Munster ditches Uber Eats, set to dine out on Blues
Uber Eats has lost a customer as Cameron Munster declares he is ready to dominate State of Origin again after making key lifestyle choices with the assistance of former NSW star Anthony Minichiello.
The talismanic Queensland five-eighth missed last year's series with groin and hip injuries and thought his 18-game Origin career could be over.
The 30-year-old has been on fire for Melbourne this year after losing four kilos in the pre-season and puts it down to cutting out fast food and reducing his alcohol consumption.
Magic Munster! 🙌#NRLManlyStorm pic.twitter.com/OnGwqMjSoh
— NRL (@NRL) April 6, 2025
"I had a chat to Anthony Minichiello last year and the way he went about things with his body after he had some injuries and they pretty much told him he couldn't play again," Munster said.
"He changed his diet and that made his body feel better. There is science behind it all and I've been doing a little bit with him and it's worked well.
"I don't drink a whole heap. In previous years I was burning the candle at both ends or drinking every second weekend.
"As a rugby league player you win games with your teammates and you want to celebrate with them but I've found a way of celebrating with them but not drinking.
"I'm not saying I'm going to cut the piss right out but I haven't touched a beer for a while. My body feels better and I don't have to take any anti-inflammatory (tablets)."
Munster is also sourcing his own food rather than sitting on the couch and ordering in.
"I'm not eating fast food any more. I probably should have bought shares in Uber Eats before," he grinned.
"I make my own food now. I go to my local butcher down the road and buy meats, chicken … just the normal stuff.
"You are playing a professional sport and you've got to make sure you put the right fuel in your body. I've done it the last seven or eight months and it has helped my body recover."
Munster was Wally Lewis Medal winner in 2020 as player of the series and is the Maroons' most influential player who is ready to take control and dominate the Origin arena, starting with the series opener on May 28 at Suncorp Stadium.
"I don't think Billy (Slater) would have picked me if he didn't think I could (dominate Origin again)," he said.
"I'm just excited to be back here. Last year when I had a run of injuries with my groin and hips I honestly, being a dramatic person, thought my rep career was over.
"Now I have got it (surgery) done I feel amazing.
"I am a lot fitter now than I was a couple of years ago. It would be nice to have a similar year to 2020, but all I can do is work hard and do the little things for the team. If the big moments come hopefully I can deliver.
"I definitely missed it last year. I'd like these young blokes to have the opportunity to win a series and have some great memories with them."
Munster and wife Bianca have three children and fatherhood has helped the former wild man mature and change his lifestyle.
"It's the best thing I ever did. I had to grow up and it made me grow up," he grinned.
"You definitely don't want to be hung over looking after kids. That's one of the main reasons why I don't drink a whole heap."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Incongruity of World Test Championship final fails to dampen Australian excitement
In Australia it is winter, and it is footy season. AFL, NRL, the works. The autumn was passing strange, with unnervingly high temperatures and Gold Coast Suns in the top four. But now it is June, and feeling more as it should, with nights in the southern half of the continent dipping deep into single degrees. The Raiders must be breathing out steam on Canberra mornings, half remembering dreams of ending a premiership wait. And strangely positioned among all this, the Australian Test team is getting ready to play cricket. Australian winter tours happen, but outside the occasional Asian or Caribbean jaunt this century, they're confined to quadrennial visits to England. Two years ago, the first time Australia qualified for a World Test Championship final, that match came directly before an Ashes series. As well as turning the supposed culmination into an incongruous entree, it also made the WTC final melt into the Ashes summer. Advertisement Related: Pat Cummins: 'We want to play hard and fair, and I think we've got it right' This time, things are different. England will shortly start another five-Test series with India, but neither side is involved in the WTC. So it will be England the cricket board rather than England the cricket team that hosts Australia and South Africa, whose struggle for the right to be called world champions will be based not on a series but a single match. An imperfect mechanism, but it means that this time around, in an Australian consciousness, that match will stand alone. So it is that among the footy news of dawn beach sessions and tribunal verdicts, Pat Cummins is back at Lord's this week after half the time that an Ashes cycle would otherwise dictate, wearing the green cap and blazer while wandering about the pavilion doing moody photo shoots as one half of an exercise in height contrast with South Africa's Temba Bavuma. Their squads run drills on the main turf, the pleasantness of white knitted jumpers covering the ugliness of synthetic training kit. The timing may be incongruous, but that classic visual cue says it's time for a Test. The ICC has gone full-court press on promotion, making sure these images are distributed far and wide. Their Hall