Gidley Wants an Origin Jumper
Friday, March 30, 2007 - 4:52 PM
Kurt Gidley wants to play Origin this year and after carrying the Knights to two victories without Johns or Buderus few could argue that if he holds his form a sky blue jumper is his for the taking.
“I would love to play Origin or for Australia this year. It’s what all players strive for and I feel like I’m ready. I played for country last year and that was an amazing experience and something I want to do again”.
The switch to fullback is agreeing with the former half as his star continues to rise.
“I spent the whole pre season training at fullback for the first time. I thought it would give me the chance to run the ball more so I jumped at it”.
What Gidley wasn’t prepared for was to play a lot of dummy half in attack, and it was only an afterthought from Coach Brian Smith in the lead up to Round 1.
“With Bedsy (Danny Buderus) out someone had to do it and Brian asked me to play a bit of dummy half in attack and drop back to fullback in defence”.
The move has clearly worked, in the Knights two opening games Gidley has looked the most dangerous player on the field and appears to be enjoying carving up the opposition on a regular basis.
Gidley though was quick to point out the victories were not that brilliant.
“They were good wins and we will take them. Any club with their two top players out would be happy to win their first two games. Andrew and Danny are great players and the wins have been good but not great”.
The wins have proved that the Knights can win without their talismanic halfback, but Gidley feels that the old maxim, the Knights can’t win without Joey, will be around for a while yet, no matter what the team do when Johns isn’t available.
“For the time being I would say people will keep jumping on the no Joey, no win bandwagon and it shows, every time we don’t have him the odds are literally against us”.
Johns will return this Monday night when the Knights tackle the Raiders in Canberra, and while Gidley is happy to have him back he is under no illusions of it being a walk in the park against the wooden spoon favourites.
“It’s good to have Joey back and he gives us a big boost but the Raiders are always tough in Canberra and I’ve heard from plenty of people say that if they weren’t up against Melbourne last week they would have won”.
The Knights have also been boosted by the mid week re-signing of young prop Daniel Tolar. Plenty of people at the club have a big opinion of him and Gidley is no exception.
“Dan’s a really good player who is only going to get better. He’s been playing well and he has great feet for a big man up front”.
The Knights take on the Raiders in this week’s Monday Night game.
