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Kennel Legend
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- Aug 28, 2010
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HOW CLOSE BARRETT CAME TO SNARING SHARK
—Michael Carayannis
When Trent Barrett made his pitch to lure Sifa Talakai to the club he purely spoke about football. How Talakai plays and the direction the Bulldogs want to head. Despite being impressed by Barrett, Talakai opted to remain at Cronulla for two seasons. Canterbury fans will get a first hand look at what they missed out on when Talakai lines up against the winless Bulldogs for Cronulla on Saturday.
“All we spoke about was footy,” Talakai said. “There was nothing like ‘if you come here we will give you this’. It was just general conversation. Just about footy in general and me as a player. He is a top bloke. I didn’t see myself leaving Cronulla. In the space of a year this has become pretty much home.”
The Bulldogs hope to snare another Shark after The Daily Telegraph this week revealed their interest in Toby Rudolf.
The meeting with Talakai happened earlier this month when he was still recovering from a serious shoulder injury. Just six weeks ago he could not lift his right shoulder above his head having had off-season shoulder surgery.
The back-rower was supposed to miss just the opening two weeks of the season when he first went under the knife last year but suffered a serious setback.
“My shoulder froze,” Talakai said. “It was stuck and I had no range. It was terrible. I remember thinking with this range how am I going to get back on the field, it was going to take months.
“Before I had the second surgery I was told I had to do a lot of rehab and stretching. It was frozen so I had to stretch it every day consistently. They thought it could free up anytime – next week or in months. But it wasn’t progressing.”
Talakai started fearing the worst. He had only just resurrected his career last year but was now unsure if his mobility would return and was worried about his future given he was off-contract at season’s end. A conversation with the Sharks’ medical staff led to another operation which turned out to be success.
“I was nervous,” Talakai said. “I was getting worried. At times it was frustrating being off-contract, thinking about it all. I knew once my shoulder came good I was going to be sweet to come back and play. There were tough times. Pre-season felt like it kept going and going.”
Talakai was originally slated to return this week but came back ahead of schedule to play against the Knights last week.
“I blew out pretty early and tried to hang on,” Talakai said. “The coach wasn’t looking for too much of a stint but just wanted me to get my feeling on the footy again. It was good to be out there.”
