Contagious confidence: How Brooks owned his milestone moment

It was the sort of night dreams are made of and for Luke Brooks all it took was a little bit of confidence to orchestrate a historic victory in his 200th game for Wests Tigers.

It hasn’t been the smoothest of rides to 200 for Brooks, but on Saturday night his command performance in the Tigers' 66-18 victory over the Cowboys had the Leichhardt Oval faithful chanting his name.

Bearing the brunt of the criticism that has surrounded the joint venture in recent seasons, the 28-year-old said a new-found belief within the group was the key to the stunning 11-try romp.

“To be honest, I think it's just confidence over the last few weeks,” Brooks said.

“I feel like I've gone out on to the field lately not having too much to worry about and just kept it simple.

"And I think that's when I play my best footy - when I can keep it simple and I know what my job is.

“When our forward pack's going forward like they have been all year, it opens up opportunities for me and that brings us little blokes into the game.”

Brooks' masterclass included 212 running metres, five tackle breaks and 415 kicking metres as the Tigers piled on the most points in the 23-year history of the joint venture.

With former teammate Robbie Farah’s emotional 2019 farewell ingrained in his memory, Brooks said It was a “surreal” feeling hearing the 'Brooksy' chant echoing around the Tigers' spiritual home ground.

“It was a pretty special feeling. I remember the last time they did that was with Farah and I got goose bumps then,” he said.

“It was pretty surreal. It was just a great team performance, everyone turned up and things stuck for us.

“The last try in the first half, we got pretty lucky and those sort of things in the last few weeks haven't really been going our way. But tonight everything went our way.

“I guess the last two games we played here weren’t our best performances so we wanted to come here and put on a good performance for the fans. They always turn up for us here.”

With hooker Api Koroisau and Brooks linking superbly to lay the platform for young backs Jahream Bula, Starford To’a and Junior Tupou to shine, Brooks said the confidence has been contagious at Tigertown in recent weeks.

Sharing a milestone with To’a, who crossed for two tries and broke 15 tackles in his 50th NRL game, Brooks even likened the young outside back to former Kangaroos centre Greg Inglis.

“I think their confidence has rubbed off on me,” he said.

“They’ve been outstanding, Jahream at the back and then, Toups (Tupou) and Star (To'a) were crazy tonight.

"I honestly thought Star was Greg Inglis out there, he was outstanding, so strong and had a great 50th game.”