Munster’s heroics just part of the job

TONGA star Jason Taumalolo has hailed Kangaroos players for accepting arguably the biggest pay cut in rugby league history to stage their historic Test match next month.

Australia will face the Mate Ma’a for the first time after CAMERON Munster will do whatever it takes for Melbourne to win their NRL grand final qualifier against Cronulla, but the Storm playmaker is a reluctant hero.

Munster booted the defending champions into the final four with a last-ditch field goal for a one-point win against South Sydney but the 24-yearold says he’s no Cooper Cronk.

The ex-Melbourne halfback, now playing with the Sydney Roosters, relishes the pressure moments on the big Kangaroos players ticked off on having their $20,000 match payments slashed to under $5000 for the Test in Auckland.

There were fears the match would be called off due to high costs, but Taumalolo said the decision proved just how serious NRL players were about the game’s international growth. stage but says he prefers not to be the Storm’s money man.

“It’s big shoes to fill really with Cooper gone,” Munster said yesterday.

“He’s always loved those big moments and always succeeded when it comes to those field goals and big moments when we’ve needed it.

“Obviously I needed to step up once Coops left.

“We’ve got a young half in (Brodie) Croft so it’s something that I needed to take on board a lot more.

“It’s probably something I don’t want to do but I guess at

“For them to take a pay cut, for all the players to do that, it means a lot,” Taumalolo said.

“Not just to us boys who get to play against Australia – it means a lot to international rugby league. For them to do that, it’s going to go a long way to us bettering the international game.” the end of the day, it’s what’s best for the team.”

Munster said he didn’t train to kick field goals, unless a couple of strikes during the pre-match warm-up counted, and didn’t plan to change his preparation.

It was his second successful field goal this season after kicking his team home against North Queensland in round 12.

“I don’t practise at all,” he said. “I feel like if I practise too much, I end up kicking it to the right or left or into the crowd.

“I usually do a couple of field goals before the game,

The development comes a year after Taumalolo and Andrew Fifita controversially turned their backs on New Zealand and Australia respectively to pull on the Tongan red in the World Cup.

In doing so they also knocked back lucrative money. Kangaroos players pocketed usually in the warm-up. If I nail them then I’m on. If I don’t nail them then I tell Smithy (skipper Cameron Smith) or someone else to kick them.”

Meanwhile, Brisbane fiveeighth Anthony Milford will undergo his second shoulder reconstruction in as many years but is expected to be fit for the start of the 2019 season.

Milford will have the surgery this week after playing through the pain of a subluxation during the club’s doomed finals campaign.

The former Queensland playmaker suffered the injury – around $50,000 each for winning last year’s World Cup, while tournament surprise packets Tonga received only $500 a game. Now Taumalolo and his teammates will earn the same as the Australians.

“It’s probably the biggest pay Tonga’s ever received for a Test match,” he said. in which the joint pops in and out – in round 25 against Manly.

He suffered the same injury late in 2017.

The injury can take four to six months to heal and Broncos high-performance manager Jeremy Hickmans said he was confident Milford would be fit for next year’s season kick-off.

“He will need reconstructive surgery now and to undertake the associated rehabilitation time of about five months,” Hickmans said. “That should have him back on the field for the opening to the 2019 season.”