He became the sacrificial pawn in Parramatta's salary cap crisis and the centre of the media storm that followed and now all Nathan Peats wants to do is to get back to playing football.
Peats has been named to make his debut for the Titans against Penrith on Sunday, just seven days after leaving the Eels behind and relocating his young family to the Gold Coast to start an 18-month contract.
When rumours started to circulate last Tuesday that Peats could be the man to be moved on the 25-year-old bravely fronted up for a media call that afternoon and 48 hours later appeared on NRL 360 to confirm that he was in fact leaving the Eels to join the Titans.
Titans CEO Graham Annesley was waiting at Gold Coast airport along with a media scrum on Sunday when Peats landed in Queensland and as he fronted local media for the first time on Thursday said he was eager to move on from a whirlwind 10 days.
"It's been a bit chaotic the last week, especially down in Sydney. It's a lot worse down there than it is up here," Peats said.
"Meeting me at the airport, I've never really had that before, the CEO being there.
"I didn't realise how nice everyone was up here so it was a bit of a shock to the system for me and my partner because we're not used to having the red carpet rolled out and people meeting us like that.
"It's been a tough week moving everything up, it's not easy moving from Sydney to Gold Coast but got it all sorted now and put it behind me.
"The family is happy, I'm happy and hopefully some good performances on the field will keep me happy.
"Just looking forward to playing some footy this weekend and hopefully doing a job for the Titans."
Peats, whose father Geordi lives on the Gold Coast and is a former first grader with Canterbury and South Sydney, admitted that he hadn't looked at the Telstra Premiership ladder before arriving on the Gold Coast.
If he had he would have seen that going into Monday night's game at the Roosters at which he was present that the Titans had slid down to 13th position on the back of a five-game losing streak, making the 26-6 win even more important.
"I didn't realise how the ladder was at that stage, I don't really look at it too much," Peats said prior to his first field session with his new team.
"I had a little glance and thankfully the boys won otherwise we would have been down the bottom a bit more.
"We needed the two points there and now we've got a tough game on Sunday against Penrith. If we can get the win there it would be really important for us going into the bye.
"I don't really look at the ladder or the draw to be honest, for any team, even when I was at Parra.
"I just had a little glance after we won [on Monday]. I knew we were only two [points] out of the eight but that's how close the competition is at the moment.
"You lose there and we're only on six points so it's put us in a position to be closer to the eight and we need to win again this weekend."
Chris McQueen spent three years playing alongside Peats at the Rabbitohs from 2011-2013 and said the Titans have inherited a player who will contribute greatly to developing a winning culture at the club.
"I've played plenty of footy with 'Peatsy' and he's a great bloke," McQueen said.
"I'm not too sure how long it's going to take for him to fit in and get a start in the team but he's a quality player so the sooner the better I guess.
"He's probably one of the most competitive players I've ever played with. Hates losing, which is great, it's the sort of player that we need here and he's still young.
"He's 25 and still got a lot of footy in front of him so to pick up someone like that is a really good buy."
Video first published by titans.com.au
