Aged 33, thousands of miles away from home and without a club, Jy Hitchcox never imagined pulling on an Australia jersey.
But that’s what the much-travelled winger did this week when answering an SOS from the mighty Kangaroos.
Hitchcox, released by Championship Grand Final winners Leigh last month, trained with the world champions ahead of Friday night’s World Cup quarter-final clash against Lebanon. He said: “They needed to run a 13 v 13 session but only have a 24-man squad and had some niggles.
“Adrian Lam (Leigh coach and Australia assistant) asked me, (Leigh team-mates) John Asiata and Sam Stone to come join them. It was a bit daunting, to be honest. My best years are probably behind me so I was pretty nervous. These are the highest calibre of players in the world on top of it being my dream as a kid to wear a Kangaroos shirt. So to just train with them was awesome. They were all really welcoming.”
And there were some familiar faces: superstar Australia captain James Tedesco played alongside him at Wests Tigers in 2014 before Byron Bay-born Hitchcox moved overseas for spells with Featherstone, Castleford, Bradford and Toulouse. He added: “I also came here when I was 18 with the Australian Institute of Sport that faced England Academy.
“Ben Hunt was on that team with me. I played with James Tedesco at Wests, before he made his debut and afterwards. I caught up with them on Tuesday and it was great.
"Seeing Australia up close this week, they are pretty unreal especially their spine with the halves, full-back and hooker. I was discussing it with some of my mates afterwards and it's just how they do all the little things so very, very well. Lebanon will give them their biggest test yet but Australia just have so much quality I think they’ll run away with it.”
