The new season is still weeks away but Blues coach Brad Fittler has already pencilled in his first 'roughie' for State of Origin duty: giant Eel Junior Paulo.
Paulo was born in New Zealand and has played Test football for Samoa, but qualifies as a Blue after moving to Sydney as a teenager.
The 26-year-old prop attended Ashcroft High School - the same school as Fittler - and caught the eye of the NSW coach in the big end-of-season games last year.
"He is one we are watching very closely," Fittler told Wide World of Sports.
"He is big and strong, has ball skills and can break the line.
"He looks good at this stage of the year for a huge man and hopefully he is set for a massive year."
Replies
It’s like Joey is here and has discovered that there is some talent at the Eels.
Good luck Junior.
It’s great to hear their are a few players being looked at for State of Origin, the experience & knowledge they take in by being around these players of this caliber is so valuable to our team. You can already see the difference Joey has had on our team. Would love to see Burderius or Ennis training our dummy half. Mark Carroll had an input into Evans last year & we can all say it was a positive step, would be nice to see him involved with all our forwards. I welcome these ex-players helping out.
Personally I would like to see a bit more mongrel in Jnr Paulo inteminating his opponents as well as keeping up with those nicely timed short passes he possesses.
Remember when he got 8 weeks for tackling a bloke. Think he has toned it down a bit from the early days when he was getting suspended alot.
" Sigh " Fair point i suppose eggman , i am wondering if Nathan Brown is following the same steps as in toning down the aggression, still he is another one that possesses those nicely timed short passes.
Yeah he absolutely hammered him I reckon it was a fair tackle he definitely calmed down his aggression after that
I think they did him for the ol putting him in a dangerous position, but they were horizontal from memory, and he didn't get in a dangerous position and there was no intention of putting him in one.Another example of Parra being ass raped by the judiciary .
Yep first round and no similar tackle received any suspension like it for the rest of the season. Farcicle.
Just on Junior, last year I thought that often he was too concerned about the offload and wasn't hitting the line as hard.
This year I'd prefer to see him hitting the line extremely hard with only half the offloads.
I guess it will keep he and RCG on thier toes.bit of healthy competition, but please don't pick both of them.
This is great, good for junior to read, will make him step up a gear youd think.
Origin may be just whats needed to take him to the next level.
Dissapointing to think about him missing games though, but what will be will be.
He'd go great in origin.
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