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Canberra's John Bateman says he is ready to go home to England. He misses his family.
There have even been nights when he has discovered old letters from his mother and burst into tears.
Not even interest from six rival NRL clubs was going to keep him in Australia and stop him re-signing with Super League heavyweights Wigan.
Canterbury basically handed him a blank cheque and told him to name his price but he still wasn't interested.
"I'm ready to go back,'' the Raiders back-rower told the Herald.
"When I was about to head to Australia in January, if someone had said, 'you won't be seeing your family for another 10 months', I wouldn't have got on the plane.
"I've lost three grand finals with Wigan in England and I've never kept a medallion,'' he says.
"I never kept my medal after the World Cup loss. I've given them all to my grandmother [Pat] and she loves them. She came over for the grand final last year and I gave her my medal after the game. She said, 'keep it', but I said, 'I don't want it'.
"Nobody remembers second.
"My grandmother now has more losing medals than I do winning medals, which doesn't sit too well for me. I play to win. Everyone does. We need to go one better this year. That's when I want to play my last game here.
"What we went through last year, it killed a few of us. We've got the team to win it this year. We're a team who wants to win it.''
Club bosses of all colours watching the action at the Sydney Cricket Ground will need little reminding of why Bateman could have been such a gun for another few years in the NRL.
The Bulldogs, who were the front-runners for his signature a few months ago, signed fellow Raider Nick Cotric and had fellow Brit Luke Thompson on the books.
"I was pretty close to signing with Canterbury,'' Bateman said.
"We kept going back and forth with money and it got to the point where they basically said, 'tell us what you want'.
"I take my hat off to [chief executive] Andrew Hill, he's a great bloke and was clear on what the club wanted to do moving forward.
"You look at where they are now and people were saying, 'why would you want to sign there?'. Before I arrived in Canberra they had finished down the ladder [and missed their share of finals].
"I spoke with St George Illawarra and [recruitment boss] Ian Millward via Zoom. A few clubs came in late, just with inquiries, including the Broncos, Manly, Parramatta and Cronulla.
There have even been nights when he has discovered old letters from his mother and burst into tears.
Not even interest from six rival NRL clubs was going to keep him in Australia and stop him re-signing with Super League heavyweights Wigan.
Canterbury basically handed him a blank cheque and told him to name his price but he still wasn't interested.
"I'm ready to go back,'' the Raiders back-rower told the Herald.
"When I was about to head to Australia in January, if someone had said, 'you won't be seeing your family for another 10 months', I wouldn't have got on the plane.
"I've lost three grand finals with Wigan in England and I've never kept a medallion,'' he says.
"I never kept my medal after the World Cup loss. I've given them all to my grandmother [Pat] and she loves them. She came over for the grand final last year and I gave her my medal after the game. She said, 'keep it', but I said, 'I don't want it'.
"Nobody remembers second.
"My grandmother now has more losing medals than I do winning medals, which doesn't sit too well for me. I play to win. Everyone does. We need to go one better this year. That's when I want to play my last game here.
"What we went through last year, it killed a few of us. We've got the team to win it this year. We're a team who wants to win it.''
Club bosses of all colours watching the action at the Sydney Cricket Ground will need little reminding of why Bateman could have been such a gun for another few years in the NRL.
The Bulldogs, who were the front-runners for his signature a few months ago, signed fellow Raider Nick Cotric and had fellow Brit Luke Thompson on the books.
"I was pretty close to signing with Canterbury,'' Bateman said.
"We kept going back and forth with money and it got to the point where they basically said, 'tell us what you want'.
"I take my hat off to [chief executive] Andrew Hill, he's a great bloke and was clear on what the club wanted to do moving forward.
"You look at where they are now and people were saying, 'why would you want to sign there?'. Before I arrived in Canberra they had finished down the ladder [and missed their share of finals].
"I spoke with St George Illawarra and [recruitment boss] Ian Millward via Zoom. A few clubs came in late, just with inquiries, including the Broncos, Manly, Parramatta and Cronulla.
