Blues hooker Robbie Farah's remarkable recovery from a grade 3 AC joint injury to take his place in Origin II shows his professionalism, his passion for the sky blue jersey and his determination not to give up his spot, according to NSW captain Paul Gallen.
Gallen noted that despite having been in and out of the Blues team in rotation with Michael Ennis, Farah hadn't cemented his spot until a stunning 60-tackle game in 2012 put to bed any discussion that Farah was not an Origin player.
That rise was capped with Farah being named NSW captain in Gallen's absence for Game One, where he played on despite a serious shoulder injury picked up when he was driven onto his shoulder in a Justin Hodges tackle, going on to make 58 tackles with no missed tackles as his side went down in an agonising 11-10 loss.
"It shows how important it is to everyone but particularly him and particularly where he's come from in the past couple of years," Gallen said of the hooker.
"It was only a few years ago he wasn't picked, he probably never cemented his spot until 2012, it might have been where he had the 60-odd tackles so he's cemented his spot in the team now, he wants to keep it.
"Like anyone, once you get onto it you want to keep it and you keep it by your performances on the field. That's what it's all about and Robbie doesn't want to lose that or give it to anyone else which I totally understand and I see how hard he works to get himself back from injury, he certainly deserves to be here, he looked great [so far] at training, another week he'll be fine."
Training so far has included ball work rather than contact, but Gallen believes Farah should be right to test the shoulder in full contact sessions over the weekend. In the meantime his long passing game looks spot on. Gallen also lauded Farah's attitude in the face of his injury setback.
"Sometimes when you get an injury your attitude can be down because you're concerned about your injury but there's no sign of that at all, he's chirpy around training, he's calling plays," Gallen said.
He added there is no doubt Queensland will look to target him.
"He's a hooker, they all get targeted. The hooker and the halves get targeted every game, that's probably the reason he made 60 tackles that game and makes 50 every week at club level. They're always targeted because they are generally smaller. Not only that but they try to take some of their attacking ability away."
