He came within an hour of quitting the Titans, but re-signed winger Antony Don is on the threshold of breaking a club tryscoring record set by an old mentor and teammate.
Don last week agreed to a new two-year deal and underlined his value to the NRL club with an opportunistic try double in Saturday's away loss to Parramatta.
He contorted his body in minimal space to score his first one and pulled off a 90-metre intercept for his second.
Don's brace took his career tally to 65, just two behind club record holder David Mead.
"I'm' good friends with David and he was a bit of a mentor for me when I was coming through," Don told AAP.
"He had a lot of experience and I didn't have any, so I've got a lot of respect for David and I'm a few tries off (him).
"Hopefully one day I'll be able to get past him, but when I do I'll be giving him a ring and letting him know, because I'm sure he rates himself as a finisher and I'd like to give it to him a little bit, just in friendly banter."
Don was poised to leave the Titans, for whom he has played since 2013, until they made a late offer.
"I always wanted to stay but in the industry we're in, you move on pretty quickly if the offers aren't there," Don said.
"On the last day we were pretty much going to leave and the Titans made an offer, (and) I thought I would stay.
"We got it done in the end and I always wanted to stay at the Titans, but it was looking like at one point I was going to move to Sydney,
"We were going to make a decision on Monday last week and we got (had) until about 5pm.
"We were going to leave and about four we got a deal done with the Titans, so it was very hectic, a lot of phone calls that afternoon"
"Emotions were running everywhere and there was a lot of thoughts going through my head and got some very good offers from a Sydney club, they were very professional in the way they handled it".
Don's double against Parramatta swelled his season tally to 13, one more than wing colleague Phillip Sami, who crossed once in Saturday's game.
"We're good mates, so there's a little bit of friendly banter," Don said.
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