Folau says miracle try was his best yet - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Folau says miracle try was his best yet

By Leonard Siragusa 03/07/2008 07:46:30 PM Comments (0)

He's done some astonishing things on the field but even Israel Folau admits his spectacular try in the State of Origin decider was his best work and doubts he could repeat the effort.

Folau, who was rewarded with man of the match honours in Queensland's 16-10 win, had more than 78,000 people at ANZ Stadium abuzz with his second try of the night.

The Melbourne Storm centre climbed over clubmate and NSW winger Anthony Quinn and Blues centre Matt Cooper to claw in a Johnathan Thurston kick and score.

But he did it after being twisted in a mid-air tackle before grounding the ball behind his head.

Folau admits he was shocked he could pull off such a try and quickly claimed it as the best yet in his short but incredible career.

"I was surprised with what I did with my second try," Folau said on arrival back in Melbourne.

"At the start when I jumped up, I thought I'd mistimed my jump to be quite honest - I got up there and it seemed like time stopped.

"I was up there for a little while and I just grabbed the ball but I was in a bad position to put the ball down so I tried to put it behind my head, so I was lucky.

"It came out of nowhere. I don't think I could do that again. It was just one of those things that I was lucky enough to get right last night.

"I would say that was the best try that I have scored."

Folau's take looked straight off an AFL highlights reel.

And Folau, who says he has embraced a bit of the country's indigenous football code, admitted he had taken some of that game's qualities to enhance his own performances.

"I watch a little bit of AFL and how they use their jumping style, I tried to use a little bit of that into my game. It's really helped, it's given me that little bit of edge in my game and it helped me there last night," Folau said.

Sydney Swans AFL coach Paul Roos described Folau's try as extraordinary.

But he admits most AFL fans would have give a "so what?" response.

"If you put it into perspective of AFL, it's a thing you'll see 20 times a weekend on eight games," Roos said at Swans training at ANZ Stadium.

"The thing I found exciting about it was his ability to translate the mark into a try.

"It was quite exciting to see him twist his body and put the ball down on the ground.

"In AFL it happens continually and it's one of the great parts of the game.

"It probably reinforces what a great part of the game it is for the AFL because everyone is talking about it today and as most AFL people would say `so what?'.

"But what I would say is it's an extraordinary athletic performance to do what he did and then be able to put the ball on the ground like he did was fantastic."

Roos said he didn't know enough about Folau to be able to comment on whether he could make the grade in the AFL.

"One of the things about league versus AFL is the amount of ground that they have to cover," Roos said.

"Our guys run 15 kilometres in a game. Someone told me in league it's about seven kilometres. But he's a talent. I was excited when I saw it.

"I respect all great athletic performances. It was quite spectacular."

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