Feldt keen to take on more rep duties
COWBOYS winger Kyle Feldt hopes his Prime Minister’s XIII debut can be a stepping stone to higher representative honours as he looks to keep building on his strong finish to the NRL season.
Feldt flew out yesterday as the Prime Minister’s XIII prepare to take on the Fijian national team in Suva on Friday. He has also been named in the Australian squad for the inaugural Rugby League World Cup 9s tournament in Sydney later this month.
The 27-year-old was a shining light in a tough campaign for the Cowboys to be their top tryscorer for the fourth year in a row, but Feldt revealed his representative call-up still came as a surprise.
“I was sitting at the pub with one of my mates having lunch and ‘Parrie’ (Cowboys director of football Peter Parr) rang me and just said ‘ have you got anything planned for the next week?’,” Feldt said. “I said nothing really and he said you better start packing your bags. That’s the way I got told and then the first phone call was to my partner and Mum and Dad.
“Dad was at the pub as well so it must run in the family. He’s out at Julia Creek so when I rang him he was pretty stoked and Mum was pretty happy as well. It’s a good honour.”
Feldt had a tough start to the NRL season as he missed eight games with a groin injury, but he finished in superb form with 11 tries and running for a career-high 128m per game.
The former Ignatius Park College student also scored four tries in his last three matches and said he was excited to keep challenging himself with his first representative jersey.
“To get a little bit of recognition for our club is really good so hopefully I can do myself and the club and the community proud over there,” Feldt said.
“There’s a lot of high-quality players in the team, especially Blake Ferguson. He’s been to a lot of high arenas so I can learn a little bit off him and just the way he goes about his business on the footy field. The way I’ve prepared this year’s worked really well for me so I’ve just got to do that again this week and I’ll be right.”
This year is the first time the Prime Minister’s XIII has played in Fiji and Feldt said he was keen to mark up against some of their big hitters including Parramatta Eels flyer Maika Sivo.
“He was out when we played Parra so it’ll be a good test for myself if I’m on the same wing as him, but whoever’s out there, the Fijians are all big boys as well so it’s going to be interesting,” Feldt said.