Tuivasa-Sheck, who is the nominal favourite to be named the 2020 Dally M captain of the year.
“What defines a captain? Because he’s not just doing it on the field, either,’’ George said.
“He’s a huge part of the off-field scenario.
“I talk to him quite regularly and you get him in good and bad times, but he still has the focus at all times.”
Think about what the Warriors fullback has had to endure compared to his rivals this season off the field, but also on the field and particularly in his fullback position.
But that doesn’t seem to matter for Tuivasa-Sheck.
He has run for a competition-high 3622 metres and produced a ridiculous 77 tackle breaks.
“It’s like anything, if you’ve got stability and happiness and comfort and direction and certainty and all those attributes in your life, usually that’s when you will perform at your top,” George said.
“When you’ve been thrown that many curve balls as Roger has — and if anyone knows Roger, he’s the greatest family man you’ll meet.
“There’s nothing more in his world that means more to him than his partner Ashley and his two kids.
“And to be separated from that because of conditions that he and others have been bound by and then to go out and do what he does best, at the level he’s doing it at, it’s out of this world.’’