State pride: Blues hooker Robbie Farah with his State of Origin tattoo on his right arm, in Coffs Harbour. Credit:Janie Barrett This week might be about Origin for Farah, just like it is for everyone else. But it's also about a Wests Tigers captain who was told by his coach he wasn't wanted. It's about an incumbent NSW hooker who faced the isolation and ignominy of playing reserve grade. "From day one I knew I hadn't done anything wrong," he continues. "I wasn't getting sacked. If I chose to stay, come November 2 when pre-season started, I would train my butt off like I do every year, and we'd see who the best hooker was at the end of the summer. If I was going to play reserve grade, it wasn't my fault." Would it have come to that? "You're asking the wrong bloke," Farah smiles. While Taylor was telling anyone who would listen in August last year that he would pay rival clubs whatever they wanted to take Farah off his hands, Blues coach Laurie Daley was picking up the phone.

"Mate, you do what you think is right," he told his hooker. "If you want to stay, and he wants to pick you in reserve grade, you'll still be in my Origin side. That won't change my opinion." Career highlight No.1: Robbie Farah and Wests Tigers teammate Benji Marshall hold aloft the 2005 NRL premiership trophy. Farah is one of the most confident players I've seen. Some mistake it for arrogance. Those closer to him understand he's a competitive little bugger who's never taken a backward step. But the events of last year shook him. "People say stuff about me – I know not everyone likes me," the 32-year-old says. "People hate me, whatever it may be. Sometimes, when you do hear bad things about you, you second guess and doubt yourself and think there might be something in it. But to have Laurie support me, and have that opinion, it reassures me that I'm going all right. It was a reassurance I needed at a difficult time." For all the syrupy tales we will hear in the coming days before the series opener at ANZ Stadium on Wednesday, State of Origin has deeper meaning for Farah.

Most rugby league players have deformed biceps from thousands of curls, but Farah's are disproportionate to the rest of his body. On the inside of his left bicep is a tattoo celebrating the Tigers' premiership in 2005. Inside the right is more ink celebrating the Blues' series win in 2014. "The two best nights of my life," he says. "Origin has become such a big part of my life for many reasons. It's taken on massive significance, on a personal level, because of things that have happened with family, and I see this as one big family too. When I am here, it's like I'm home. This might get me in trouble but it outweighs playing for Australia – that's how important it is to me." Career highlight No.2: Winning the Origin trophy in 2014 with Tigers teammate Aaron Woods. It goes back to game two in Sydney in 2012 when Farah made 63 tackles and missed one. He was the last player on the field after fulltime as he scoured the stands looking for his ill mum, Sonia. She had been bravely hanging on as she fought off pancreatic cancer. Stadium officials had made special arrangements to accommodate her at the game but she never made it, and watched the game in hospital instead.

Farah begins to talk about her and his arms pop with goosebumps. "When they told me afterwards I had made 63 tackles and Mum was 63 years old, it clicked that was going to be the last game she would ever watch me play," he says. "And I was right. She died three days later. The last game she ever saw me play was in this jumper. Since that day, wearing his jumper is above and beyond anything else in my career." That's why game two of each Origin series holds so much significance, because it usually falls around the anniversary of his mum's death on June 17. On the night of June 18, 2014, Farah was standing near halfway at ANZ Stadium as the clock wound down. Fullback Jarryd Hayne ran the ball over the dead-ball line as the Blues finally wrestled themselves out of the Queensland deathroll they had been trapped in for eight years. "I was a mess," Farah recalls. "I just broke down and cried." More goosebumps.

Inspiration: Robbie Farah with his mother, Sonia Farah. "The night before, I knew we were going to win. I called a mate of mine and got his wife on the phone and said to her, 'When we win tomorrow night, he's partying with me for the next three days'." That series win dissolved some of the criticism often levelled at Farah: that he overplays his hand, stifling the attack of whichever team he is playing for. NSW captain Paul Gallen suffers similar barbs. Do you overplay your hand? "At times, yeah, definitely," Farah admits. "I've been guilty of trying too hard at times and that's because I want to win. I take it upon myself at times to drag us back into the game. Sometimes that can get you in trouble, but I'd rather be the person who tries too hard than the one who doesn't." The emotion of that breakthrough series win was slowly gobbled up later that season by the sickness at the Tigers, who were struggling under coach Mick Potter. Off the field, it was crippled with debt and in-fighting between the Balmain and Western Suburbs factions that make up the joint venture.

With Potter under siege, Farah suddenly became the face of the scandal. He was accused of undermining his coach when he was actually gagged by then-chief executive, Grant Mayer, from supporting the coach publicly. In essence, he was thrown under the bus by his own club. Farah learnt from that. When the excrement hit the fan last August when Taylor wanted him gone, he knew how to play it. "I learnt a lot the year before, where I shied away from talking," Farah says. "This one, I just faced it head on and dealt with it. I knew I had done nothing wrong." Whether by design or not, he won the public battle with Taylor, who seemingly didn't consider the backlash from Tigers fans. "I can't even start to tell you about the support I had: from my teammates, ex-teammates, staff, players from other clubs, just walking down the street and hearing it from fans from other clubs. People saying, 'We don't support the Tigers but what's being done to you is crap'. It felt like I wasn't just fighting a battle for myself, but fighting a battle for everyone else because everyone kind of felt like it was morally wrong what was happening." In truth, he knew the shit storm was coming. He knew it from the moment he signed his last contract when he took a pay cut and back-ended the deal so he could fit into the Tigers' groaning salary cap.

"When I signed my contract to stay, I remember saying to my manager [Sam Ayoub] at the time, 'This will get me in trouble'. I was going to be 31, 32 on a back-ended deal. But that was the only way I could stay. Because of the cap, the only way to avoid leaving was to back-end the deal. It was always going to be a ticking time bomb." In the end, it was just a smoke bomb. Farah stayed, handed the captaincy over to prop Aaron Woods, and suddenly footy was put firmly into perspective. Uneasy times: Robbie Farah under the watchful eye of Tigers coach Jason Taylor last off-season. Credit:Nick Moir "Standing down from the captaincy is the best decision I've ever made. It just became such a burden at a club that's been struggling for a few years, and all the other dramas that have come along with it. I was at the face of everything that went wrong and people were coming to me for answers. I didn't know the answers. "Footy became about so much more than footy. It wasn't about playing – it was about all the bullshit that came with it. It wore me down. I wasn't happy. I was taking my dramas from footy home and it was affecting my relationships with my family and friends. That's what all that does – it wears you down. You can't escape it, wherever you go. It got to a point last year where I thought, 'You know what? I don't need this anymore. I just want to play footy. Someone else can take the captaincy'. I've enjoyed relinquishing that position."

