Halfback Mitchell Pearce credits the positive energy of his Sydney Roosters teammates for helping him move on from his State of Origin heartache and strengthen the club’s NRL premiership tilt.
Pearce has bounced back from the lowest point of his career – with a disappointing Origin III performance helping hand Queensland an eighth straight series win – to produce some of the best football of his life in recent weeks.
Heading into Monday night’s meeting with Wests Tigers at Allianz Stadium, the Roosters are flying high atop the NRL ladder, having won seven straight games – the last four coming after the Blues’ Origin III disappointment.
Pearce admits the immediate aftermath of the Origin series loss was hard to take, but with so much to play for at the Roosters, there was little time to dwell on what might have been.
“After the game, it is what it is, you can’t change the past, as much as you’d like to,” said Pearce, who will become the second-youngest player behind Paul Langmack to reach 150 NRL games on Monday night.
“For me, I just had my next goals, what my next focus would be, and that was straight onto the Roosters.
“You’re obviously on a bit of a low after a loss like that and a big campaign.
“The boys were really supportive, it was just full of energy when we got back, you just don’t want to let anyone down, you just want to jump on the train a bit.”
Roosters fans are hoping it’s an express service all the way to ANZ Stadium on October 6, for what many anticipate will be a date with arch-rivals South Sydney and the man most believe will inherit Pearce’s NSW No.7 jumper – Adam Reynolds.
Despite saying before the Origin decider that he expected his could be his last game for NSW if the Blues lost, Pearce hopes to get another crack at the Maroons.
For what it’s worth, he doesn’t believe his game three performance was the shocker many have labelled it.
What it was however was another lesson on development as an NRL footballer.
“After all that talk out of all the game … there was a couple of kicks and a couple of execution things if I had my time again would have liked to have done better,” Pearce said of Origin III.
“I thought there was some good passages in the game as well.
“At the end of the day, while the Origin’s such a big spectacle and there’s so much at stake, it’s just another game of footy and it’s just like playing an NRL game here.
“You go out to the game, you’re going to make mistakes, you’ve got to learn from them and build on it.
“I’ve tried to take out whet I didn’t execute great in that game, work on it at training just like I do every week with an NRL game. I feel like I’m developing, especially the last month.”
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