Knights winger Nathan Ross says he requested to play right centre for City Origin on Sunday to try and challenge himself and hopefully become a better player for the Knights as they continue their rebuild.
Ross generally plays left wing for the Knights and told NRL.com earlier this season one of his goals heading into 2017 was to build his skills as a centre and fullback.
Ross was a standout in City's 20-10 win on Sunday, making a match-high eight tackle breaks while interchanging with his winger Clint Gutherson throughout the match.
"I wanted to use this as a way to showcase I'm a lot more than just a left winger," Ross told NRL.com.
"So when the opportunity came up for centre, 'Freddie' (coach Brad Fittler) asked 'Peach' (Penrith utility Tyrone Peachey) and I who would prefer left.
"The safe option would have been for me to say 'Peach I want to go left' because that's the side I play.
"But I really wanted to test myself this week and Tyrone's a good left centre so I said I'd take right centre role on to show that I'm versatile and if called upon I'm ready to take the next step in any position."
Ross hoped both his own senior representative debut along with rep call-ups for the likes of Pete and Sione Mata'utia (Samoa) and Daniel and Jacob Saifiti (Fiji) would help kick-start Newcastle's season.
"I'm going to take back what I've learned here," he said.
"Something I want to live by is go back and try to inspire people at the club, whether that's through actions, whether it's catching the ball out in front and passing crisply – but everything I've learned from these elite players is everything's done crisp, everything's done at a high intensity through a whole training session."
Ross added he could only imagine the boost the Mata'utia and Saifiti brothers would have got from participating in an international lead-up.
"I've never done it myself, I can only imagine what the environment would be like, what the nerves would be like," he said.
"I can say [playing City-Country] was a very good experience, I've learned a lot this week so I'd say those boys would have done the same.
"There was a lot of NRL talent in the Fijian team, I think the whole Samoan team were in the NRL so they'll take little things back that they've learned and hopefully we can bring it back to Newcastle and mix it all together and come up with some wins."
Article originally published as I did it to challenge myself: Ross on NRL.com HERE
