Speak to Darius Boyd and you can sense his pain.
Ask him about his form for the struggling Newcastle Knights and his uncharacteristic NRL try drought and you definitely feel his frustration.
Infamous for his 31-word media conference when with St George Illawarra in 2009, Boyd vastly prefers scoring tries to discussing them with reporters.
Right now, he isn’t doing much of either.
He clearly wouldn’t have enjoyed sitting in Queensland Origin camp at Coolum on Saturday watching as his career club coach Wayne Bennett and his Knights teammates endured their sixth straight loss.
Boyd,who followed Bennett across to Newcastle from the Dragons this season, is keeping his thoughts about his club try drought – currently standing at 12 games – to himself.
His repeated “I’m concentrating on Origin; I’m here to play for Queensland” responses to a series of questions about his form and confidence, reflected his mood.
Boyd has scored twice in 2012 and – unfortunately for Bennett – both tries were for Queensland in the opening State of Origin win in Melbourne.
But if he can play well against NSW again in Origin game 2 in Sydney on Wednesday night and take that confidence back to his club the picture could improve.
Having shared premiership triumphs with Bennett at Brisbane and the Dragons, Boyd is clearly also sharing Bennett’s pain and frustration at the Knights’ poor form.
And there’s no doubt he’s also feeling pressure building on him to help get the Knights back on track as the club’s highest priced recruit.
While unwilling to comment on his form or confidence level for Newcastle, he said he felt privileged to be playing for Queensland.
“It was good to get a couple of tries (in Melbourne),” he said.
“It makes my job a lot easier with the best players in the world. I’m very lucky to be part of this team.”
Boyd said the Blues would fight to end to square the series on Wednesday night.
“They’ll definitely be pumped in Sydney in front of their home crowd and they were very good for periods in Melbourne,” he said.
