With 85 games to his name, Titans recruit Joe Stimson knows the importance of a bench forward in the NRL.
There might be plenty of prestige in pulling on a starting jersey, but one of the most crucial roles in the entire 17 is the player who's entrusted to go out and maintain the rage in the middle third after the first 20 minutes has passed.
That is where the 26-year-old comes to the forefront, named on the interchange for the Gold Coast's first game of the new season against the Wests Tigers at Leichhardt Oval.
Match: Wests Tigers v Titans
Round 1 -
home Team
Wests Tigers
16th Position
away Team
Titans
2nd Position
Venue: Leichhardt Oval, Sydney
The former Storm and Bulldogs enforcer is expected to take the reins from the likes of Jaimin Jolliffe and Tino Fa'asuamaleaui up front and wants to keep the energy alive with a secret weapon of his that is set to be unleashed.
"We got some great starters there in Isaac (Liu), Jimmy, and Tino, so it's a tough act to follow in a way," Stimson said.
"I think with Moe (Fotuaika), Erin (Clark) and myself, we've got a good skill set between the three and we'll use it to our advantage hopefully.
"I'm not the biggest front rower out right there, so I've got to use my skills and luckily I've got a few steps."
Stimson's role will be pretty simple... keep the momentum away from the opposition, especially up against a vocal home crowd at the spiritual home of the Tigers.
"I just need to pretty much pick up where they where they left off in the last 20 minutes of the first half and then the first 20 of the second half," he said.
"It can really be a big momentum shift if we don't do our job well and we're there to keep the momentum on our side and off them.
"All we can do is just keep the ball rolling."
Helping the Titans in the contest will be the momentum gained from a top four finish in the recent Pre-Season Challenge, and whilst they may only have just been trials, there has been plenty of confidence extracted from the past fortnight.
"I thought we played really well against the Dolphins and we showed everyone what we what we and what we've been working hard on in the pre-season," Stimson said.
"I think the hard work was paying off out there. It's only trial, but it gives us good momentum going into Round 1 and I think we took a lot of good things out of that as well as a lot of things that we can improve on.
"They're the things we've been working on at training the last two weeks, so I'm really excited to face the Tigers."
