In the midst of his sixth pre-season at the Gold Coast, Beau Fermor has his eyes on a new challenge in 2025.
Now 68 games into an impressive NRL career, the talented edge forward is hoping to add leadership to his resume as one of the more senior players part of the Titans squad.
"I’m now one of the older players at 26 which is pretty scary,” Fermor joked.
"It’s something I’ve been working towards and I’ve been doing a lot of work with Foz (Kieran Foran), Tino (Fa'asuamaleaui) and Moey (Fotuaika) as well just trying to build on my leadership.
"I’ve always been someone who leads through my actions, but I’ve just tried to be a little more vocal around the group as well.
"It's what I've been trying to work on and want to continue to work on.
"It's been a good challenge."
Helping the Queensland Origin hopeful with his quest to develop his leadership capabilities was his recent experience with the Prime Ministers' XIII squad, which featured a number of senior players including former teammate Jamal Fogarty, Damien Cook and Luke Brooks - the trip to Papua New Guinea his second time pulling on the invitational green and gold.
"There’s lots of good players in that team and you pick up little things from everyone," Fermor said.
"I was just trying to be a sponge and learn off whoever I could and take little things from other people’s games.
"It’s always good to play with a different group other than who I play with here every week at the Titans, so to play with a different bunch of boys was a good experience."
'It's been a good challenge': Fermor
Fermor has also been a sounding board for Fa'asuamaleaui who is in the final stages of returning from an ACL injury, having been in his captain's shoes only 12 months prior.
"Whenever Tino needs to have a chat, I’ve been there for him," he said.
"It’s one of those things that someone can tell you what it’s like but until you’re in it, you don’t really realise.
"He’s probably at the most frustrating part now where your knee is feeling pretty good and you want to jump into everything, but the physios and the performance staff are telling you to slow down a bit.
"I remember that’s the most frustrating part where you think you can do more and they’re telling you to slow down, so he’s in that stage now and I know he’s getting frustrated with not being able to jump in and go all guns blazing, but that’ll come."
