Anthony Watmough risks a stroke to play for Blues

ORIGIN X-factor Anthony Watmough will risk playing on Wednesday night with two bulging discs in his neck.

ORIGIN X-factor Anthony Watmough will risk playing on Wednesday night with two bulging discs in his neck as NSW seek to stop Queensland from winning a seventh straight series.

Watmough had cortisone injections into his C5 and C6 vertebrae despite being warned the procedure carries the risk of having a stroke.

The Manly forward also torpedoed claims of disloyalty to the Blues after he declined the invitation to be 18th man in game one.

After a week of restricted training, he will take part in his first contact session tomorrow as the Blues put the finishing touches on preparations for the game at ANZ Stadium.

"My C5 and C6 are bulging. They're pushing on the nerve and if I get a big enough hit when I run the ball, the backwards movement just pinches the nerve," Watmough said.

"If I got a big enough hit it would pretty much run down the whole right side of my body. That's why I went in and got the cortisone injections done.

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"The doctors give you the run down where they come in with the indemnity form you have to sign. They tell you if you move and they hit the wrong spot there's a good chance you'll have a stroke.

"So you sit there thinking, 'What the hell's going on here?' I nearly didn't get it done. They strapped me down on my side and stretched the nerve right out.

"But it's settled down. They said there's a good chance for 24 hours that you lose all your arm strength. I walked out and it was fine and there's been no numbness or pain.

"They said it would probably hurt a lot at night time, but it just instantly felt better.

"I'll be good to go. No one wants to play games busted and let your teammates down and I wouldn't want to risk doing that. The club would have loved me to have the weekend off and rest, but Origin is too big to pass up.

"Origin is something you never take for granted. You never know when your last one is going to be so when you get the chance, you grab it."

With coach Ricky Stuart having four forwards on the interchange bench, Watmough and Luke Lewis are viewed as game-breakers with their with speed, footwork and ability to hit-and-spin at the line.

Watmough holds no grudges about Stuart's decision to go in a different direction by controversially overlooking him for Origin I.

Watmough has made a mockery of claims he was disloyal by Queensland's Kerrod Walters with his decision to play injured.

"It would have been easy for me to pull out with my neck and get it right," Watmough said. "But I don't think anyone should be questioning my loyalty to the Blues or anything like that.

"It was along the lines that I didn't want to let anyone down. Not that I didn't want to be in the Blues camp.

"Stick's (Stuart) the coach ... who am I to question? There's a whole lot of reasons behind it and there's a whole lot of people that give him advice, too.

"They went in a direction that they thought was right for NSW and I was in no position to question or judge that.

"I'm just grateful that I got another crack. It will go down with one of the greatest moments if we can get away with this series."

Watmough will put friendships on ice come Wednesday night.

"I'm not going to lie, there's always that Queensland-NSW rivalry there," he said.

"You put it aside when you go into (Australian) camps because they're all good blokes but then you wait for this time again and try and hurt each other."

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