Why Jesse Southwell is poised to be NSW’s halfback for next 10 years

“There’s no use being a brilliant seven if you don’t have a connection with all the players around you, and that’s something she’s worked really hard on, which makes me really excited for her … she’s got a really high ceiling, and she’s not there yet, which is great for the women’s game.”

Unusual mentioned there have been “a lot of other good halves in the game”, however predicted that problem would carry out the perfect in Southwell.

“I think she’ll love that as well,” he mentioned. “That’ll push her game higher and higher.”

In his Sydney Morning Herald column two weeks in the past, Johns recalled how he first got here throughout Southwell when he was a training advisor on the Knights.

“It’s safe to say that everyone on the field in those training sessions was blown away by the skill level she has,” he wrote.

He added that she “has so much improvement still to come” and declared she must be “the long-term halfback for the Jillaroos, starting right now”.

Southwell is but to put on the inexperienced and gold in rugby league, though she was a part of the prolonged squad finally yr’s Pacific Championships. She helped Australia’s rugby union sevens crew win a Commonwealth Video games gold medal in Birmingham as a 17-year-old.

Incumbent Jillaroos half Tarryn Aiken, who will play five-eighth for Queensland on Thursday, clearly has no intention of surrendering her spot within the nationwide crew and not using a struggle.

“I’d definitely like to retain my jersey,” Aiken mentioned. “You always want to retain your jerseys in any team and definitely the Jillaroos.”

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Aiken, who final yr gained the celebrated Golden Boot award, starred for Australia of their 90-4 hammering of England in Las Vegas three months in the past, kicking 11 targets and producing six try-assists.

Unusual, in the meantime, was assured complacency wouldn’t be a problem for the Blues, who wish to end the sequence on a excessive word in entrance of a crowd anticipated to surpass 20,000.

“We’ve spoken about that as soon as we came back into camp for game three,” he mentioned.

“It’s about us and putting a really good performance out there on the field. If we don’t do that, then we’ll be disappointed, irrespective of the result …

“We’ve got to make sure that we keep working hard, and the Queenslanders are going to be desperate. They don’t want a 3-0 whitewash, so we’ve got to be better if we want to win this game, which we do.”

Michael Chammas and Andrew “Joey” Johns dissect the upcoming NRL spherical, plus the most recent footy information, outcomes and evaluation. Sign up for the Sin Bin newsletter.