Fijian winger Semi Valemei is relishing his memorable North Queensland Cowboys debut where he scored a hat-trick of tries in their 45-20 win over the Melbourne Storm in Round 14 of NRL in Townsville on Sunday.
Speaking to NRL media, Valemei expressed his excitement at making a strong comeback in rugby league after spending time in the Knock On Effect NSW Cup earlier this year.
“It’s good to be back.”
“It was an awesome comeback matching the first grade and I have been in Townsville for some time now.”
“I just knew, I took the ball and ran to score to pull points for my team. I’ve been working very hard through the whole week just to put in the tries.”
“We just focused on ourselves, on the points and kept fighting hard.”
Cowboys head coach Todd Payten while praising Valemei revealed the decision to field the 24-year-old in place of veteran winger Kyle Feldt was unexpected.
“He scored three tries, ran the ball really hard, he’s hard to handle and a positive start for him.”
“When Feldt is at his best, he makes us a really good team. It’s just that he had some decision-making and lapses which is the reason we made that change.”
“The decision was made once our Origin players got through to Origin and after that our bottom came and played and I guess that was really late in the week.”
“I felt that Semi was a one-on-one mess, no real decision about that.”
