NRL: Once a Warrior, now Fien has place at top of table

Nathan Fien says being dumped by the Warriors was tough. Photo / Getty Images

Quiz time. Who said: "I'm still here with the Warriors until the end of the year. Hopefully I can get back into first grade and help the boys out and finish my time over here in New Zealand strongly."

Here's a clue. It was the same bloke who once said: "I accepted the apology the New Zealand Rugby League gave me at the time. But there's no denying it was tough personally, for myself and for my family."

The answer, of course, is Nathan Fien, the well-travelled North Queenslander for whom rejection and success seem to go hand-in-hand.

There has been no shortage of sports folk riding the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune of late; Tom Watson repelling the clinging hands of father time for 71 holes of a 72-hole golf tournament; Michael Owen going from the Newcastle scrapheap to banging in the goals for Manchester United; Stephen Donald transforming himself from incompetent plod to a serviceable international five-eighths in the space of a few well-struck penalty goals.

Those events, however, are mere blips. For Fien, turning rejection into a triumph is a way of life.

On the face of it, Fien seems a remarkably lucky bloke. Every time he is marched out a door, fate is waiting on the other side to offer him a new and more prosperous venture. Unwanted by Graham Murray's Cowboys in 2004, he happily packed his bags and headed for Auckland the following year.

So impressive was he in his early Warriors days that the Kiwis quickly came calling. Indecently quickly, as it turned out, given he was about as Kiwi as a wombat.

When Grannygate broke, Fien's international career looked likely to have ended at just one appearance against Great Britain in the 2006 Tri-Nations. That was, of course, until his recall for last year's World Cup.

Before setting off for the tournament, his parting gift from the Warriors was a DCM (Don't come Monday) from coach Ivan Cleary. Actually, it was more of a don't come back in 2010.

Given the 2009 season hadn't even started, Fien understandably deemed that decision a touch premature. He resolved to try to help the Kiwis win the World Cup and play well enough to force the Warriors into a rethink. Well, one out of two ain't bad.

"There's no use beating a dead horse; if you're not required you've got to move on," he said at the time. "Next year I'll be trying to play good footy and prove a point. Maybe they'll turn around and offer something."

Or maybe they won't. And maybe changes to Britain's tax laws with cut a hefty chunk out of that sweetheart deal you've lined up with Huddersfield? Where will you be then? One step away from the scrapheap is where. You'll have no choice, you'll have to make do with a three-year deal with the, er, Dragons. Poor bugger.

It was when that deal was announced that Fien produced his fight-for-my-place-until-the-end-of-the-season statement. He didn't, he said, want his final Warriors memory to be the 34-12 loss to the Cowboys.

Typically, it's unlikely that it will be. His early release means that he is back in town with Wayne Bennett's title-chasing fire-breathers. It is the Warriors who face being left with an unpleasant reminder.

Sometime on Sunday one of his former teammates will probably pick up Fien and try to dump him on to the turf of his former home. They might as well not bother - he'll almost certainly land on his feet.