TEVITA PANGAI JR REVEALS REGRETS OVER COSTLY ERROR
Telegraph Sport
TEVITA PANGAI JR KNEW EXACTLY WHAT HE DID NOT WANT TO DO ON THE NIGHT OF HIS ORIGIN DEBUT-AND THEN HE DID IT ANYWAY.
THE NSW PROP OPENS UP ON THAT MOMENT AND HIS PLANS FOR REDEMPTION.
A shattered Tevita Pangai Jr has taken himself to task for a crucial error that he hopes doesn’t cost him a shot at revenge against Queensland.
The Blues debutant says he’s desperate for a NSW Origin recall and will start by leading Canterbury on Sunday.
Pangai played the opening 20 minutes before being replaced by Liam Martin and returned to the fray in the 51st minute.
However, he was taken off nine minutes later after conceding a penalty, losing the ball through an unnecessary offload and missing a tackle as Maroons winger Selwyn Cobbo crossed for his second try in Queensland’s 26-18 win.
There was no one Blues player more critical of his performance inside the NSW dressing room post-match.
“I’m really disappointed, but I’ll just work hard to get picked in game two and go from there,’’ Pangai Jr said.
“I made some crucial errors. Particularly, the offload.
“That one was crucial. They scored off that error.
“I was pretty filthy at myself. You can’t make errors coming out of yardage.
“When you’ve got a team like Queensland, we want them to spend minimal time on our line.
“Origin is won in moments and I look at what I did wrong and that was crucial.
“When you’re up by two, it’s all about arse up, head down and play the ball.’’
Even more disheartening for the debutant was that Pangai Jr admitted he had watched replays of the Blues 2022 Origin III loss to remind himself of what not to do on the game’s biggest stage.
“I watched game three the whole week. I saw the errors coming out of yardage and we spoke about them,’’ the Blues prop said.
“There were eight errors in the back end of game three and I put that in my mind and told myself not to make errors coming out of yardage.’’
The Bulldogs prop ran for 93-metres from 11 carries on Wednesday night.
He is desperate to atone for the loss by being picked again for Origin II and confirmed he would play this Sunday against the Roosters.
We’ve (Bulldogs) got some top four teams coming up and hopefully I can show that I want to be there for game two,’’ Pangai Jr said.
“I definitely will back up for Canterbury this weekend.
“We’ll see. I definitely want to work hard now.
“It was good to get amongst it, to play with the best players and I want a chance to do it again.’’