of Fame announcement was what the marketing types might call something like a brand crossover activation, with four of the seven inductees reflecting the upcoming contest: for South Africa, batting contemporaries Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla; for Australia, their rival Matthew Hayden, along with New Zealand player but current Australia assistant coach Daniel Vettori. Advertisement Approaching the third WTC final, the concept of a Test format decider is starting to cut through. Press access is oversubscribed, largely by English publications for a neutral contest. Public tickets are sold out. It will be a different crowd to the usual. London has plenty of Australians and South Africans, and the latter are starving for global tournament success in any form, so expect both camps to turn out in numbers. After the unhinged reaction that Lord's gave Australia in 2023, in a spontaneous bout of moralising from the Long Room to the back rows, it might make for a nicer atmosphere to have the England supporter base diluted. It will still be plenty aggressive on the field. Kagiso Rabada's preparatory outing against Zimbabwe was vicious, the ball rising from a length at serious pace again and again. Marco Jansen swings it left-arm from a release point about 10ft off the ground. Keshav Maharaj is a vastly experienced left-arm spinner who the Australians in their World Cup semi-final treated with a respect bordering on hypnosis. The fourth link in that bowling chain could be several options, but none that maintains the proven quality of the other three. The Australians have an edge there, with Cummins likely to join Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Starc, and Josh Hazlewood yet again in a fully rounded attack. When Scott Boland took 10 Indian wickets in the Sydney Test last January, he looked the man, but Hazlewood recovered from injury to dominate a title-winning IPL season. Boland has been wildly successful in scant opportunities, but Hazlewood has 279 Test wickets, and last year took them at 13 runs apiece. Current Australian selection tends towards stability, so career-length pedigree should pip one of the best understudies the game has seen. Related: Australia v South Africa: where the World Test Championship final will be won and lost Advertisement Likewise, the other selection questions feel all but decided. Sam Konstas is unlikely to be thrown in at Lord's as he was at the MCG, with Marnus Labuschagne the seasoned candidate to open instead. That means Cameron Green takes Labuschagne's slot at No 3, after a run-filled county cricket stint. With Green unable to be a fifth bowler due to injury, Beau Webster stays at six. Though if selectors trust the fitness of their four main bowlers, Josh Inglis should be considered for that spot, not just because of his recent century on debut in Sri Lanka, but his ability to problem-solve so many batting situations. Whatever the configuration, the players are excited, the press attentive, and the audience has committed. The Test decider is vindicated further each time it is played. It may be a strange time of year for an Antipodean, and a strange tournament structure for anybody involved. But the important thing now is the game: jumpers on, caps fitted, seats taken, rain cursed, sunshine welcomed. Channel changed. The footy can wait a week.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
League great slams NRL as Benji Marshall spray lands Tigers coach in hot water
League great Greg Alexander has leapt to the defence of Benji Marshall after the Wests Tigers coach's criticism of officials looks set to land him in hot water with the NRL. Marshall blew up over two controversial calls against Jarome Luai during Sunday's loss to Penrith, with the penalty for a late tackle on Panthers kicker Blaize Talagi particularly baffling. Luai was also pinged for an escort penalty during the second half of the 18-14 defeat that Marshall thought the officials also got wrong. But the NRL's head of football Graham Annesley insisted on Tuesday that both incidents were reviewed and the right calls were made. 'It's clear from the vision that Jarome Luai props on his left foot and turns his back to initiate contact with Liam Martin,' Annesley said about the escort penalty. 'Regarding the contact on kicker Blaize Talagi, the rules are very clear, and have been reinforced with clubs on multiple occasions over recent seasons. "Players have a duty of care to avoid dangerous contact with kickers who are in the process of kicking and in a vulnerable position. This is a player safety policy which has been in place for a number of years.' But a frustrated Alexander wasn't having a bar of that explanation and echoed the fan backlash by insisting that Luai made the tackle on Talagi as he was kicking the footy. Luai's shot was not late, high or dangerous and the former premiership winner lamented the fact that current rules tend to penalise defenders for what has long been celebrated as exemplary kick pressure. "The tackle wasn't late, it wasn't high. He was within his rights to make that tackle," Alexander said about the penalty against Luai. "Please tell me that we haven't ruled that out of the game. "Do we just allow a kicker to take all the time in the world to kick the ball? As long as he hasn't made contact with the legs of the kicker - which he didn't - then I think it's gotta be alright. Veteran NRL commentator Andrew Voss agreed it did not warrant a penalty. "If he was passing the ball, then there's no dramas," he added. With the scores locked at 10-10 at the time, the decision proved costly as Nathan Cleary's ensuing penalty goal put the defending premiers up by two, before Thomas Jenkins completed his hat-trick late on to help get Penrith home. Marshall was clearly infuriated in his post-match press conference and suggested the officials decided the outcome, in comments that look to have landed him in hot water. 