Chad Townsend has revealed the Gold Coast Titans made a play for him when he was granted a release from the Warriors midway through last year.
Townsend could have lined up against his now Sharks teammates this weekend, however his desire to move back to Sydney was cause to decline Gold Coast's offer.
"Basically at the start when I went to the Warriors and said I'd like to move back to Sydney, I had a couple of offers from some teams and I had an informal chat with [Titans assistant coach] Rohan Smith," Townsend said.
"I'm pretty close with Rohan. He spent one season as an assistant coach at the Warriors and he just asked me what I was doing. I told him my preference was to move back to Sydney and that's about as far as it went."
Townsend believes his return to the Sharks was the right move for him after a two-year hiatus.
"Since I have come back here, I've just been trying to work really hard on getting my hands on that number seven jersey and when I did, I didn't want to look back," Townsend said.
"I'm in a pretty good place at the moment. I'm enjoying my footy and I'm enjoying this bunch of boys that we've got here. We've got a lot of potential and I'm just really enjoying myself."
Townsend's combination with fellow newcomer James Maloney has been one of many highlights for the Sharks in 2016.
It showed in Cronulla's 34-26 win over the Wests Tigers on Saturday afternoon, it being just the fourth time the Sharks have scored over 30 points since the beginning of 2014.
"[Maloney has] a wealth of knowledge and a wealth of experience. He's played Origin and played in grand finals. People go through their whole careers without playing in those games," Townsend said.
"For him to have that experience is something that I really draw from him. I ask him a lot of questions and we talk about footy throughout the week.
"It's definitely a positive sign for us as halves, to be putting on tries and scoring 30 points, it means what we're doing is working.
"If we can stick to it, who knows what's going to happen down the track? It's definitely a positive sign pretty early on in the season."
Townsend didn't shy away from the Titans task at hand though, with the two clubs set to do battle on Sunday afternoon.
"They have a good mix of some young fellas that are playing really well and some older heads there in Greg Bird and my old mate from the Warriors Nathan Friend," Townsend said.
"There's been a bit of banter between [Friend] and myself. We got on really well over at the Warriors and we did weights together so I'm looking forward to playing against him on the weekend."
