Wallace keen to learn from his Origin heroes
JARROD Wallace believes he can take his already improved game to another level after receiving a tantalising glimpse at his Origin future.
Officially Queensland’s 18th man after Johnathan Thurston’s withdrawal earlier this week, Wallace will warm up with the team on Wednesday night and is within reach of his representative dream.
The Titans front-rower said the knowledge he was knocking on the Origin door had been driving him for the past six weeks and while he admitted to being slightly disappointed at missing selection, he believed the masterclass he will receive from his childhood heroes would further hone his skills.
“I’m only young and to come in here and learn off guys that have done it for 15 years and played at the highest level, I’ll take a lot of confidence and experience out of this and hopefully take it back and pass it on or just be better for my game,” he said.
“I’ll benefit from it definitely.”
Wallace admits he took a risk by leaving the Broncos to link with the Titans this season, hoping to show his worth as a starting player.
But he has made the most of his opportunities and has been one of the league’s form forwards over the past six weeks, averaging 130m and 31 tackles per match.
“I think it was a move that was going to be make or break for my career,” he said.
“I could have come down here and done what a lot of players have done in the past and got comfortable.
“I’d just signed a threeyear deal and I could have got comfortable and started playing rubbish footy.
“But I took it as a real challenge to get out of the shadow of the Broncs and get out of the shadow of the boys that I was always that step behind all the time and really become my own man and my own player and make a real dominant (player of ) myself in the NRL.”
A nervous Wallace sat “with my phone on my knee from Sunday morning until Monday” anticipating a call from Queensland coach Kevin Walters.
And while the initial news was not what he had hoped, Wallace’s glass-half-full approach has him ready to make the most of his chance.
“It’s a long series this year so anything can happen. It’s exciting just to be in here and training with them,” he said.
“To know that I was even in contention to be here was always exciting and I think that kept driving me over the last six or seven weeks, even when at club level we weren’t doing that good because of injuries.
“Obviously I was devastated I wasn’t going to get the chance (to play the series-opener) but I completely understood.
“With the guys that we’ve lost over the last year and with Greggy (Inglis) going down and JT now not being able to play, I completely understood that he wanted
to go with experience.”
But with his camp experience under his belt, Wallace knows he will be ready for the call when it does come.
“(Walters) said he always wanted me to come into camp just to get the feeling of camp and get amongst the boys so that if one day if I ever did play it wasn’t such a rude shock,” he said.
“Obviously there’s so much excitement and so much going on here it can overwhelm a player, so I think that was a really good idea.”
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To know that I was even in contention to be here was always exciting
— Jarrod Wallace