'The game is so hard and demanding. And I actually feel sorry for our players because they didn't actually get to decide tonight," the Wests Tigers coach said. RELATED: 'Cringey' Galvin promo infuriates fans as Raiders hero cops huge snub Slater under fire for Ezra Mam move as QLD axe skipper DCE 'It was a wrong call. I agree with protecting the kickers, but he didn't take his legs out. They didn't put him in a dangerous position. It was simultaneous when he kicked it and he made contact there. Like, that's not a penalty. "And I thought it actually cost us because we're in a cycle there where they got field position, kicked the goal, got the ball back, went down, got a penalty and then scored, so anyway, I've had my rant.' And it could prove costly for Marshall and the Tigers, with CODE Sports reporting that the NRL is reviewing the comments to determine whether any form of sanction will be handed down. That's two horrible calls by officials this week when it's come to putting pressure on the kicker. You want Luai to do that every 5th tackle play if he could #NRLTigersPanthers — Jay Keegan (@JayMK1994) June 8, 2025 Free 2 points there because of a perfect tackle by luai, game is so far gone. #NRLTigersPanthers — Tiger96🐅 (@tiger959505) June 8, 2025 Jarome Luai has done absolutely nothing wrong then 🤦♂️ #nrltigerspanthers — Alex Sutton (@TosBetting) June 8, 2025 This game is unwatchable. Nothing wrong with that tackle from Luai.#NRLTigersPanthers — Rewster (@Rewster7) June 8, 2025
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Yahoo
Munster's admission about late night Slater text after being named QLD captain
Cameron Munster has opened up about his shock appointment as Queensland captain and the late night text from coach Billy Slater that had him fearing the worst. The Maroons coach confirmed on Tuesday that Munster would succeed axed skipper Daly Cherry-Evans and lead the side in the must-win State of Origin Game 2 clash against the Blues in Perth on June 18. Munster admits it's a bitter-sweet feeling taking over the captaincy from his 'close mate' DCE but is 'excited' to be handed the honour of leading his state. But the Storm playmaker said he thought Slater was ready to deliver some bad news when he texted Munster to have a late-night conversation at Maroons camp. 'At 9:30 last night Billy just messaged me saying 'are you around?'. I said 'yeah, I'm just sitting in my room' and he's like 'come to my room',' Munster told reporters on Tuesday. 'I was thinking 'what could this be about?' I could be getting dropped or maybe I'm 18th man or something like that.' The news turned out to be better than Munster could have imagined, with Slater choosing the five-eighth to lead the state, ahead of other Maroons captaincy candidates Patrick Carrigan, Harry Grant and Tino Fa'asuamaleaui - the latter two of which are skippers at their clubs. 'Billy just brought me into the room, said 'look mate, I want you to be the captain for Queensland and I think you will do a great job',' he said. 'He pretty much just told me to lead by my actions, I don't need to be a talker or go out there and try to motivate the boys, they have enough motivation as it is.' Munster has always been regarded as a rugby league larrikin but has grown into a leadership role at Melbourne and is undeniably one of Queensland's most passionate and influential players. Even still, captaining his state is something he never imagined. 'It's pretty emotional, if you asked me that question five or ten years ago everyone would have laughed in your face,' Munster said. 'I think I have developed into a bit of a leadership role over the last three or four years, grown up a little bit. I know that's hard to say." Munster says it's 'disappointing' to see his good friend Cherry-Evans axed from the side and feared replacement No.7 Tom Dearden might take his spot, instead of the former skipper's. 'He's been playing some great footy, unfortunately one of my good mates Chez had to be left out, he's breathing down both our necks, Tommy,' the new Maroons skipper said. 'We had to find a spot for him and look he's been playing some great footy the past couple of years... made that position his own for Australia. I'm really fortunate to play alongside him and I am really excited to see what combination we can bring on Wednesday.' Slater looks set to make a number of eye-opening changes to his squad as they look to keep the Origin series alive in Perth. Having dropped Beau Fermor and brought Kurt Capewell into the squad, the Maroons coach has named the veteran Warriors player to start in the back row alongside Reuben Cotter, with Jeremiah Nanai shifting to the bench. But the biggest shock centres around the demotion of veteran lock Carrigan, who has been named to start off the bench, with Slater handing the No.13 jersey to Storm star Trent Loeiro. Bulldogs utility Kurt Mann takes over the No.14 role from Dearden after missing out on Game 1 as 18th man, with that role set to go to controversial Brisbane playmaker, Ezra Mam. Jack Howarth and Corey Horsburgh are the other two reserves in the Maroons' 20-man squad.
