The seeds of quite possibly the greatest individual revival of the NRL era were sown at a golf course that boasts one of the world’s best views of the Tasman Sea.
It took just 18 months for those seeds to burst into flower.
When Warriors owner Mark Robinson invited Shaun Johnson for a round at his favoured Muriwai course an hour out of Auckland, it was on short notice, mostly out of curiosity and with a small hint of trepidation.
“I never thought Shaun would ever be back at my club,” Robinson has said of those first, furtive meetings with the Warriors’ once favourite son midway through 2021.
“Experience to take the team around the paddock, not just raw talent”, was the gist of Johnson’s response when Robinson, the club’s mohawked millionaire backer, asked what the former million-dollar half would bring back to the club.
What Bulldogs boss Phil Gould, then a Warriors consultant and key figure in their negotiations with Johnson, would give for his experience and game management now.
Shaun Johnson is smiling again in 2023.Credit: NRL Imagery
In a revealing 2021 podcast with former Warriors teammate Isaac John, Johnson said he was “95 per cent on the way” to Canterbury until the Warriors weighed in. Gould’s pitch was, apparently, the clincher.
In the same chat, he spoke of a playmaking penny dropping during his time at Cronulla, learning the importance of patience and percentage plays from hard heads like Wade Graham.
Johnson’s first season back at the Warriors was miserable, mostly spent on the wrong side of the ditch and away from his young family due to COVID-19.
Plenty said the Warriors should push Johnson into retirement. The sentiment lingered, with some at the club feeling those playmaking lessons would never truly be learnt.
Shaun Johnson with his daughter after defeating the Cowboys earlier this year.Credit: NRL Photos
Not incoming coach Andrew Webster. Having worked with Johnson during his previous stint as a Warriors assistant, he rang the unhappy half a few weeks after being appointed as Nathan Brown’s long-term replacement.
While the rest of the rugby league world wondered what was wrong with Johnson, Webster told him. In the same breath, Johnson was also told he had not only a future as the Warriors No.7, but a clean slate.
Direction and clarity followed.
In the sheds after Johnson engineered a stunning 20-point comeback against Cronulla in April, and sealed it with a last-minute, 35-metre penalty goal, the 33-year-old summed it up.
“I’m just so happy bro [and] I love being happy,” said Johnson, pinpointing the most important facet of his career revival.
“I love that I get to go home and see my wife and daughter.”
Then came the second.
“The most common line I hear is, ‘You need to run the ball’,” he said.
“I’ll look at that and go, ‘What the f— do you mean? I’m not a front-rower’ … The positions Webby puts me in with our structure [are] where I can run the ball. It’s my choice if I want to run the ball, that fits our team.”
The facts and figures speak for themselves. Johnson’s 29 try-assists and 18 line-break involvements are the most of any NRL player this year, as are his total kicks (401).
The 12,496 metres those kicks yielded are the most by any player since Jarrod Mullen’s 2013 haul.
The real beauty of Johnson’s turnaround though is in the statistics. His average 18.4 tackles a game are the most of his 13-year career. His 1.7 missed tackles a game are the least.
“He has a 92 per cent tackle efficiency – for a half, that’s phenomenal,” Wests Tigers coach Benji Marshall said of Johnson’s defensive improvement earlier this year, having already pushed to sign him on a two-year, $600,000 deal.
Former Kiwis teammates Shaun Johnson and Benji Marshall.Credit: NRL Imagery
Marshall is perhaps the closest comparison rugby league has to Johnson’s revival, one he expects will yield his former Kiwis teammate Dally M honours.
From freewheeling teen talent to an elder statesman of the game, Marshall worked his way back from five shoulder reconstructions, as well as being on the brink, before Wayne Bennett offered him a lifeline at, first, the Broncos in 2017, and then South Sydney four years later.
His recovery from the last of those shoulder operations in the summer of 2008, to be crowned the 2010 Golden Boot winner, is arguably Marshall’s most impressive short-term turnaround.
When Darren Lockyer retired in 2011, Gould recalled his mid-year slump in 2006, when he had written a column urging Lockyer to walk away from his Queensland jumper to salvage his form at Brisbane. By season’s end, Lockyer had won another premiership, Origin series and World Cup.
But neither Marshall nor Lockyer’s overhauls came from as far back as Johnson was last year. They didn’t rise in such unrecognisable fashion either.
It makes the view from Muriwai golf course that much sweeter.
