D'Arcy Waldegrave: Sportstalk host on Shaun Johnson announcing his retirement from rugby league

Warriors star Shaun Johnson has announced his retirement after 14 years are the top level.

The halfback will conclude his NRL and international career after the Warriors' final four games of the season.

Sportstalk host D'Arcy Waldegrave explains further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Darcy water Grave sports talk hosters and me, hey dars
hey here Shawn Johnson retiring. It didn't feel like it
shocks me, was it to you? No, he's gone through
and all that stuff up.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Well, you know, he had a great year last year.
He's probably got ripped off and didn't get the deli
em but that's the way the voting works. It might
have been a nice way to finish. But remember this guy.
I won the Golden Boot a few years ago. Based
international rugby league player. He's had a storied career. It's
been interrupted, it's been a little up and down. He
really has been. He's been the kind of character when

(00:31):
things go wrong, people love to kick him when he's down. Yeah,
he really tracks that because he's extraordinarily talented. He talks well,
he's not afraid of saying what he thinks. He's a
good looking bugger. Well there you go. I wouldn't say that,
but you can as a babe was a babe. A
babe Kayla might want to have words with you, but look,

(00:52):
he's had a great career and when he started playing
off back in the day, he was a touch rugby
player and all the werders like you should see this
Johnson kid out out of them all. Sure he is
something else and then the murmuring. So he started playing
for the Warriors as a junior. It's like, this is
the savior. This guy always thought he was a little
too small to be a half back and run over.
But he's much bigger now and he's developed.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
How old is he?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
I actually don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
That he does to be playing or was it just
because some.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Guys and girls playing for a very very long time
and you look at something like Brad Thorne. I think
he was seventy eight when he retired. They just don't
start there, but you get there. He's got a young family.
Rugby League's a hard game and you know what, I'm exhausted.
I'm like, I'm speaking for him. I don't know this what'
you're going to do? I'd say it ended up getting
into media. He might have been setting across from you

(01:42):
in a couple of years. Wow, you don't know. He's
well respected, he's well spoken, he's not full and he's
hot and he's hot. Yeah fine, okay, so you can
be on TV. That's a horrible way to go out, unless,
of course, he goes on a tear and the Warriors
when the next four or five game by one hundred
and then they get to this and then I.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Can give it up, mate, it's not going to happen.
It's over for them. Hey, Finn Butcher, what about this guy?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Was this?

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Was this a surprise?

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yes, I think that's fair enough. I spoke to him
on was it Thursday or Friday last week? And I
thought it was just like a soul on the earth.
What a good dude. He was really like kanak. It
was like, yeah, like the rolling, it's a bit of
fat and paddling. Oh gets a bit brutal. Said to
me in the kayak cross, you know, you can pretty
much do anything you want on the way down there,
it's like, you know what, like board the other kayak

(02:31):
is not that far. You can't hit people on the
face with your paddle, but otherwise you're pretty much And
I thought, I like you, you're raw. So yeah, when
he came through and me got out of the gate, quick,
quick man, whole shot. See you later, it's like, wow,
that lovely young man, the Butcher, as though I call him,
well n just predictable because his name's Finn Butcher. They

(02:51):
should have called him the carnivore.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
I'd rather you take a little further. Yeah, I can see. Hey,
what's gonna happen tonight we're gonna get Inny Medals?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Unlikely, But what we've got is qualifications, quarterfinals, seedings, heats
and the like for a number of different sports. Well,
I might be wrong. There might be a metal sport
that I've messed.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
I don't so Lisa Carrington, is that just is that
some sort of a heat or something?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Heat one.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Lisa Carrington is in the K four five hundred. She's
also in the K two five hundred and Amy Fisher
in the K two five hundred Heat three as well,
of course, so that's going to be great when it
comes to K one, those two going head to head
and hopefully they all get through. And it's some stage
earlier in the way, at ten past twelve I think
it is. We'll see Carrington and Fisher in the quarter

(03:38):
final of the five hundred women and the five hundred men,
potentially the quarter five for that as well. And that
the C twos, you know, the ones that on one
side with.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
The oh yeah, yeah yeah, we age paddle down one
side and then.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
And they're competing today as well, and we've got Ian
Ferguson joining us on Sports Talk tonight. Now, Ian Ferguson,
you talk about a paddling goat it. He'd be right
up there with all of those ruminants. He's something else.
The amount of medals that he won across I think
he had five Olympic Games tour. I'll say many many medals,
and we chat him about that, about Finn, about Lisa,

(04:15):
a whole lot of stuff, interesting kids stuff.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Thank you, dars appreciate it. Darcy Water.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Good to see your back.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Hi, Heather, Yes, hello, thank you. And I'm going to
tell everybody that it's just in cost of living crisis. Darcy.
We'll keep it a secret. Just to go to Singapore, though,
didn't I.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
On the fact that you're wearing a roll neck sweeter
so plainly you try to.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Make a Singapore temperature inside this jersey. No, I'm going
to have to talk about it.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
My bad. We made it up. She didn't go anywhere.
She's just been hiding.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Lying, Darcy. Thank you, Off you go. He'll be back
at seven for more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive listen
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