‘Thank you for believing in my daughter’.
With those seven heartfelt words, Robert Pearson helped Sky Blues coaches Kylie Hilder and Ruan Sims put a harrowing selection call into perspective.
Heading into the Origin series opener at Suncorp Stadium, Sims and head coach Hilder opted to hand the No.7 jersey to Pearson over 19-year-old Jesse Southwell, who played in both games last season.
History will show the Sky Blues pulled the right rein, with Pearson helping the Sky Blues to a 22-12 victory in enemy territory to take the upper hand in the best-of-three series.
“Kylie and I were just standing there having a chat and a debrief and Rachel's dad came up and introduced himself and shook my hand and just said 'thank you for believing in her'. I thought that was a really lovely gesture,” Sims told NRL.com.
“She said she was really surprised because her dad is a pretty shy man and wouldn’t usually do that.
“It’s as much deserving for Kylie to have that nice feeling because it’s always tough when you’ve got to make hard decisions and have difficult conversations but those really lovely moments make it all worth it.
“But it was very well deserved too, she was really good in Game One and I can’t wait to see what she does up in Newcastle.”
The humble halfback from Hay was surprised to hear that her father had talked to the coaches after the game but said Robert has been a big believer of hers since day one
“It surprised me because Dad’s pretty shy but I think he was just pumped with adrenaline and wanted to reach out to the coaches and thank them for backing me to do the job in the seven,” Pearson told NRL.com.
“To this day, I’m 30-years-old, and Dad rings me up, whether it’s club level, representative and he says, ‘Rachel are you still enjoying it? Are you still having fun?’
“So his main thing for me is just to get out there, enjoy what I’m doing and he’s proud of me regardless.
“Obviously I worked as hard as I could to get the jersey back and wear the No. 7 jersey for game one and now game two, it’s an awesome feeling.”
With a chance to secure a series victory this Thursday on home soil, Sims revealed they had reached out to Brad Fittler and Michael Maguire for advice on how to tackle their first ever three-game series.
Inside Camp: Local heroes
“We chat to a lot of different people who have different perspectives and I was just chatting to Freddy on Sunday around it all,” Sims said.
“So it’s really good to have that ability to be able to lean on people like that as well and I think Madge is a really great soundboard for Kylie and he’s very knowledgeable so it’s really good to be able to have those people to lean on.”
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