Lama Tasi commits his future to Queensland State of Origin
Lama Tasi pledges his future to Mal Meninga’s Queensland State of Origin team, alongside the Australian National team. This announcement was confirmed from Origin’s quarters on December 16.
Tasi started off his rugby league career in 2011 with Sydney Roosters where he played 9 games to make his mark in the game against the Gold Coast Titans. He will join in with Josh McGuire, Dale Copley, the Brisbane Broncos duo, along with the Chris McQueen
of Rabbitohs to be part of the 14-man Meninga’s outfit.
The full 14-man squad under Meninga’s lead includes Ben Barba (Canterbury); Justin O'Neill, Maurice Blair (Storm); Esi Tonga, Chris Sandow (Eels); Dale Copley, Josh McGuire, Matt Gillett, Ben Te'o (Broncos); Daly Cherry-Evans (Manly); Martin Kennedy, Jake
Friend, Lama Tasi (Roosters); Chris McQueen (Souths).
It seems that Tasi is glad being part of the Emerging Squad . He shared that he was ambitioning to follow in along the Goodna star, Israel Folau.
“It makes sense to play for Queensland given I have grown up in Ipswich,” he said. “I spoke to the family about it and they agreed, so it's all fine.”
Meninga’s strategy is to bring in the people coming in from the Queensland junior system and commit them to Maroons, after losing out on Broncos Josh Hoffman and Gerard Beale to New Zealand and Jack Reed to England.
The Broncos general manager of football, Andrew Gee, said the Mackay junior will his decision. Expressing his views about it, Gee said that he asked Josh about it and he still wanted to play for New Zealand.
Queensland chairman of selectors Des Morris expressed his delight over Tasi’s joining Maroons and said, “We thought Hoffman, Beale and Reed were all Queenslanders, but at the end of the day they decided to go in a different direction. We still have a strong
squad and we're keen to see how Chris Sandow and Daly Cherry-Evans work together. Daly has played for Australia but has not represented Queensland yet. Chris was a huge influence at Souths for most of the season.”
It will be interesting to see how well the next season pans out for Queensland State of Origin after so many changes made to their side.
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