Gagai set to offload his tonsils

Maroons centre Dane Gagai is set to undergo surgery to have his tonsils removed to avoid a repeat of the hospital ordeal that preceded his on-field nightmare against NSW rival Latrell Mitchell in Origin I

A fully-fit Gagai is hellbent on not only squaring the series on Sunday night in Origin II, but squaring the ledger with Mitchell after his South Sydney teammate carved him up in NSW’s record 50-6 rout in Townsville.

The Mitchell-Gagai centre mismatch summed up Queensland’s Origin I horror show.

While Mitchell scored two tries and amassed 154 metres and six tackle busts, a flat Gagai missed six tackles, was forced to make 26 and managed just 52 metres as he struggled to recover from a pre-game bout of tonsilitis.

Gagai revealed he has had regular issues with tonsilitis for more than 10 years and will explore having them removed at season’s end after suffering the worst preparation of his sixyear, 17-game Origin career.

“I just sucked, simple as that,” Gagai said of his Game One write-off.

“Because of my throat and the way I was feeling, my talk in defence wasn’t there and I know from playing with Latrell at Souths how strong he is.

“I barely ran at him. He is so big, strong and athletic and because I barely trained during the week, my communication with the other guys in defence wasn’t good enough.

“At the end of the day, I made the choice to play and when you put on that Maroons jumper, you have to do your job and I didn’t do that.”

Such is Gagai’s incredible consistency for Queensland, he has been dubbed the State of Origin specialist.

While there was never any talk of Gagai being dropped, the Maroons flyer sets high standards and he opened up on the true extent of his stint in hospital.

The Maroons did their best to conceal Gagai spending two days in hospital. Maroons doctor Matt Hislop said it was one of the worst cases of tonsilitis he had seen, admitting the centre after seeing severe pus on his tonsils.