St George Illawarra Dragons prop Trent Merrin was honoured to play his 100th game on ANZAC Day when the Red-and-Whites went up against the Sydney Roosters at Allianz Stadium, Moore Park on Friday.
The NSW Blues State of Origin representative is disappointed with the 34-14 defeat but is aware of where the Red V need to improve over their two-week break.
Despite the loss, the 24-year-old is buoyed to have been selected into the 2014 NSW Country Origin squad and is keen to impress on the representative stage.
“I had butterflies running out there with the boys, it was a great buzz especially being ANZAC Day,” said Merrin.
“It’s always an incredible feeling to play on ANZAC Day, it’s very humbling and all the boys love it.
“It’s about more than just the footy today, it’s about the ANZACs and for the Diggers; we knew it was going to be a tough one.
“We gave away penalties and had a few errors out there on the field; we can’t give that advantage to a quality side like the Roosters.
“We’ll assess our game during the week and get away, refresh the bodies and come back the following week ready to win.
“There were a few in our side who had never played in an ANZAC match before and we tried not to hype it up too much.
“Once you start to overdo it you start to burn energy before you even play the game so we told the new boys to relax and stay composed.
“To later be named in the NSW Country Origin was the best way to cap the weekend off and I am stoked both Duges [Josh Dugan] and Reiny [Mitch Rein] have been named too.
“It’ll be good to have the opportunity to be playing in Dubbo which is a proud footy area and hopefully we can put one over City on Sunday.”
