THE lure of playing under former Australian coach Ricky Stuart, a desire to remain in Sydney and the flexibility of a short-term contract were factors for sacked Bulldog forward Reni Maitua signing yesterday with Cronulla.

The Sharks were one of four clubs - along with South Sydney, Melbourne and North Queensland - interested in securing Maitua following his axing from the Bulldogs last month for his latest discretion at the club, missing a morning training session.

"There were a couple of reasons behind Reni's decision to go to the Sharks for one year," Maitua's manager Sam Ayoub said yesterday.

"Reni felt he would rather not disrupt his family life and personal life at this stage [by moving interstate], so he's just decided to stay in Sydney for another year - just at this stage obviously - and see how things pan out.

"Obviously Ricky Stuart was an influencing factor in his decision to go there. He feels his football will complement Ricky Stuart and Ricky Stuart's coaching, and he also feels they are going to have a very competitive side, which they will with the addition of Trent Barrett and Anthony Tupou.

"From that point of view Reni just feels it's a good move and he's good mates with Corey Hughes as well and a couple of the boys at Cronulla … but realistically it came down to footy and Reni felt the team, and Ricky Stuart, would be a good fit for him."

While Melbourne and North Queensland admitted they would have had trouble fitting Maitua under their salary cap, neither team made a formal offer despite expressing interest. Souths were considered the favourites to sign Maitua, a Souths junior, because of his friendship with fellow Bra Boy John Sutton and because the Rabbitohs had offered a three-year deal.

According to Souths, the latter was the problem. Maitua wanted only a one-year deal and Souths were not prepared to offer it. "In fairness to Souths they were fantastic throughout the whole process and we appreciated their interest as Reni did," Ayoub said.

"It was a tough decision for him in that sense. There was a stage there where he was almost leaning Souths' way, but he just felt at the end of the day he wanted to make the decision based purely on football and in his mind Cronulla was the better option as far as that was concerned.

"And that's with no disrespect to Souths because they have certainly got a side that will be very, very competitive this year and just reiterating, they were exceptional through the process, Russell Crowe, Shane Richardson and Jason Taylor were all fantastic and it was just a tough call."

After some turbulent times late in his career at the Bulldogs, the 26-year-old Maitua is looking to restart his football career with his new club, and hopefully rekindle his representative career also this season.

He has played one game under Stuart already when he represented Australia in the 2006 Tri Nations series, playing just one Test, against the Kiwis in New Zealand.

Sharks chief executive Tony Zappia said last night that while his club had been "in there fighting", they were far from confident of signing Maitua.

"The thing that probably swung it our way was he wanted to play under Ricky due to the discipline that Ricky has in place," Zappia said.

"We weren't confident at all. We felt that maybe [Maitua] getting out of Sydney was something which was certainly going to be in favour of the clubs outside Sydney, and being a former Souths junior we also thought he might want to go home. So obviously we're delighted with the decision he has made."