the form revival of Selwyn Cobbo has stolen the headlines<\/a>, with Boyd tipping that the Dolphins gun could win the Wally Lewis Medal this year.<\/p>\nIf Boyd\u2019s feeling is to come true, it would be a remarkable turnaround for Cobbo given a year ago, he was dropped by the Broncos to the Wynnum Manly Seagulls.<\/p>\n
Cobbo has attracted plenty of praise, but Boyd said other Maroons had also stepped up to play inspiring football at representative level.<\/p>\n
In particular, Boyd was impressed by the newfound confidence of Jojo Fifita.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old has been trying to prove his worth in the NRL since defecting from rugby, always keeping the door ajar to make the switch back if things are not to work out the way he hoped.<\/p>\n
Boyd believes the Origin arena has brought him the confidence he truly needed to be comfortable with himself as a rising star.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe needed that little bit of confidence to do something,\u201d Boyd said on Wide World of Sports\u2019 QLDER.<\/p>\n
\u201cBilly instils that confidence and belief that you can do this in this arena. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor him to score a try (in game two), I think he\u2019d go, \u2018well this is my time now, I deserve to be in this arena and mix it with the best\u2019. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure we will see him improve and have a better performance in game three.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trent Leioro was another player Boyd believes Slater has unlocked perfectly in the representative arena, describing him as a \u201ctrue Origin player\u201d.<\/p>\n
He then pointed to the unsung hero for the Maroons in Toia, who has settled into the side comfortably after just five representative appearances. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe is quite calm … he never looks like he has even dropped sweat off his head,\u201d Boyd said of Toia, \u201che has been so good for Queensland.\u201d<\/p>\n
With few changes expected to be made leading into the series decider, Boyd recognised that Slater\u2019s men will be hopeful NSW keep their bizarre bench. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think the problem was, they had (Api) Koroisau and (Ethan) Strange who then limit the forward rotations,\u201d he said of Laurie Daley\u2019s bench selection. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was always going to be a challenge there, I think that\u2019s why there were talks about having Strange in the centres if Moses is in the halves. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s their problem. Hopefully, they don\u2019t make those same mistakes next time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brought to you by Billy Slater has not been coaching long, but Darius Boyd has been left in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":747584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-747583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747583","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=747583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n![\"Jojo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/06490a145de6d97bb0a4139aaac29c809a8667b76a25d9666981ecc6069f2251.jpeg\")
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