Aaron Schoupp might not be the only member of his family that plans to light up CommBank Stadium this weekend.
Preparing to make his 45th NRL appearance this Sunday against the Eels, his older brother Blake could be the latest Australian to debut for the Wallabies 24 hours earlier against Argentina at the exact same stadium.
Given how close his brother was to playing his first International last week, watching his potential maiden match would be a very special moment for Schoupp.
"Last week my brother got called into the Wallabies and he was the concussion sub over in South Africa (where the Wallabies last played)," he said.
"It's a bit of a coincidence (both being in Sydney at the same time) and hopefully he can play on Saturday and make his debut. It'll be pretty special if I can watch him play his first game for Australia and they get the win.
"He's worked extremely hard and everyone knows his story... he was only playing club footy 12 months ago, so it's a pretty rapid rise for him and my whole family is proud of him."
'We've got to find a way to win': Schoupp
Regardless of whether he does get to watch Blake play or not, the 21-year-old is fully focussed on helping the Titans bounce back from narrow back-to-back losses - something that has become a tale for his side in a number of occasions this year.
"There's been a few games this year that we haven't come up with a result and it's getting to this time of the year where we need to find a way to win," Schoupp said.
"Things haven't been going our way but I think as a playing group, if we just stick tight and together... the only ones who can fix this is ourselves.
"It's disappointing, but in saying that, each week I think we're still making little improvements and growing as a squad that will hopefully help out into the future.
"Going down to play Parra this weekend, they're going to be tough, but we just need to play for the whole 80 and get out those little lapses and those errors that are in our game.
"We're a young squad and we're going to make mistakes, but it's that time of the year where we need to start minimising them and getting results on the board."
Match: Eels v Titans
Round 20 -
home Team
Eels
7th Position
away Team
Titans
13th Position
Venue: CommBank Stadium, Sydney
Although expecting to welcome back the Gold Coast's Queensland quartet from Origin duty for the contest, Schoupp has encouraged his side to continue to focus on the importance of their depth, especially with the number of players who have been unavailable over the past few weeks.
"We just have that next man up mentality and everyone in our squad - the whole 30 plays a role," he said.
We're excited to welcome those (Origin) boys back this week. Obviously their a massive part of our team and contribute a lot to us winning games.
"But it's not just those boys either... we all have to play our part and step up each week so those boys will be a good addition but I think us boys that aren't playing rep football need to start picking our game up as well and rise to their level."
