Bailey Simonsson knows his work without the ball will be critical to him making his second stint in the number one jersey a success for the Canberra Raiders.
Raiders coach Ricky Stuart placed his faith in the 23-year-old by handing him the keys to the back three on Saturday night in his side's clash with the Brisbane Broncos.
Apart from two early hiccups under the high ball, Simonsson looked composed beyond his experience in just his second ever NRL start at fullback.
"Defensively it's the biggest challenge, getting the numbers right and there's a lot of running in the back you don't see on TV," Simonsson told pan66.com.
"I give a lot of credit to the fullbacks for all of the running they do.
"That's the biggest challenge, but I have been working hard with our defensive coaches to work on that and keep improving each week."
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Simonsson knows he will continue to work on his positioning and communication as he seeks to make a home at the back in the wake of the season-ending neck injury to Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad and Caleb Aekins falling out of favour after starting the last seven games.
"I was really excited all week to get a crack there," Simonsson said.
"There's a lot of things I can work on and take away from that game but first performance I was pretty happy with it and liked to build on.
"I'm not trying to look too far ahead and keep learning each day because it's a relatively new role for me this year."
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That inexperience was on show early in the game when Simonsson let two Broncos bombs bounce dangerously near their in-goal area.
"[It was] not so much nerves but a bit of a communication thing we spoke about at half time, we had to fix that pretty quickly because that's not ideal coming out of your own end," Simonsson said of the minor errors.
"But you're always learning and taking things away."
Apart from the two competition points, the other outcome that will please Raiders' fans the most from Saturday night was the 16-6 second half score in their favour after letting early or half-time leads slip from their grasp far too often this year.
"Our second halves have been our Achilles heel this year but it was good to get a couple of tries then," Simonsson said.
"And I thought we really withheld some of their pressure late in that second half.
"Our middles were able to set a great platform and we were able to roll off the back of that we've got a lot of confidence and belief in our team, obviously it has hasn't been a great start t the year but we're confident we can build off this and go on a good run."
