Chanel Harris-Tavita’s star showing as a five-eighth stand-in off the bench in the Warriors’ 20-12 win over Newcastle capped an admirable return to the club after getting away from the game for a year.
The former playmaking prodigy took the rare – and risky – step of a sabbatical at just 23 years of age, eager to experience life outside the NRL bubble.
After missing the Warriors’ remarkable 2023 ride, he was welcomed back to the fold this year and shapes as a key figure in their premiership drive.
Meanwhile, Taylan May is making a splash in the centre spot vacated by Stephen Crichton at Penrith, barely missing a beat after a torn ACL injury in the 2023 pre-season rubbed him out of the Panthers’ entire campaign – a prospect the Dolphins’ Tom Gilbert and the Cowboys’ Coen Hess are dealing with now.
Then there’s centres Bronson Xerri and Michael Jennings, on the cusp of returning to the NRL – at Canterbury and Sydney Roosters, respectively – following multi-year absences for performance-enhancing drug offences.
Check out the most notable instances of players sitting out a season (or more) only to return to rugby league’s premiership heights.
Wally O’Connell
Champion five-eighth O’Connell was among the first players to sit out a year of top-level rugby league on principle.
A premiership-winner and Kangaroo tourist with Eastern Suburbs, O’Connell spent 1949 in the Illawarra competition before accepting the captain-coach role at Manly.
But Easts blocked the transfer on residential grounds, unwilling to accept evidence he and his wife had made the move to the northern beaches.
Cooling his heels for the entire 1950 season, the former Test captain belatedly joined the Sea Eagles and led the club to a maiden grand final appearance (though injury ruled him out of playing) and regained his Australian jersey in 1951.
O’Connell hung up the boots at the end of the following season.
Kevin Schubert
Team of the 1950s hooker Kevin Schubert toured twice with the Kangaroos, firstly on the 1948-49 tour while playing in Wollongong, and later with the 1952-53 Kangaroos during his reign as Manly captain.
A veteran of 19 Tests for Australia, Schubert retired at the end of 1954.
But after just a one-year sabbatical and with the club short on hooking talent, Manly’s 1951 grand final skipper returned to club for one last season in 1956 that saw the Sea Eagles finish sixth.
John Wittenberg
Wide Bay product Wittenberg debuted for Queensland in 1962 and broke into the Australian Test team in 1966 from the town of Theodore.
But when he accepted a deal with 11-time NSWRL premiers St George for 1967, the QRL stood in his way.
Wittenberg opted to sit out the season – costing him a likely Kangaroo Tour spot.
The rugged forward eventually linked with the Dragons for three seasons from 1968, representing Australia in all three years.
Dennis Tutty
An 18-year-old grand finalist with Balmain in 1964, Tutty played his sole Test for Australia three years later.
But the back-rower’s impact on the framework of rugby league extended far beyond anything he could have achieved on the field.
Tutty sat out the 1969 season after the Tigers refused to place him on the transfer list and allow him to join Penrith.
He missed out on their famous premiership triumph and was also sidelined for 1970 as he took the NSWRL to court, which eventually ruled the league’s transfer system a restraint of trade.
After returning to Balmain for the 1971 season, Tutty was finally granted his release to play for the Panthers in 1972.
Ironically, he finished his career back with the Tigers in 1976 and coached their first-grade team in 1980.
Tutty’s commitment to players’ rights – at great personal and professional cost – has enshrined his place in rugby league lore.
The RLPA bestows the Dennis Tutty Award annually to a current player who has ‘demonstrated outstanding leadership on and off the field; commitment to their fellow players and to the advancement and protection of their rights; and service and dedication to the game of rugby league’.
Ken Thornett
Ken Thornett became known as ‘The Mayor of Parramatta’, such was the esteem in which the Eels faithful held the wonderful fullback.
He debuted in first grade in 1962 and inspired Parramatta to a maiden finals appearance after 15 fruitless seasons in the premiership.
The Eels qualified for the finals in the following three seasons with Thornett at the back. Despite playing in an era of illustrious custodians, including Les Johns, Graeme Langlands and Keith Barnes, Thornett played 12 Tests for Australia and toured with the 1963-64 Kangaroos.
But Thornett departed the club at the end of 1968 to concentrate on farming in country NSW.
Following their last-placed finished in 1970, Thornett came to the rescue of the troubled Eels at the age of 33 and inspired the side – coached by Ian Walsh – to their first finals appearance since 1965.
Thornett departed again at the end of the season and Parramatta slumped to collect the wooden spoon in 1972.
Bob Cooper
Part of the inaugural NSW State of Origin side, Western Suburbs hard-man Cooper became one of the faces of the NSWRL’s crackdown on violence in the game during the early-1980s.
Cooper’s role in a horrific brawl in a reserve grade match against Illawarra in 1982 saw him slapped with a record 15-month ban by the judiciary, rubbing him out of the entire 1983 season.
He played club Australian Rules to maintain fitness before returning to top-level rugby league with North Sydney in 1984, but Cooper made only a handful of first-grade appearances for the Bears.
Michael Potter
A desire to go out on top was behind two-time Dally M winner Potter’s decision to hang up the boots in 1993 just two days after his 30th birthday, when he skippered St George in its second straight grand final loss to Brisbane.
