Thurston aware Prince is breathing down his neck

Test halfback Johnathan Thurston believes he is only a bad game away from losing his job to Queensland teammate Scott Prince.

Thurston has endured a tough year, returning from surgery on both shoulders only to injure a knee which required him to go under the knife mid-season.

To top it off, his North Queensland Cowboys finished second last on the NRL ladder, at one stage losing 13 straight matches.

While Thurston struggled to overcome his injuries, Prince’s scintillating form with the Gold Coast had many claiming he had taken the mantle of the NRL’s best No.7.

After finally making a return to State of Origin football to play alongside Thurston, Prince’s season was also cruelled by injury when he broke his arm in game three of the interstate series.

But Prince has also recovered and was named as Thurston’s deputy in the Kangaroos squad for the Rugby League World Cup kicking off on Saturday.

And, for the moment at least, the incumbent believes the green and gold No.7 jersey is still his.

“I’d like to think so but it might be a matter of 80 minutes, you’ve got to perform on the night and do everything right during the week to bring out your best game,” Thurston told AAP.

“Obviously there’s a lot of competition for spots and certainly if you don’t perform during games you’re going to get dropped.

“That’s the mentality I think that most blokes will have so if I don’t perform well and I get dropped it’s my own fault.”

Thurston said his constant run of rehab and niggles had been helped by the Cowboys’ non-appearance in the NRL finals and his body was in as good a shape as it could be ahead of Australia’s World Cup opener against New Zealand next Sunday at the Sydney Football Stadium.

“I was carrying a couple of niggling injuries, the weeks off have done my body great and done my mind great,” he said.

“Since I’ve had the break, the body probably feels as good as it’s felt all year.

“My knee feels good, I’ve done a bit of running on that and it hasn’t reacted from any of the running. The shoulders are fine so … the mind and the body’s feeling fresh.”

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