Slated Boyd ready to fire
STATE OF ORIGIN Thaiday admits he has to make careful choices
“You don’t like to hear those things but to be honest, it just motivates me more.
“I’m not trying to make it sound cliche but there’s been a lot of talk around who should be selected (as Queensland fullback) and it’s out of my control.
“But the one thing I want to prove is that I can be the Queensland No.1 for the long term.”
Boyd, 29, said he had no ill-feeling towards Slater, who took an active role in educating the Broncos ace last year when invited into Camp Maroon as an assistant coach as he recovered from injury.
With Slater watching from the coaching box, Boyd went on to win the Ron McAuliffe Medal as Queensland’s player of the series and he insists he is not the finished article at Origin level.
“I want to better what I did last year,” said Boyd, who equals Slater with his 27th Origin game tomorrow.
“I like what I bring to a team and I’m challenging myself to do it again for Queensland.
“There’s no issue with Billy. He is a legend of the game and I understand why people are shocked that he didn’t get picked.” @EmmaGreenwood12 SAM Thaiday has opened up about the hurt caused to his family following his controversial comments on The Footy Show television program.
Thaiday’s poor attempt at humour on the show’s “player probe” segment – in which he said actor Halle Berry was his first crush during a “jungle fever” phase before he “figured out if it ain’t white, it ain’t right” – sparked a furore on social media, with the veteran Maroons forward forced to apologise for his racist comments.
Dumped as an ambassador for the Deadly Choices program run by the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health and pilloried in the media and the court of public opinion, Thaiday has paid dearly for his choice of words.
And he’s willing to live with that. “At the end of the day, I’m not going to change myself and that’s the person I am,” Thaiday said.
“I know who I am, I know where I come from and I just have to be a little bit more careful with the choices of words that I use.
“I’m trying to put those things behind me. I’ll continue SAM THAIDAY to help out my people as much as I can on a different level and that’s all I can do.”
But it was the blowback from the indigenous community – many of whom had not even seen the segment – and the comments aimed at his family that hurt the most.
“Some of the things that were said to me were very hurtful and to be honest, the hardest thing was probably on a personal level for my family - my wife, and when my children were brought into certain things and my mother and father,” Thaiday said.
“That’s probably the toughest part about it all.
“I’m big enough and ugly enough to handle myself and I know what this industry involves and what comes with the territory of being a professional football player but my family never signed up for those sorts of things.”
While he will “live and learn”, Thaiday’s focus is now the monster Blues pack chosen for Origin I.
“It’s a young, big, aggressive pack that are going to be ready to handle whatever the Queensland team are going to toss up to them,” said Thaiday, who will add much-needed experience off the bench for the Maroons.
“Everyone knows that’s where big games are won, through the middle of the field.
“It’s going to be a fantastic challenge.
“I think what you get from experience is you know when to inject yourself into the game – you know when the moments are there to grasp and take.”