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NRL All Stars pumped up

NRL All Stars pumped up

02/07/2010 06:00:18 AM

Leading NRL All Stars players insists the Indigenous All Stars will not have a mortgage on pride and passion when the inaugural invitational match explodes into action on the Gold Coast next Saturday.

The Indigenous team has attracted a sizeable slice of the pre-match publicity and support, the players openly talking up the honour of representing their people against the NRL's elite in a concept which has captured the imagination of rugby league fans.

But after assembling in Sydney on Sunday ahead of a week-long camp, All Stars skipper Cameron Smith and back-rower Anthony Watmough challenged the assertion their rivals would be more pumped up for the game.

"It's a huge week for the Indigenous boys and the Indigenous people of Australia but you're not going to be going out there going easy on the Indigenous team; we're going to do the best we can," Smith said on Sunday.

"I don't think it matters (to the fans) who wins but it matters to all the players because we're very competitive blokes and once you pull a jersey on and get out on the field you want to do your best and you want to win."

"There's a game to be played and there's a game to be won and we want to win it."

"We're representing the rest of the NRL and we want to do the best we can."

"I can't see us going out there and playing a game of touch football - it's the way we're built."

"You don't go out to lose a game, you go out to win a game."

"Both teams will be passionate about who they're playing for and who they're representing."

Watmough admitted he checked to see how he was faring in the voting when fans were deciding which NRL players would line-up against the Indigenous team

"When the votes were being counted I was really hoping that I got in here," he said.

"They (his All Stars team-mates) go into a game 100 percent committed the whole time and whether it's me or the other boys we're all going to be the same."

"We want to win the match."

But Watmough concedes the Indigenous team will be fired-up to bring his team down, receiving a first-hand taste of their passion when confronting Manly team-mate George Rose at training last week.

"He's been trying to take my head off all week," Watmough laughed.

"He's been trying to put shots on me at training and telling me what I'm getting in to come Saturday."

Asked if he would consider putting one on Rose like Artie Beetson famously did on Parramatta team-mate Mick Cronin in the first Origin match in 1980, Watmough smiled: "How do you whack Georgie? He's about six foot high and six foot high – he's a big teddy bear."

"But if he does come my way, I'm going to try and get him."

 
Photograph Copyright : Getty Images

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