Warrington Wolves star Thomas Mikaele has revealed that his contract at the club collapsed leading to his NRL return.
The prop left the club early in the 2023 season in great form as the Wolves enjoyed an unbeaten start to the campaign.
He joined Gold Coast Titans alongside Kruise Leeming after his Leeds Rhinos exit and prior to his move to Wigan Warriors.
However, lacking game time in the NRL, Mikaele returned to Super League and finished the season strongly.
It seems he was supposed to stay at the Halliwell Jones Stadium but this fell through and he has now joined North Queensland Cowboys on a developmental deal.
He explained on the club’s website: “It’s good. The boys have been telling me that it’s not too good. It’s been really good so far.
“It was a weird one. I have been waiting around. I thought I was going to head back to Super League and with Warrington but it fell through and then every other week it was a case of seeing in the news that I was going to end up here, there, this place, so me and my family didn’t know what was going on.
“Then the opportunity to come over here came up and me and my family wanted to stay in Queensland being from Queensland ourselves and we were happy to come up here but it has been a funny one.”
He did have huge praise for the impact playing in Super League had on him:
“I pretty much learnt everything in Super League. I learnt how to be a professional and everything from top to bottom. It sounds cliche, in my first few years getting games under my belt my mindset was that I was playing first grade but I slowly started to not enjoy it.
“For me going over to England was to find the enjoyment again, learn the game and find the enjoyment.
“At the start of the year I think I was scoring more tries than some of our backs which became a bit of a joke over there. Whether I score or not doesn’t matter, but as a forward it is nice to get over the line.”
Meanwhile, he also revealed a conversation with fellow new Cowboy and former Hull FC star Jake Clifford:
“We had a conversation early in the year in the UK. At the end of the conversation, we were saying hopefully we will see you back there and then next you know we are at the same club.”
