He has played alongside Greg Inglis, Sam Burgess and Jarryd Hayne but Gold Coast Titans hooker Nathan Peats has declared that Tyrone Peachey has him buzzing like never before.
Indigenous All Stars teammates, Peats and Peachey will play together for the first time in the NRL when the Titans host the Raiders on Sunday and the former New South Wales Origin hooker can barely contain his excitement.
Inglis has been assembling a spectacular highlights reel since shredding defences as a 17-year-old in the Queensland Cup, while Hayne's pre-season performances for the San Francisco 49ers were better than most athletes can assemble in a career.
But along with the grunt up front added in the sizeable frame of former Raider Shannon Boyd, it is Peachey’s addition to the Gold Coast roster that is viewed as having the ability to transform a competitive team into genuine finals contenders.
The sheer unpredictability of where he will pop up on the field at any time makes Peachey a nightmare to defend and an exciting addition for those around him.
"Tyrone Peachey is probably the player that I'm most excited to play with in my whole career," Peats said ahead of his 50th game in Titans colours.
"He just plays that natural footy, that type of footy where he just throws the ball around and is so confident in whatever he does.
"I'm so excited to play with him. He's a good fella too, we get along really well so I'm really looking forward to playing with him.
"He can win you games out of nothing which is something that you don't come across too often in your career."
When the Titans fought back from an 18-0 deficit in little more than 10 minutes to defeat Canberra 30-28, the Raiders were without Josh Hodgson at hooker, a player that so much of their attack revolves around.
Along with Boyd joining the Titans, the Raiders have also lost powerful front-rower Junior Paulo to the Eels, yet Peats doesn’t believe Hodgson will be adversely affected by a smaller pack of forwards laying the platform.
"They've still got a pretty big pack," Peats said.
"There's (Josh) Papalii, (Dunamis) Lui, Joe Tapine on the edge so they've got a big side still and they've got a great back five who are going to bring it forward and find their front a lot of the time. I'm sure they'll be all right.
"He's a world-class dummy-half and has to do a lot of their attack. Any quick play-the-ball he's playing forward and trying to get his hands on the ball as much as possible. He even links out the back when they're shifting to an edge and I think they missed him last year.
"(Siliva) Havili did a really good job last year, he's a quality player on the bench, but Hodgson is obviously a world-class dummy-half."
The Titans and Raiders have both been criticised in recent times for having soft underbellies, with potential wins turning into narrow losses all too frequently.
As Canberra dropped eight games by four points or less last year, Gold Coast lost six games by six points or less.
But Peats said that pre-season sweat can only do so much to deliver the tougher mentality that coach Garth Brennan is demanding.
"You've got to find it within you," Peats said.
"You can train through pre-season and push yourself and try and show some resilience and mental toughness but as a squad we’ve got to find it ourselves.
"We've been guilty of that in the past where we haven't delivered in tough times during games or been in games for 60 or 70 minutes and then fallen away.
"That's the mental edge that we need to find. I think we've found that in the pre-season and hopefully we can take it into the season this year.
"Just because we've had a good pre-season doesn't mean it will translate into good performances but it's an important stepping stone.
"Hopefully that pre-season training form relates into round one and going forward for the season."