The respected fullback initially rejected Western Reds’ overtures to join the club for its 1995 premiership entry and settled into retirement.
But Reds coach Peter Mulholland persisted and the veteran headed to Perth, playing 21 games across two injury-hit campaigns for the doomed expansion outfit.
Gorden Tallis
One of the highest-profile pawns in the Super League-ARL struggle, St George back-row tyro Tallis signed with the rebel organisation and was set to join Brisbane in 1996.
But the court injunction that stopped Super League from going ahead that year forced defecting players back to their ARL-loyal clubs.
Instead of following the reluctant lead of Saints teammates Anthony Mundine and Noel Goldthorpe, however, Tallis chose to spend 1996 on the sidelines.
While he missed the Dragons’ unlikely charge to the grand final, the destructive back-rower made up for lost time by winning three premierships in the next four seasons with the Broncos and carving out a legacy as one of the greatest – and fieriest – forwards of his era.
Ian Roberts
NSW and Australian enforcer Roberts was a figurehead acquisition for Super League from ARL stronghold Manly during the 1995 signing frenzy.
The subsequent court ruling against Super League prevented Roberts from linking with North Queensland in 1996 and he sat out the season as the contract dispute played out, though his case attracted less attention than Tallis’ with Roberts also battling injury problems.
The stance potentially cost Roberts a premiership with the Sea Eagles, but he nevertheless made the move to Townsville and captained the Cowboys in 1997-98.
Paul McGregor
Paul McGregor was one of the finest centres of the 1990s, starring in 14 Origin matches for NSW and four Tests for Australia.
Big and powerful with excellent footwork and ball skills, McGregor was hampered by injury throughout much of his career – he never managed more than 18 first-grade games in a season during his decade with the Steelers and Dragons.
It was a shoulder problem that eventually forced his retirement from the game after captaining St George Illawarra in the 1999 grand final loss to Melbourne. But after a year out of the NRL, McGregor made a comeback in 2001, scoring seven tries in 17 games.
‘Mary’s’ experience was vital to the Dragons returning to the Top 8 after a disappointing 2000 campaign, and he hung up the boots for good after the club’s loss to Brisbane in the second week of the finals. McGregor subsequently moved into coaching as an assistant to ex-teammate Nathan Brown.
Todd Carney
Sacked by Canberra after a string of off-field atrocities, precocious half Carney was deregistered by the NRL for 2009.
His UK work visa was denied, preventing him from taking up a contract with Huddersfield, while he was also banned from hometown Goulburn for more alcohol-related mayhem.
Carney eventually spent the season in the obscurity of the North Queensland club comp, playing for the Atherton Roosters and working in the local pub.
Sydney Roosters offered him a lifeline for 2010, however, and he produced a Dally M Medal-winning season to inspire the previous year’s wooden spooners to the Grand Final.
Carney also scored 255 points for the Tricolours, made his Test debut for Australia and was named the RLIF Player of the Year.
The remainder of the playmaker’s career followed a similar rollercoaster pattern punctuated by misbehaviour away from the paddock, eventually ending his NRL career in 2014.
Dane Tilse
Two-metre tall prop Tilse made broke into the NRL with three appearances for Newcastle in 2004 but paid a heavy price for a drunken incident involving multiple Knights players in Bathurst during the following pre-season.
No official complaints were made or charges laid, but Tilse had his contract torn up by the Knights (who fined 12 other players) and was deregistered by the NRL for 12 months.
A repentant Tilse picked up the pieces in Canberra, playing more than 200 games in 10 seasons with the Raiders after linking with the club in 2006.
Ben Ross
Penrith premiership-winner and Queensland Origin prop Ross helped Cronulla to a preliminary final in 2008, but his career came to an abrupt halt courtesy of a serious neck injury suffered in the opening round of the following season.
Ross spent the rest of 2009 rehabilitating from the injury but was thrown a lifeline by South Sydney.
He was unable to get onto the field in 2010 and signed a clause-heavy extension with the Rabbitohs, playing every game for the club in remarkable 2011 comeback.
The veteran returned to the Sharks for the 2012-13 campaigns.
Justin Hodges
Test and Origin staple Hodges was at the peak of his powers when a ruptured Achilles cut him down during Brisbane’s 2010 pre-season preparations.
The gun centre missed the entire campaign – a somewhat overlooked factor in the Broncos missing the playoffs for the first time in 19 years.
Hodges made a superb return in 2011, regaining his Queensland and Australian spots and helping restore the Broncos to the top four, while he extended a stellar career until 2015 – retiring after captaining the club in the golden point grand final loss to the Cowboys.
Matt Lodge
Wests Tigers firebrand Lodge was arrested and charged with assault in New York City in late-2015 in one of the most alarming off-field incidents in NRL history.
Lodge spent 2016 in rugby league purgatory but spent the following season with Queensland Cup outfit Redcliffe Dolphins, before being controversially snapped up by Brisbane for 2018.
After four seasons with the Broncos, Lodge has had a nomadic period encompassing tumultuous stints at the Warriors, Sydney Roosters and Manly.