State of Origin rugby league: Bradman Best's road from bus bad boy to Blues jersey

Best came through NSW's junior representative sides as a highly-touted outside back, notably scoring a last-minute runaway try that sealed victory for the under-16s team in 2017.

He came into first grade to similar fanfare, tipped by the Knights' higher-ups as a star of the future when he re-signed as a teenager in 2021.

But by 2022, the honeymoon was over for Best, who let his guard down as Newcastle slumped to a 14th-placed finish.

"How I played last year, I wasn't happy. I felt like I let the boys down," he said.

The low point came last August, when Best and Knights winger Enari Tuala were late for the team bus during an away trip in Brisbane.

Newly-appointed football boss Peter Parr and coach Adam O'Brien agreed to drop both - the first time Best had been axed from the NRL side since his debut in 2019.

"That's probably where it started," Best said. "That was when I said, 'All right, it's not good enough. I had a few honest conversations with the coach and Peter Parr. That was at the back-end of the year so I knew the off-season was rolling around. I knew I had to get my head down and train hard."

Best arrived at the Knights for pre-season on November 3 and began hatching plans to become the player he always knew he could be.

"Talent can only take you so far and the rest is hard work. That's sort of the way I was looking at it," he said.

The change in attitude led to an upswing in form, and ultimately a call from Blues coach Brad Fittler ahead of Origin III on July 12.

Origin was so far from Best's radar that he didn't answer the phone the first two times Fittler tried to contact him, unsure why an unknown caller would be ringing late on Sunday night.

"Monday morning, the same number came through and I thought I'd better answer it and it was Freddy and he delivered the news," Best said. It came as a surprise, a shock. It was such a surreal feeling. Dreams come true."

Best wasn't the only one surprised he had beaten the likes of Matt Burton and Izack Tago to replace the injured Tom Trbojevic in the centres for game three.

There had been limited media speculation surrounding his possible selection, even after he scored three tries in the Knights' 66-0 drubbing of Canterbury on Sunday.

But Fittler, who coached Best in the NSW under-16s, said the 21-year-old's call-up had been years in the making.

"He's someone who I always thought would end up being a State of Origin player and he gets his opportunity," he said.