John Bateman was widely heralded as one of the best Super League players to make the move to the NRL when he left the Wigan Warriors back in 2018.
Named Dally M Second-Rower of the Year in the end-of-season awards for Canberra in 2019 was an incredible achievement in just his first year at the club.
But, then Covid struck. In a foreign country, thousands of miles from home, it can take its toll and Bateman announced he would be leaving Canberra at the end of 2019.
It was a decision that didn’t seem to go down too well with Raiders boss Ricky Stuart, but Bateman revealed that there was no bad blood between them.
The current Wigan forward has revealed just how ‘crazy’ the attention was in Australia.
“I loved it and if I’m honest it was probably bigger and better than I ever thought it was.
“It was crazy, it was like the Premier League over here. You see it from the outside over here but to be right in the mix of it was great.
“It was different for me living in Canberra. There, you’re not really local to anything like you are over here, so that was different and something I struggled with.”
Mr Adam Kennedy
May 7, 2022 at 8:09 am
The article says Bateman announced he’d be leaving at the end of 2019 because of COVID, but lockdowns didn’t start until 2020???