Mt Smart be Damned, Mt Dumb More Like
6The stench given off by the Cameron George and the NZ Warriors in instigating the departure of Shaun Johnson is so pungent it makes a Rotorua sulphur lake smell like a rose garden.
Announcing that your marquee player is no longer a solid part of your organisation’s long-term plans without first informing him of your intention would be bad enough were said person living in the same postcode.
Doing it as actually happened when the guy is away over on the other side of the world playing for the national side is downright injudicious, extremely unprofessional and callous. Yet that’s the basic facts of how the NZ Warriors started the process which now sees Shaun Johnson actively on the lookout for another NRL club. And what’s even worse, the way things have played out, the overwhelming perception is that it was a decision taken almost with a kind of relish by Cameron George and the club.
In the manner of what a small boy said to ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson after the betting fraud of the 1919 Baseball World Series, regarding the way the Warriors have gone about casting Johnson off: ‘Say it ain’t so, Cameron’.
Are those guys for real? And just to put the metaphorical boot squarely into Johnson’s ribs that bit more, they at first said he would not be granted an early release from his contract. After telling him he wasn’t a part of their long-term plans. Nice one.
And this morning came the vindictiveness- ‘Shaun Johnson is being released as he is no longer a person who fits in with the Warriors values or culture’. In fact, that quite possibly translates to ‘Shaun Johnson is too good a player to be wasting his time playing for a wildly inconsistent team with delusions of a championship’.
If there is no other reason coming to light for all this petty vitriol from George and his club at Johnson, such as he already began engaging in secret talks mid-year with another club, or clubs; then those running Penrose HQ are arrogant, self-important buffoons. How else to judge their bolshiness if there are no extenuating circumstances in this?
And it’s a bit rich to single out Johnson for the Warriors’ shitty seven-year malaise. He’s had so many different partners in the halves. He’s an often extraordinary player, not a miracle worker. And a guy who’s short passing game has been unfairly under-rated.
Nearly all of the great Rugby League halfbacks were borne from great combos: Stirling and Kenny, Mortimer and Lamb, Stuart and Daley, Langer and Lewis/Walters, Cronk and Finch/Widdop. Shaun Johnson never really had a dog’s show. Especially in being consistently cast to the wolves by poor recruitment and a perceived unsupportive hierarchy.
Correspond @: talltree@xtra.co.nz (Paul Montague)
Hey, hang on a second here. Give me a damn break! it’s a pretty tenuous claim that the Warriors’ actions are all fine even if they did actually inform Johnson before going to Britain that he wasn’t considered as a long-term prospect.
Either way, the way the decision was taken was still classless and shoddy- give me an answer for how the hell Johnson was supposed to keep his mind on playing well for the Kiwis after that? I believe the club made up its mind sometime ago that it didn’t want him.
He is a scapegoat (as Graeme Beasley has stated). And you can’t blame Johnson for all the poor forward pack efforts over the years- Brian McClennan has talked about this before. Is anyone prepared to argue against an ex-Kiwis coach?? Last season the club finally started getting serious about this deficiency, but Johnson has long since been type-cast as the villain of the piece whenever the club goes on a run of defeats.
Look at the disgusting way thus far Cameron George and the club have ‘thanked’ Johnson- a terse, bordering on vindictive, ‘He doesn’t fit in anymore with our culture and values’. Of what, exactly? Mediocrity?! What hogwash and real slap in the face. He has been an exemplary Warrior- he has gone to countless schools with genuine enthusiasm or shown up unannounced to help out with junior rugby league.
Cannot get my head around the rationale of those saying there’s no problem with the way SJ has been treated. Just what part of ethics is a foreign concept in your world?
To clarify: The above reply was in relation to some comments I saw from a sportsfreak reader on Wednesday evening. Just exercised my right of reply via this forum.
Do get a wee bit grumpy at times. Esp where ethical issues are concerned. Forgive me.
My absolute final thought: I’ve said it before…I know it’s the way professional sport operates nowadays, but I don’t have to bloody well like it. I’d rather be a voice speaking out any day of the week.
A confidant that has never let me down thus far strongly suspects that the Sharks will table a 3-year deal for SJ, but that he and his manager Peter Brown will probably push for a one-year contract, as the ultimate goal is for him be at the Roosters sooner rather than later…
Aha, well that was wrong- no one-year deal after all! Guess the Sharks didn’t budge on 3 years. But they have salary cap problems and have just laid off staff so who knows what their balance sheet will look like.
And looks like David Skipwith may have got his info from the same source I did (in reality possibly not, but..!) Been some good stuff from DS though.
https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/weekend-herald/20181201/282149292377323