With a busted AC joint, a torn ligament in his foot and a cloudy head, Boyd Cordner fielded a phone call from his Sydney Roosters coach that he didn’t want to take.

Trent Robinson, the rookie mentor at the Roosters who is emerging as an early contender for coach of the year, wanted the 20-year-old from Old Bar to flunk the Country Origin medical and, like so many of his colleagues, pull out of last Sunday’s clash.

The response he received from Cordner was not the one he wanted.

“I wasn’t too happy with (being asked to pull out of City-Country),” Cordner told AAP after Thursday’s 34-10 Anzac Day thrashing of St George Illawarra, in which he was named man of the match..

“I rung him a couple of times and that’s the sort of bloke Robbo is, he understands the players.

“He understood me and I can’t thank him enough that he gave me the opportunity.”

Robinson probably now feels like he should’ve known better than to ask that question of a player barely out of his teens who regularly has needles just to stay on the field.

Ten players were ruled out of the under-fire fixture only to be named for their club sides this weekend but Cordner was never likely to be one of them.

“It’s who he is. If you ever get to know Boyd, he’s a straight shooter,” Robinson said.

“He tells you what he thinks pretty clearly. He’s an honest man.

“And you can’t ask a guy like that to walk in and say `I don’t want to play’.

Cordner admits he struggles to train until the back half of the week – that’s how banged up his body is in the aftermath of every match.

But he was never going to let it stop him from pulling on the maroon and yellow jersey of Country and it wasn’t going to stop him lifting for the Roosters on a day that means so much.

“He had an excuse to come back and play a little bit soft but he didn’t,” Robinson said.

And they’re the qualities which will force new Blues coach Laurie Daley to consider him for this year’s Origin series, and many more down the track.