My hamstrings are still a bit tender after Xmas cricket so I will describe it
Shaun Johnson runs like a steady drumbeat on the ground thud, thud, thud, nothing fancy, almost boring. Defenders hear that rhythm and think they know exactly where he’ll be next.
Then, without warning, the rhythm breaks.
It’s like someone walking toward you and, at the very last step, not being where your hand expects. One foot plants hard — you’d feel it as a sudden stop of force, like a doorframe catching your shoulder — and the next step is gone. He hasn’t sped up. He hasn’t slowed down. He’s just… elsewhere.
To the defender, it’s the feeling of reaching out to grab an arm and closing your fingers on air. Your weight is already committed. Your balance is already wrong. Your body keeps going the old way while
SJ is already brushing past your hip. The magic isn’t power or speed, it’s timing. He waits until the very last heartbeat, until the defender is sure, and then removes the ground from under that certainty.
Shaun Johnson’s sidestep isn’t about moving fast.
It’s about making everyone else move wrong.
Case in point, his try against the Kangeroos, Wellington 2014.
Picture the moment before it happens.
The ball reaches
Shaun Johnson and everything feels tight — defenders close, space squeezed flat, the noise heavy and pressing. Australia are set. They think the moment is contained.
Then
SJ moves.
He doesn’t burst. He glides.
One step to invite them in — just enough to make the defence lean. You can almost feel their weight shift toward him, boots digging in, Cam Smith committing to a future that’s already wrong.
SJ’s hits the turf — sharp, final — and the world tilts.
The defenders reach for where he was. Shaun is suddenly brushing past their outside shoulders, so close you’d feel the rush of air as he slips by. There’s no collision, just a series of missed certainties. Arms scrape jersey. Hands clutch nothing.
Now there’s open ground, and you can hear it:
the sound changes.
Footsteps spread out.
The crowd’s noise lifts, pitch rising like a held breath breaking.
Greg Inglis lunges, desperate, off-balance, and Shaun swerves again, lighter this time, almost playful, like stepping around a puddle you noticed late.
Then it’s the line.
The grounding is clean, calm, almost casual — as if the chaos behind him no longer exists. For a heartbeat, everything stops. Then the eruption from the crowd comes crashing down.
That try isn’t remembered because of speed or strength.
It’s remembered because, for a few seconds,
Shaun Johnson rearranged reality and the Kangaroos were left chasing a version of him that was never really there.
- a sharp shift of pressure
- a vanishing point of contact
- followed by the sound of him accelerating away, footsteps suddenly lighter, quicker, retreating.
The magic isn’t power or speed — it’s timing. He waits until the very last heartbeat, until the defender is sure, and then removes the ground from under the opposition’s certainty