Vaughan was named Newcastle Rugby League player of the year in 2009 after missing the previous two seasons due to consecutive major knee injuries.

He finished on 26 points in the vote tally, eight clear of his nearest rivals, Cessnock man mountain Sione Finefeuiaki and Wyong hooker Mitch Williams.

But Vaughan, who played with the Newcastle Knights in 2006 before joining Melbourne Storm in 2007, did not expect his stellar comeback season to attract offers from the NRL.

“I don’t think I am going to be getting any offers. It would be nice but I highly, highly doubt that would happen,” the 25-year-old said.

“I’ve re-signed with Macquarie for next year, and we’ll just try and have a better year next year than we did this year.”

Vaughan’s award and the continued strong performance of the club’s defending-premier reserves side, who will face South Newcastle on Saturday for a grand final berth, were rare highlights in a disappointing year for the Toronto-based Scorpions.

Despite high expectations after making the finals in 2008 and adding Vaughan and Kurri duo Daniel Stuart and Jacob Briggs, Macquarie missed the first-grade semi-finals in their 50th anniversary season.

They won their first three games but slumped to finish sixth.

“It’s just the way foot goes sometimes,” Vaughan said of Macquarie’s season. “Sometimes things that should have gone our way didn’t go our way, and then other times we just didn’t play as good as we should have played.”

As for his own revival, the rangy Sawtell junior said he had not performed well immediately upon his return to the Newcastle league, in which he had first played for Maitland in 2005.

“It took me a while to get back in the swing of things … just to get used to playing again, just the timing and all the rest of it,” Vaughan said. “It takes a while when you’ve been out for a couple of years.”