But for Haussler the move into the South West Queensland Thunder FC team has seen him end the season with the trophy for Most Valuable Player. Thunder contests the PS4 National Premier League second tier competition that under pins the A-League. It is the second highest league in Australia.

“Thunder is a Toowoomba based team, but we’ve got players from overseas and from a couple of players are from South Korea, New Zealand and half the boys are from Brisbane, so there is quite a good mix there and we had a really good team this year,” Haussler said.

He said his season with the Joeys had seen his fitness suffer and it took him a little time to recover his former level.

“As soon as I got that training into me, and (after) the first couple of games, I really played well towards the end of the season,” he said.

Thunder finished the season in eighth position in a competition with 12 teams.

“We did really well. We knocked off Cairns which made the grand final,” Haussler said.

“Basically it was a whole new team this year. We’ve got a good technical director from Brisbane, he’s from Italy, and he basically put all these experienced, older players in the team.

“It went from not winning a game the season before last to getting numerous wins and draws against teams that are getting a lot of money.”

Haussler said he had missed playing at a higher level during his time with the Joeys.

“I missed the hard training and I wanted to test myself again, and that certainly happened this year,” he said.