A 19-year-old Terry Lamb received arguably the most intimidating welcome to representative football in history.
Having found his way into the Western Suburbs first grade side in 1980, the diminutive five-eighth was given a last-minute call-up to the New South Wales side the following year.
With Origin to be played at Brisbane’s Lang Park on Tuesday, the teenage Lamb was informed of his selection just one day prior, seeing him race to the airport and up to Queensland.
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Lamb was to partner Peter Sterling in the halves, with the likes of Mick Cronin, Steve Rogers and Ray Price also in the team.
The opposition number six clearly saw the youngster as a weak link in the Blues side.
“I jumped in in 1981 in the State of Origin game against Wally Lewis,” Lamb recalled on the latest episode of Sporting News’ original series, From Then To Now.
“And Wally had a beeline for me, big fight came out, I ran to the scrum, Wally ran at me, punched the sh*t out of me. I covered up.
“Wally was one of the best fighters in the game, not just the best players, but one of the best fighters as well.
“He’s very intimidating Wally.”
That baptism of fire helped “Baa” on the way to becoming one of rugby league’s best, and toughest, players.
Several years after his Origin debut, Lamb was called up to the Australian side for the 1986 Kangaroo tour.
20 games later, that touring party would come to be known as ‘The Unbeatables’, with Lamb making history as the only player to feature in every match, including a five-try effort in a clash with Kull KR.
“We had a very, very good team. We had Wally Lewis, Gene Miles, Mal Meninga,” Lamb said.
“Brett Kenny played in the centres to give Wally Lewis the five-eighth position.
“We had a great team and we got on very well together.
“Come to the 20th game, our coach wanted someone else to be on the bench and I was going to be the only person to play every single game on a Kangaroo tour.
“They asked Paul Sironen, he denied it. They asked Les Kiss, he denied it. They all wanted me to play every single game. That’s mateship.”