Shaun Johnson celebrates a try in the 2024 season. Photo / Andrew Cornaga / www.photosport.nz
On the last page of Shaun Johnson’s new book, Perspective, one comment stands out like a beacon.
As is typical in the acknowledgments section, Johnson thanks his teammates and his coaches, reserving special mention for Warriors mentors Andrew McFadden and Andrew Webster, and former Cronulla coach John Morris. But there is also particular praise for Sydney-based mental-skills guru Dan Haesler, who Johnson believes changed his career.
He first worked with Haesler at the Sharks in 2019 and 2020, then reconnected before his unforgettable 2023 season at the Warriors.
“Dan Haesler,” writes Johnson. “I feel like if I’d known you at the start of my career I’d have won three comps and would be an Immortal. Your advice became so pivotal to the way I viewed myself and my game.”
For anyone who has followed Johnson’s career closely, it’s a remark that resonates, because of the what-might-have-been aspect of his time in the sport. He was one of the greatest natural talents of the modern NRL era, someone who could actually do it all.
But there were as many downs as ups, and after playing in the 2011 grand final in just his 16th first-grade appearance, he never got to another one. As the book outlines, his first stint at the Warriors (2011-2018) coincided with constant flux.
Ivan Cleary’s exit. Brian McClennan was the answer, then 22 games later he wasn’t. Matt Elliott lasted barely 18 months. Andrew McFadden had less than three seasons, before Stephen Kearney was introduced as the new solution. The coaching upheavals were backgrounded by player turnover and periods of ownership drama. All far from ideal.
But Johnson is also brutally honest about his own shortcomings – refreshingly so for a sportsperson’s autobiography – in terms of delivering what the club needed from a halfback and achieving the necessary growth and leadership. It begs the obvious question: Did Johnson fulfil his potential?
“I’ve never answered this question,” Johnson tells the Herald. “I don’t know if I can because there are so many ways I could skin it, right?”
As he points out, he was told as a youngster he would never make it in league, and even when he signed with the Warriors academy a few years later, he was a 68kg lightweight who felt completely out of his depth. But he persevered, becoming the face of the Warriors and playing 268 NRL games, with 30 tests, even if there were only five finals campaigns and the ultimate premiership success eluded him.
“I’m a firm believer that everything played out as it was meant to,” says Johnson. “Whatever dark times there were, it was all a part of the story. So I’m content.”
For all the debate about his career, Johnson finished as a Warriors legend, with his 2023 campaign one of the best individual seasons in club history. As he points out, he also avoided any scandal or off-field headlines during his career – remarkable given his profile – which he credits to his support circle and which has enabled him to make an effortless transition into retirement, thanks to the strength of his brand.
Co-written by Scotty Stevenson, Perspective is a cracking read. It details Johnson’s journey from a Hibiscus Coast touch football prodigy to the Warriors, which was far from straightforward. The car fridge installed by his dad (for pre-and post-training fuelling), his under-20’s success, his “embarrassing” defensive ability and the sharp words from early coaches that kept him on course.
The surreal 2011 introduction, the regret over McClennan’s departure, the anger over Elliott’s exit, the early clashes with McFadden, which he put down to immaturity. What makes the book is Johnson’s candidness, with no sugar coating here.
“I was the halfback of the team,” Johnson says now. “I had responsibilities that come with it. I was entrusted by every coach that walked through the door to help deliver whatever it was they were presenting, you know? I’m not saying I’m the only reason it wasn’t successful or we weren’t successful. But I played my role in both sides of it.”
In the book, Johnson admits that in the early years – 2013 and 2014 – he had the “opposite of a growth mindset” and that he wasn’t a leader.
“I was just a guy who had some talent and relied on that to get him to where he was,” he writes. ”Everything good about my game was physical. There was nothing mental to go with it.”
Johnson is also honest about his struggles with social media criticism, given his career ran in parallel to Twitter’s rise. In the book, he oscillates between using it to connect with fans and withdrawing completely when the negativity became too much. The abuse was horrible at times – “words carry weight” – though there was always a sense that he allowed it to derail his passage more than it should have.
But from a journalist’s point of view, Johnson was generally great to deal with: available, honest and effusive. Over time, he would realise there was a “dark side” to the media – “some things that were written were so inaccurate, just bullshit” – but he embraced that side of the job.
One of the biggest flashpoints of his journey was his shock Warriors’ exit at the end of the 2018 season. Again, it is covered in rich detail, and Johnson doesn’t try to paper over cracks or revise history. It becomes apparent how his relationship with Kearney began to break down at the start of that campaign, when he was left out of the leadership group.
“That snub stayed with me throughout most of the year,” he writes.
There were more twists and turns, before chief executive Cameron George’s ill-timed comments in a Herald story by David Skipwith, while Johnson was in England on tour with the Kiwis, which started the downward spiral between him and the club. The chapter makes for riveting reading, and even now, some elements are hard to believe.
“How bizarre to think that in the space of a few short weeks, a lifetime’s work was reduced to a brief media circus, and a short kiss goodbye,” concludes Johnson in the book.
But there was a happy ending. The time at the Sharks was beneficial – for personal growth, for the birth of his first child with wife Kayla and for the association with Morris and Haesler – before his return to the Warriors, the genesis of which is parlayed in fascinating detail, from the round of golf with owner Mark Robinson, the clandestine meeting with Phil Gould to the healing phone call with George, where both men confronted old scars and agreed to move on.
At the end of Perspective, it’s hard to view Johnson’s career as anything but a triumph, despite the enduring frustrations and the what-ifs, from his internal struggles to the horrific 2015 ankle injury.
Johnson may not have achieved everything he strived for – or everything that we hoped for – but the memories he made will live on for generations.
Michael Burgess has been a sports journalist for the New Zealand Herald since 2005, covering the Olympics, Fifa World Cups, and America’s Cup campaigns. He is a co-host of the Big League podcast.