ARROW TO THE HEART
Titan and prop partner hold keys to maintaining dynasty
TITANS tough man Jai Arrow will make his State of Origin debut next week, but not for the team his proud father once hoped.
“Queenslanders can thank me,” mad Blues supporter Ray Arrow joked yesterday.
RAY Arrow jokes he will wear a bland winter coat to next week’s State of Origin opener.
The father of warrior forward Jai is a staunch New South Welshman. He was when playing as a tough lock or five-eighth for Greystanes in the Parramatta A grade competition many years ago.
“Queenslanders can thank me, I turned him into a Queenslander,” Mr Arrow jokes of Jai, who moved to the Coast from Sydney with the family aged six. Now 22 the granite-like Titan will make his debut for the Maroons off the bench in next Wednesday’s State of Origin match in Melbourne. He will be joined by another Gold Coast homebred, prop Jarrod Wallace.
While Arrow’s mother, Nicole Manson, still lives on the Gold Coast, Ray is on the NSW Central Coast and has already worn plenty of jokes from friends about supporting the Maroons next week.
“I’ve been asked that a lot today. I’m either going to move to America, or say rugby league will be the winner. That’s all I’ve got, I’m on the fence. I’ve been copping it from all my mates. But I’m very happy for him. He’s worked very hard for it. I’m excited.
“When he told me (he made the team), I booked my flights straight away. There was no mucking around, I won’t miss this one.
“Since he was a little boy he’s always wanted to play footy. I remember he was a two-year-old kid and I’d brain-washed him to be a fan.
“He played a couple of years down (in Sydney) with the Catholic sides on a Sunday because he was too young to play the other comp.
“That’s when I moved up to the Gold Coast from Sydney.”
Mr Arrow said he could see plenty of promise in his son from the time he joined the Burleigh Bears in the under-7 competition. He was also a keen nipper.
But just as he works hard for everything on the field, Jai was made to earn praise from his father who was wary of creating an inflated ego.
“As a kid he was always probably the standout in a lot of sides but I never told him that. He said to me once ‘How come you’re hard on me?’ And I said: ‘I’m not hard on you, I don’t want you to be a big superstar kid that wants you to think they’re better than everyone’.
“I put him on a level playing field with everyone. He did play pretty good since he started playing the game when he was in under-6s but I couldn’t really tell him that.
“A lot of fathers do that and I’ve seen a lot of kids rebel from it and now a lot of them don’t play because the parents keep rapping their kid.”
The tutelage helped instill an incredible work ethic in Jai, one his Keebra Park High School coach Greg Lenton said helped win his Origin jersey.
“If ever I had to pick a player that was made for State of Origin, out of everyone I had, it would be him,” Mr Lenton said of his former captain. “He is just built for it in every way. He will not let anybody down in that arena.
“He just has this incredible workrate, no matter how bad things were going, when people would drop their head, he would lift his.”
MAROONS props Jarrod Wallace and Dylan Napa have been challenged to step up in the Origin opener, with NSW to unleash one of the biggest forward packs in history.
Queensland selectors yesterday drew a line in the sand when they punted one of the state’s great servants, Matt Scott, for next week’s Game 1 in Melbourne.
It’s a bold call given the Maroons’ dynasty could come crashing down should the monster Blues boss the contest in the middle of the park.
NSW named an ominous pack for the series opener at the MCG, with 115kg monster Reagan Campbell-Gillard, David Klemmer and Paul Vaughan primed.
The front-row is considered Queensland’s achilles heel and NSW coach Brad Fittler will back his forward intimidators to win the middle-third.
In the absence of 22-game veteran Scott, selector Gene Miles concedes Napa and Wallace must combine to lead the way – or face the grim prospect of NSW winning just their second series in 13 years.
“Our No. 8 and No. 10 must do a fair job and if they don’t do a fair job, we won’t win, it’s as simple as that,” said Miles, a veteran of 23 Origin games.
“Origin footy is won up front, it’s been proven for (38) years.
“So if they don’t do their job, we can’t ask (Queensland halves) Ben Hunt and Cameron Munster to do their job.
“They (Napa and Wallace) realise their responsibility. They are young and don’t fear too much. They just have to cart the ball forward and not make any mistakes.”
Roosters hitman Napa came under fire for his tackling style a fortnight ago when he launched himself at Korbin Sims, leaving his Broncos rival nursing a broken jaw.
But with Queensland’s new-look engine room boasting just five games of Origin experience, Maroons hierarchy have urged Napa not to change his firebrand style as he prepares for NSW fireworks.
“I want the fired up Dylan Napa,” Miles said. “I think all Queenslanders do. You don’t want him to change too many things – his greatest asset is his aggression.”
MAROONS No.6 Cameron Munster has smoked the peace pipe with Ben Hunt and insists their Darwin punch-up won’t crush Queensland’s tilt for a fourth straight Origin series.
Munster and Hunt will combine at Queensland’s scrumbase for the first time in tomorrow week’s series opener at the MCG when they replace Maroons legends Johnathan Thurston and Cooper Cronk.
The dynamic duo debuted together in last year’s decider, Munster deputising in emphatic fashion for the injured Thurston in the No.6 while Hunt cut his teeth as a bench utility.
Coach Kevin Walters will lean on the playmakers to guide Queensland into a new era following the representative retirements of the state’s long-term halves and skipper Cameron Smith.
Hunt and Munster will have to work intimately for the first time since last year’s World Cup, where they came to blows during a boozy night with the Kangaroos.
The “Top End Tiff” prompted Kangaroos coach Mal Meninga to send Munster home for a meeting with Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy.
The 23-year-old has responded with a sensational start to the NRL season and said he had settled his differences with Hunt.
“It was a bit of banter,”
Munster said.
“It was all hyped up too much. We are past it, we are still friends. We had a chat after the (Storm-Dragons) game and a laugh about it all.
“He is the form player of the competition. If he keeps that form going, he will have a great (Origin) career.”
Munster’s World Cup issues prompted him to quit heavy drinking and he said a new approach to football had catapulted him into Thurston’s No.6 jersey.
“Last year my foot was half in and half out of footy,” he said.
“I’m more focused with footy this year and I’m happy with my performances.
“I realised how fortunate I am to be playing footy. I needed to grow up. I’ve almost burnt a lot of bridges.
“A lot of people were probably off me, especially the leadership group. I was saying a lot of things but not doing them with my actions.”