Korbin Sims never planned on playing in the World Cup. Then he received a call from Fiji captain Kevin Naiqama, who convinced him to put on the boots one more time.
Sims officially retired from rugby league after Fiji’s 24-18 quarter-final loss to New Zealand.
But had Naiqama not reached out to him, he would have hung the boots up nine weeks earlier in a rather deflating fashion.
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Sims, who has spent the last two seasons with Hull KR, was forced to watch what he thought would be his final game of rugby league from the sidelines after copping a suspension for Grade C contact with a match official.
The 30-year-old had already ruled himself out of the World Cup and was all set to return to Australia… Until Naiqama gave the mission of a Sims swan song one last shot.
“Six months ago I made the decision to retire at the end of the year and I already had ruled myself out of the World Cup,” Sims told reporters after the New Zealand loss.
“I had a couple of questions from the captain and teammates through the year and I always said ‘no’ but just as the boys were getting ready for that England (warm-up) game Kevin Naiqama called me and asked again if I wanted to play.
“I made the decision there and then that was the way I was going to finish off my career — and I couldn’t be happier doing it this way after having a suspension and missing out on the final game of the regular season in the Super League.
“I went out on my terms, I went out the way I started my career — in a World Cup — so I’m pretty happy with my decision to return home and be a dad.”
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Sims confirmed it was definitely his last game and no phone calls will be able to change his mind this time.
He’ll fly back to Australia in just under two weeks time — although when Fiji held a 12-nil lead 20 minutes in, the thought of changing his flights crossed his mind.
“My body’s had it, it’s been a couple of years living away from my son so it’s time for me to go home and be a hands-on dad again. I’m looking forward to it,” he said.
“I was getting ready to push my flight back another day. I booked my flight for the 18th of November, I thought the final was on the 17th so I was getting ready to push it back another day.
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“We had lots of belief out there, especially in the first half we played really well.
“The reason I said no was because at that time I made the decision my body wasn’t going to let me and my mind wasn’t going to let me make it through past the end of the year.
“The only reason I said yes is because I know the feeling and the passions that’s in this group.
“No matter who is in the team we always know that we can do something special — and we almost did something special again tonight.
“I’m sure a few people out there were really surprised by the first half but we weren’t, we knew that if we played our brand of footy and we played the way we wanted to play we knew we’d be in a good position.”
Interim Fiji coach Wise Kativerata added: “I’m proud of what Simsy done, he was on his way back home — retiring. So we called him to come back, it was good to have him on the field today.”
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It was an epic effort by Fiji to challenge — and almost beat — the No.1 ranked nation in the world.
Especially considering the adversity the squad had to overcome early in the campaign when head coach Joe Dakuitoga became ill and had to be hospitalised.
“I’m really proud of the boys, they hung in there until the last minute,” Kativerata said.
“Everyone look at the points when we played against England (in a warm-up match).
“We came all the way from back home, straight here with a few days turnaround and things happened with our head coach so we had to turn everything around quickly against Australia then we move on from there.
“Full credit to the boys and the coaching staff. The boys listen — we had to change the whole concept of the way we play and the way we do things.
“So we’ve got to work with what we do have. We don’t have much but we’ve just got to keep moving forward from here.”
