The dream was almost over before it began for Josh Reynolds.
It was the last drill during a training session at Belmore in December. Club speedster Blake Wilson had managed to get on Reynolds’ outside.
“I tried to chase him down,” Reynolds said. “Then, bang!”
Reynolds’ hamstring had snapped. Again.
“I thought it was all over,” Reynolds said. “It hurt me because I’m a believer that you get out what you put into things. But I was giving it my everything. I’ve never wanted something so much in my life. Then bang! I just thought, ‘Why does this keep happening to me? Is there ever going to be a time when something doesn’t go wrong?’”
“A few people said to me after, ‘Oh mate, they’re the things you have to be careful of’. But that’s just not me. How do I not do that? I’ve always prided myself on effort. A part of me was thinking that if this is how it ends, at least I went down true to myself.”
Bulldogs veteran Josh Reynolds at a trial match in February.Credit:Getty Images
Most people, even some at Canterbury, believed Reynolds’ days as an NRL footballer were over. On Sunday night, an idea born while sunbathing on a beach in Dubrovnik in Croatia last year will become a reality.
From a $1000 a week train-and-trial contract to a minimum wage NRL deal. Reynolds will complete a six-year round trip, via Concord and Hull, back to his beloved Bulldogs.
“When I was in Croatia I was weighing up whether to retire or not,” Reynolds. “In the five years since I had left the Bulldogs, I had lost the love of it. I still enjoyed the game, but I used to love the game.
“I just wasn’t ready to give it up. I wanted that feeling again – that feeling that I’ve only ever felt in a Bulldogs jersey. I didn’t want it to finish like the way it was going to. I wanted to finish loving it.
Raymond Faitala-Mariner is the only player still at the Bulldogs from Josh Reynolds’ previous stint.Credit:Getty Images
“You remember, I was a lunatic, bro. You could see the love in how I played. I wanted to be able to tell my kids one day, ‘I finished loving it’. So to play first grade again for the club that I love so much, it’s surreal to me.”
Only Raymond Faitala-Mariner remains at the club from when Reynolds left. Many of the old boys, including James Graham, Michael Ennis and Josh Morris, have been supporting Reynolds in the background.
“They were always checking up on me because they knew what it meant to me,” Reynolds said. “They saw how I left and knew how devastated I was. They could see it. I’ll never forget what James Graham said in his speech [offering to take a pay cut to keep Reynolds at the club] when I was leaving.
“And to be honest, I was doing it a bit for them. They wanted one of us boys back there. A bit of them was living inside me through the journey. It was hard to think positive all the time when you didn’t know what the outcome was going to be. I questioned it a couple of times, but then I thought about why I was there.
“I’m loving it again. I’m doing more than that, actually. I worked really hard for this opportunity. I didn’t just rock up and get handed a jersey. I had to earn it. I had to earn the respect of my teammates. I had to earn the respect of the club again. Now I get the chance to repay them. I’m not going to let them down.”
Stream the NRL Premiership 2023 live and free on 9Now.
