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After an emphatic comeback from his booze-fuelled Broncos ban, Gehamat Shibasaki has vowed to cast aside the controversial chapter that threatened to end his NRL lifeline.
The resurgent centre had been the feel-good story of the season, having risen from a train-and-trial contract in the pre-season to a shock State of Origin debut in the Queensland Maroons’ game three series-sealing triumph.
Despite arriving at Red Hill struggling to keep up with coach Michael Maguire’s brutal regimen, Shibasaki became a strike weapon, scoring 15 tries from 22 appearances before being axed ahead of the campaign’s final round.
Gehamat Shibasaki in action for the Broncos.Credit: Getty Images
After reporting to Monday training still feeling the effects of a night of drinking upon returning from his side’s win against the Cowboys, Shibasaki was dropped for the crucial clash with Melbourne.
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While the Broncos needed to win to secure a place in the top four, Maguire and the squad’s leadership group determined he needed to be displaced to ensure the standards they had sought to implement were going to be met.
“Without going into too much detail, I made a mistake and paid for my mistake,” Shibasaki said on Wednesday.
“It was a decision left in the leadership group’s and Madge’s hands, and my main focus was to get myself ready for whatever decision they made.
“It’s like any lesson: you make a mistake, and you don’t do it again. I’m a leader in this club now, so I shouldn’t have done what I did, and now I get back to the training paddock and lead with my actions.”
The training he was put through after his lapse in judgment proved to be every bit as draining as the pre-season, with Maguire telling media after the incident that Shibasaki got “flogged”.
“It was pretty bad, I deserved it. It was just like another pre-season training, and I had to focus on that time and that moment, and that was to get through training and get fit and ready, whatever decision the boys made,” Shibasaki said.
“Madge was really good, he just made sure I was OK and made sure my wellbeing was OK. It’s not everything about footy, but he was worried about my mental health, and was really good about it.
“My main focus, he told me, was to focus on training, and what I could do was to control what I could control, and that’s what I do on the paddock.”
Shibasaki was ultimately ushered back into the fold for Sunday’s breathtaking 94-minute epic against the Canberra Raiders, with Ben Hunt’s golden point field goal clinching a 29-28 triumph and a preliminary final berth.
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If the Townsville product needed to do something special to regain his teammates’ trust, he did just that in the nation’s capital – scoring a try and running for 228 metres, with eight tackle busts from 27 carries, while also coming up with a try-saving tackle on Zac Hosking to force an error.
Broncos interim captain Pat Carrigan, who convinced Shibasaki to return to Brisbane and will miss next Sunday’s penultimate showdown, said he never doubted his close mate would redeem himself – despite being one of the leaders who confirmed his one-game demotion.
“He’s human, he just owned it,” Carrigan said.
“I’ve made mistakes in the past too. His work ethic’s been unreal this year, and what he’s produced on the field, even in Origin, speaks for itself.”
Shibasaki’s centre partner, Kotoni Staggs, added: “Gem will learn from that, you live and learn. He’s not the first, and he won’t be the last to do something like that.
“He knows what he did was wrong.”
While Shibasaki appears to have done enough to retain his place, the looming comeback of Selwyn Cobbo from a hamstring injury has reignited the Broncos’ backline battle.
Cobbo has been named on Wynnum Manly’s extended bench for their Queensland Cup preliminary, as has Jesse Arthars for the Burleigh Bears.
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