Basking in the afterglow of his composed display to steer the Storm to a 26-18 win over the Bulldogs in Friday’s qualifying final, halfback Jonah Pezet said he had found the light at the end of a dark tunnel.<\/p>\n
In just his eighth game of the season and second in the starting side, Pezet launched a 40-20, set up a try and saved one and kicked superbly to pin the Bulldogs down all night. He was even called on to convert the final two tries after Nick Meaney left the field for a HIA with 15 minutes to play.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old’s journey to playing in his first NRL final was far from straightforward.<\/p>\n
He ruptured his ACL playing Queensland Cup for Easts Tigers in April of last year, ruling him out for the season that was widely expected to be his breakout season.<\/p>\n
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Pezet steps up<\/p>\n
He admitted that there were some \u201cdark times\u201d during a gruelling rehabilitation \u2013 but with his support network from both inside and outside the club, he was able to stay positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m over the moon. That was probably the most important game I’ve ever played in my life,\u201d he told NRL.com post-game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had lot of good people in my corner.<\/p>\n
“Obviously my management group and my family, and then the club – all the effort and support they’ve given me over the last 18 months to be able to go out there tonight when something happens, and be able to put my best foot forward and provide for the team when it’s needed.<\/p>\n
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Pezet saves a try<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn’t be more grateful for what this club’s given me over the last 18 months, the physio group especially, to get me out there and keep me on the field.<\/p>\n
“Blokes like Christian Welch, and Paps, and people that have been through long-term injuries – the support they’ve given me over that period has been immense.<\/p>\n
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The greatest piece of advice I received is that the light is always just around the corner<\/p>\n
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“Sometimes the days are pretty dark, but there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. All those dark days in the gym last year on my own and doing stuff, it all leads to these moments.\u201d<\/p>\n
With his 18th preliminary final as Storm coach secured, Craig Bellamy was full of praise for Pezet, who got the nod at halfback with Jahrome Hughes out injured.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did a great job tonight,\u201d Bellamy said.<\/p>\n
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Bellamy: Sustained success built on roles and leadership<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason we went with him is that he is a more organising half, and he\u2019s got a really good kicking game. That\u2019s why we went with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHughesy takes that role when he\u2019s playing. With Mun [Cameron Munster] and Wish [Tyran Wishart], they\u2019re really good ball runners and great competitors, but we thought we needed someone out there whose strength is organising.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bellamy told media post-game that there was a slight chance that Hughes would be fit for the preliminary final, putting Pezet\u2019s place in the side in jeopardy.<\/p>\n
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Pezet nails a 40\/20<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, if Hughesy\u2019s back, then that’s his jersey to walk back into,\u201d Pezet said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that’s not the case, then I’ll put my best foot forward again and try and get the boys around the park and try and get the win again.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ll reset and train hard this week and just prep for whatever’s to come. I\u2019m just taking it day by day at the moment.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019ll just sit in this moment and enjoy this, because moments like this don’t come around every day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Basking in the afterglow of his composed display to steer the Storm to a 26-18 win over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-138954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}