Lets go inside the Queensland dressing-room before the deciding match of last years State of Origin series where we find Cameron Munster nervously shifting in his seat.

NSW are favourites but the crowd at Suncorp Stadium is roaring. Its got Maroons ambush written all over it. Munster isnt so sure.

Hes been called up to make his Origin debut in place of the injured Johnathan Thurston, in a decider at his states spiritual home. Its every Queensland boys dream and nightmare all in one.

Munster might be playing with Storm teammates Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk and Billy Slater, but hes a kid. Hes 22.

Earlier in the week, at a training session, he was so nervous he was passing balls into the ground.

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“Are you sure hes going to be right to play?” one of the Queenslanders asked Smith.

Munster laughed. Nervously.

Now, inside the Queensland dressing-room, Thurston pulls Munster aside.

Thurstons right arm is in a black sling because of the season-ending shoulder injury he suffered in the game-two victory in Sydney.

“Back yourself,” he tells Munster. “And run”.

OK then.

Munster backed himself. And he ran — 11 times, according to the stats.

He ran the ball twice in the second half, splitting the NSW defence and getting passes away for winger Valentine Holmes and then for the prop Jarrod Wallace to score.

Was a legend born that night? Queensland great Paul Vautin said on Channel Nine Munster would own the No.6 jumper for years to come.

Down on the sideline, Nines Brad Fittler already knew of another Munster legend.

“Straight to bed tonight?” Fittler asked with a cheeky grin.

“Ill be in bed about 12 oclock tonight, mate,” Munster laughed. “Keep it nice and quiet … See how we go.”

“Good luck with that,” Fittler said, laughing louder.

An Origin series win was only the beginning. Next came the premiership with the Storm. Then his first Australian jumper.

After years of thinking he wasnt really good enough to be playing anywhere but his hometown of Rockhampton, hed become the player hed always wanted to be.

But thats just football. Thats what Munster does. It isnt who he is.

The truth was hed never been so miserable, turning away from his family and turning to alcohol. Hed often get so blotto he couldnt remember what happened the night before, even if everyone else did.

“Every time I got off the field I was thinking, F— this. I went and got drunk and I didnt tell anyone,” Munster says. “I wasnt drinking every day but every time I got the opportunity, I was always on it. I was hanging around with the wrong people and Id come into training hungover. I would be in team meetings and forget everything that was said. Everything was going so fast. I got caught up in the excess of everything and I wasnt managing it right.”

How dark did it get?

“There were times when I just didnt want to play. I honestly said to myself, I dont know if I want to do this anymore.”

Munster tells me this in the café at the Storm's home ground, AAMI Park. He sits down with two pages of neatly written notes.

With the exception of two beers after the double-header in Brisbane earlier this month, he hasnt had any alcohol in 10 weeks.

“Hes done that on his own,” Storm coach Craig Bellamy says. “We never told him he couldnt drink.”

It was Bellamy who triggered the turnaround in Munsters career, hauling him out of the Kangaroos camp during the World Cup following a drunken incident with halfback Ben Hunt in Darwin. Both insist it wasnt a fight. Others involved with the Australian side say it was another case of Munster acting like a mug when drunk.

When Munster returned to Melbourne, the coach delivered some home truths, although not with the nuclear ferocity we often see when hes in the coachs box.

“Youve got a lot to lose here,” Bellamy told him. “We want to support you all the way, because we can see the good in you. But you have to pull your head in because you wont just ruin your career, youll hurt the people who love you.”

Bellamys had that brutally honest chat with dozens of players. But this one, he says, was different.

“This one was a little more emotional,” he says. “The other discussion with other players, sometimes theyre not likeable people, but hes a guy you want to see on the right track. There was more care in it. It was something I wanted to get right.

“Everyone was concerned about him because they care about him. Hes a really good kid. There were lot of incidents last year but when I heard what happened in the Australian camp I thought, 'This is getting out of hand now'.”

Munster took something else out of the Bellamy meeting: “You dont want to be one of those guys whos a good player on the field with a terrible reputation off it.”

The word other players usually attach to Munster is “loose”. I tell him that when you Google his name theres almost no mention in the first three pages of results about his achievements last year.

Its mainly about the Hunt incident and the Storm possibly cutting him (something the club has denied).

“Its frustrating,” Munster says. “I had my best year in the NRL and to look myself up and see all that is pretty annoying. I dont want to be one of those people whos known as loose. Im not a stiff but that really hurts to hear that.”

Ever since that watershed moment with Bellamy, Munster has been working closely with respected Melbourne psychologist Jacqui Louder, who hasnt just helped find him something to do away from football — Munster now runs sports programs at schools once a week — but also unpacked his relationship with alcohol.

His problem, as he explains it, isnt the grog. Despite all the dopey things hes done on it, he doesnt consider himself an “alcoholic”. His issue has been in isolating himself from the ones he loves, especially his parents Deborah and Steven, and that manifested itself in him drinking far too much.

“Mum would call and start bawling her eyes out because I would avoid her phone calls,” he says. “I felt alcohol was an easy way out for me and I wasnt man enough to talk to my mum and dad about it. I didnt want to burden them with all of it. I used that as an outlet to drink. Jacquis helped me reconnect with my parents.”

Storm captain Cameron Smith also had some advice: “You can talk all you want. But its your actions that are going to mean more.”

On that count, Munster has stood up, on and off the field. Hes been Melbournes best in what has been, by their standards, a patchy start. “Hes saved us a few times this year,” Bellamy says.

Negotiations to extend his contract beyond next season are underway, although it remains unclear what will happen if Bellamy accepts the job at the Broncos.

After the Storm play the Cowboys in Townsville on Friday night, Munsters next assignment is trying to again torment NSW.

Queenslands bonding sessions are legendary, even if they dont attract the same amount of newspaper ink as the Blues.

“I have no urge to get absolutely maggot [sic],” he says. “Ill have a beer here and there, Ill bond with the boys, bit of a chat, but I wont write myself off. If I drink too much, I black out. Why have a good night if you cant remember it?”

He shuffles through his notes, looking for any final point that needs to be made.

Munster gives the impression of a young footballer who achieved so much, so early, but quickly realised how close he went to pissing it all up the wall.

“All I can do is keep going,” he says.

Back himself. And run.

Chief Sports Writer, The Sydney Morning Herald

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