![\"Patrick](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0650eb8a9f01dbec9fc8ac1110ef8ca1.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nPatrick Herbert spent three years making peace with the fact his NRL career was over, before receiving the most unlikely lifeline from Benji Marshall.<\/p>\n
An emotional Herbert completed one of rugby league’s great feelgood stories on Sunday, scoring a try in Wests Tigers’ big win over Newcastle and setting up another in his first professional game in 965 days.<\/p>\n
Initially signed to join French club Catalans Dragons in the Super League for 2023, Herbert’s move fell over when he suffered a serious Achilles injury while recovering from an ACL tear.<\/p>\n
That left him without a deal, playing for Dapto in the Illawarra league while working as an electrician and tradie in recent years.<\/p>\n
“The dream was faded,” Herbert, who played 59 games for the Warriors and Gold Coast between 2019 and 2022, said.<\/p>\n
“I had no chips on the table. So I just ended up playing local league and I was happy to do that and working full-time.<\/p>\n
“I was at peace with where I was at in life.<\/p>\n
“I backed my ability, but I didn’t have that person in my corner until Benji called me.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The sweetest put down: Patrick Herbert’s 17th career try was by far the hardest earned. (PR IMAGE PHOTO)<\/p>\n
Herbert and Marshall’s link goes back to Whakatane on the north island of New Zealand, where both grew up and the latter went to school with Herbert’s relatives.<\/p>\n
They were at St George Illawarra at the same time, with Herbert under-20s captain and Marshall a marquee signing, before playing together at Maori All Stars.<\/p>\n
Herbert’s lifeline came last November when Marshall saw a live stream of a Maori tournament and recognised Herbert as man of the match for Kotahitanga.<\/p>\n
Within weeks the 29-year-old was at Tigers training, albeit after initially thinking he’d received a prank call from Marshall while sitting on an excavator.<\/p>\n
“Benji just said, look, ‘I’ve got a six-week trial for you’,” Herbert recounted.<\/p>\n
“I just took it with both hands. I was like, ‘man, this is my last-ditch effort’.”<\/p>\n
That six-week trial has since turned into a two-year deal, with Marshall lauding the outside back’s game and perseverance on Sunday.<\/p>\n
For Herbert, the emotion of Sunday and four-year journey didn’t hit until after fulltime at Campbelltown.<\/p>\n
There was a tear of happiness when his three sons came on the field at fulltime, with the youngest, Chance, only just born when Herbert last played NRL.<\/p>\n
The centre is no guarantee to keep his spot against Brisbane next week with Taylan May a chance to return, but Herbert can now again be at peace with whatever comes next.<\/p>\n
“I’m happy,” he said.<\/p>\n
“That four years I had out of the game made me more grateful to just be around it.<\/p>\n
“If it doesn’t work, if I don’t get picked, it’s no big deal. Just patience is a virtue that I learn on my time off.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patrick Herbert spent three years making peace with the fact his NRL career was over, before receiving the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,9421,761,762,158,81214,159,85,4515],"class_list":{"0":"post-603637","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-benji-marshall","11":"tag-national-rugby-league","12":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","13":"tag-nrl","14":"tag-patrick-herbert","15":"tag-rugby-league","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-wests-tigers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603637","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=603637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}