Storm's Slater The Centre Of Attention

The Age

Thursday February 17, 2005

By STATHI PAXINO,S LONGREACH, QUEENSLAND

IT WAS a simple observation by the Longreach State High School student yesterday, but one well made. "Everyone loves Billy," she said as the Melbourne Storm full-back was swarmed by autograph-hunting fans in the remote central Queensland town.

Billy Slater is regarded as a hero anywhere in Queensland after his thrilling try in the second state-of-origin clash last year that allowed the Maroons to level the series at 1-1, before NSW won the decider a few weeks later. In this area, the Innisfail-bred Slater cannot go unnoticed, a contrast to his situation in Australian football-centric Melbourne where he remains - and loves being - largely anonymous.

"I get up to Queensland every now and again and it's pretty full on," said Slater.

"You feel like a rock star but after a couple of days of that you can get sick of it. It can sort of get to you a little bit, so being in Melbourne is great, you can get away from football and go and have a game of golf and no one will even know who you are."

Yesterday, Slater, and Dallas Johnson and Steven Bell, who all grew up in regional Queensland, were visiting Longreach, 1100 kilometres north-west of Brisbane, as part of the National Rugby League regional promotional program.

Slater is recovering from an off-season groin operation, which he had at the expense of playing for Australia in the end-of-season Tri-Nations tournament last year.

Slater played the latter part of last season with worsening osteitis pubis that flared under his heavy Storm and Queensland workload. He said he had resumed full training since Christmas and he was confident the problem would not flare when he has his first hit-out since the operation in the Storm's pre-season trial game against the Brisbane Broncos at the Gold Coast.

"One of the frustrating things about last year wasn't so much what you did on the field - it was what you couldn't do off the field," Slater said.

"If you had a bad game in defence you couldn't get out and practise . . . you just had to back up on the weekend."