Beau bashing his way into Qld contention
Giant-killing Titans forward Beau Fermor has bolted into Queensland Origin contention after catching the eye of Maroons coach Billy Slater and sending a Test star crashing out of the Gold Coast’s top team.
Fermor will start in the backrow for the Titans in Saturday’s final pre-season trial hitout against the Warriors at Redcliffe, relegating former New Zealand forward Kevin Proctor to the bench.
Proctor isn’t the first bigname Titan to be toppled by Fermor after he took $3.5 million man David Fifita’s starting position last year as the Gold Coast rocketed to a drought-breaking finals appearance.
A hard-to-handle edge forward, Fermor has been the equal secondfastest player at the Titans this preseason, clocking a top speed of 35.5km/h just behind fringe winger Alofi Khan-pereira (36km/h).
He also has claims to being the Titans’ fittest player after setting a new club record for the 1.2km shuttle run with a time of four minutes and 30 seconds.
Fermor, 23, arrived at the Titans from Newcastle in 2020 on the back of a knee reconstruction, but has fought his way into the NRL team and is now being watched by new Maroons mentor Slater.
Slater recently invited Fermor to a lunch with current and potential Queensland players and has liked what he’s seen in the try-scoring forward.
“They normally have the Emerging Origin camps around this time of the year, but due to Covid they weren’t able to do them,” Fermor said.
“Billy had been doing the rounds around all the clubs and getting together with all the boys that would have been in that. I was lucky enough to be one of those. We had lunch and a chat, it was really good.
“It was a bit of a surprise, I wasn’t expecting it, but I got a lot of confidence out of that.
“He’s been liking what he’s seen over the last six months. He just told me to keep doing what I’m doing, build on the things I do well and work on the things I don’t do well.”