It’s all a bit weird, says Townsville- bound McLean
JORDAN McLean will walk into his first day of pre- season with North Queensland this summer a little sheepish.
He’ll either have to avoid grinning too much about a premiership win, not wanting to upset his new teammates who could be grand final losers. That’s his preferred option.
Or McLean will need to avoid looking glum, standing among beaming winners.
“It’s a little bit strange and weird, you wouldn’t read about it,” the hulking Melbourne Storm prop said ahead of his final game in purple in Sunday’s NRL grand final.
McLean’s move to North Queensland on a three- year deal, mainly for family reasons, was put on the table very early this season and hasn’t inhibited his performances for Melbourne one iota.
In fact he has been travelling so well this year he was drafted into the Kangaroos squad by national coach Mal Meninga as 18th man in April. He filled the same role for NSW in game one of this year’s State of Origin series.
Now 26 and a father of two boys himself – two- year- old Archie and Tex, nine months – McLean has grown up in Melbourne, and was a part of Storm’s 2009 Under 20s premiership win.
Also part of that side were Jesse Bromwich and Kevin Proctor, both now Kiwi internationals, and Justin O’Neill, a State of Origin centre who will be on the opposing team in Sydney on Sunday.
But while his teammates in 2009 made almost immediate entries into the NRL, it took McLean until 2013 to make his first senior start for Storm.
The 196cm, 115kg giant was cruelled by hamstring injuries.
Further drama engulfed McLean, and Storm, in 2014 when he was involved in the tackle that left Newcastle’s Alex McKinnon paralysed.
But it was the support he received through it all that made the decision to move north that little bit harder.
And it makes his want to perform on Sunday that much greater.
“There has been a lot happen, and they ( coaches and teammates) have been by my side in the good times and the bad times. I can’t thank them enough,” he said.