James Tedesco has credited his dominant State of Origin series for sparking the form that has taken the Sydney Roosters to one game from the grand final.
Tedesco collected his maiden Brad Fittler Medal on Monday night, named NSW's player of the series in their coming-of-age series victory.
In the three games the fullback broke through 22 tackles, scored two tries, had three assists and averaged 166m per game.
And he's since carried that form into the club arena, with the Roosters having won nine of 12 matches since Origin began to take out the minor premiership and are now into the preliminary finals.
"Over the last month or so after Origin I've been playing some good footy and happy with how I'm going," Tedesco said.
"I'm trying to stay at that level. Around finals time you have to lift that intensity again.
"It gave me that sort of self confidence where I was able to play some elite footy at a good level.
"That self confidence in myself, I was able to take that back to the Roosters and I've been really happy with my footy."
While he was crucial in defence and solid in attack before the representative period, Tedesco's numbers have sky-rocketed since for his new club.
In the 11 matches since Origin began, Tedesco has scored four tries, had 11 try-assists, 12 linebreak assists and averaged 6.7 tackle busts and 192m per match.
While he scored five tries for the Roosters in his 12 games before Origin, the rest is well up on seven try-assists, five linebreak assists, and average of 4.7 tackles busts and 171m from the opening half of the season.
Most importantly though, Tedesco is again rising to the big occasion, as he was the Roosters' best as he laid on two tries and had his third straight running game of more than 200 metres in his first NRL finals match against Cronulla on Saturday night.
"That felt like an Origin game," Tedesco said.
"It was back and forth, everyone was completing and we had to bring it off our line the whole second half.
"That's what I've got to expect, Origin is similar to that."
All of which is pushing the 25-year-old closer to wrapping up Billy Slater's No.1 Kangaroos jersey against New Zealand and Tonga next month.
"It's a goal, I think everyone wants to represent their country and if I'm playing good footy at this time of year it's a chance," Tedesco said.
"Again, I don't want to put too much thought into it, I just want to play well for the Roosters in the next game or two hopefully, and hopefully that chance will come."
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