Cowboys half Tom Dearden says it has been a surreal to be mentored by his idol, NRL legend Johnathan Thurston.

In the pre-season, he says he learned a lot from JT, who returned to the club to help mentor the halves.

“It was pretty surreal …. JT was obviously my idol growing up so be able to have him working with me in the pre-season was pretty awesome and working alongside the other halves as well,” he told Peter Psaltis and Paul Vautin on Monday night’s Wide World of Sports.

“The biggest thing, he spoke about the little tiny parts of the game that you don’t really think of or you don’t realise have such a big impact on it.”

He also spoke about halves running more in the game.

“I think probably the start to my NRL career, I think that part of my game had gone away from how I was playing and I think it’s probably a bit of fresh air to be able to bring that back into my game,” he said.

Press PLAY below to hear the full interview, including a preview of this weekend’s game

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