James Tedesco hopes kids at school will be allowed to brave Sydney’s awful weather to “put bombs up and score the match winner” after the Blues veteran celebrated his recall to the Origin side by following a team motto to break Queensland hearts on Wednesday night.
The 33-year-old’s Origin career looked over two years ago when he was dropped, only for the former skipper to earn a late reprieve when his replacement, Dylan Edwards, suffered an injury.
The 2024 series opener was a nightmare for NSW with an early send-off at home resulting in a big Queensland win, with Edwards replacing Tedesco for game two as the Blues roared back to win the series.
Plenty of people wrote Tedesco off at that point, but after winning the 2025 Dally M Medal and starting this season on fire for the Roosters, the veteran fullback found himself back in Laurie Daley’s side.
“I still had a bit of hope,” he said in the sheds after Origin game number 24.
“I knew I was playing good footy at club level. In both 2014 and 2015 when I wasn’t playing Origin, I was playing some of my best footy so I knew if I kept doing that then there may have been a chance.
“You never want to take it for granted getting back in. I think when I wasn’t in here, I was content with not being here and I could just enjoy the game.
“But when I’ve been back in camp now, being around the best players in the game and talking footy, it really made me realise how much I miss these camps and miss this arena, so it was very cool to be back.”
Being back is one thing, but it genuinely felt like 2019 all over again when Tedesco scored the winning try in the Origin decider and then for the Roosters in the grand final a few months later at the same venue.
This one had a higher degree of difficulty as he leapt highest to reel in a Nathan Cleary bomb to score as the rain tumbled down, with Tedesco juggling it as the ball somehow avoided Selwyn Cobbo’s fingers for him to reclaim it and send the stadium into raptures after the Blues had been 20-0 down.
“I knew I got it on the juggle down,” he said.
“I didn’t know if they were going to look at the contest and what happened there, but we were competing for the ball and it was a bit of luck to land in my lap. I was stoked.
“I was hoping for the best getting up for it and competing. That feeling of scoring that try and then being around the boys definitely felt similar back to 2019.
“I’m just thinking about the kids tomorrow at school, they’ll probably be trying to put bombs up and trying to jump and catch and score the match winner. That’s what I remember as a kid watching Origin, so that’s pretty cool to think about.”
Tedesco will wake up as a hero, but the crazy thing is that the narrative would’ve been very different had they lost after he threw a terrible ball to Haumole Olakau’atu 10 minutes earlier who dropped it around his bootlaces with a three-man overlap.
“I should’ve just run,” he said with a wry smile, pointing out a giant team poster in the sheds that featured a two-word motto.
“It was a terrible pass, but our theme’s been ‘stay present’.
“I could’ve dwelled on that and gone out of the game, but I took it upon myself to get onto the next job and sort of flush that a bit.
“I’m really proud that I was able to do that because that could’ve gone in my head and I could’ve lost the plot, but I just kept competing.
“That’s been my whole career to compete on every play, and you get lucky sometimes and come down with something like that.”
Tedesco indicated afterwards that he would play for the Roosters against the Storm on Saturday, but the same can’t be said for Olakau’atu, who is in extreme doubt for Manly’s clash after coming off with cramps.
The powerhouse back-rower left the field just after the bombed try but didn’t blame his fullback as he then watched from the bench as Tedesco completed the epic comeback.
“Although it was a bad pass, it’s still something I need to execute and that’s bad,” Olakau’atu said.
“That’s my bad from my end, and I should have caught that. But I’m just glad he got that try and got the win for us tonight.
“The moment I saw him chasing the ball, I just knew something special was going to happen. He just ended up with the ball and managed to get over the line and get the team up and I’m just happy to get the win.”
Originally published as ‘Thinking about the kids tomorrow at school’: James Tedesco a NSW hero again after scoring the winner in his Origin return