Just eight months ago James Tamou was browsing the internet in search of jobs after crippling self-doubt left him scared of playing and fearing his career was over after a serious neck injury. Now the North Queensland prop is 80 minutes away from winning his first grand final as he prepares to face Brisbane at ANZ Stadium on Sunday night.

Tamou has revealed just how dire his situation was after having off-season surgery to repair nerve damage in his neck. He began looking for alternative options fearing his six-year career had been cut short.

"I didn't really shed a tear but I always thought within the recovery phase that I wasn't going to make it or have the confidence to make it back to rep footy or even first grade," Tamou said. "I was actually thinking about jobs. I was looking up the internet and personal training jobs to stick around things that I know. I'm glad I didn't walk away from it."

The road to recovery was long and slow. Tamou does not mince his words. While he stands at 194 centimetres and weighs 113 kilograms and comes complete with body tattoos, Tamou feared for his well-being. Unsure if he wanted, or would be able to, play rugby league again.

The Cowboys enforcer does not shy away from the fact that he was scared. That he still is scared about his neck heading into Sunday's premiership decider.

"Absolutely," Tamou said when asked if he was scared. "And still am to a certain extent right now.

"I remember we were racing the clock to get back for round one against the Roosters. I had to play a game for Cairns against the PNG Hunters. In training we had tested it and had done some heavy contact and wrestling and I felt pretty good from that but nothing could get you ready for the real thing or the real contact. I played dreadful in the trial game."

The fear came despite assurances from medical professionals that his neck was strong.

Tamou was plagued by severe doubts that he could recapture the form that saw him rise to be part of Australia's 2013 World Cup win and the Blues' breakthrough Origin series victory last year.

"It was tough," Tamou said. "At the end of last year and the start of this year when I had surgery on my neck, I was just thinking would I be able to play again or play the same? I would have to kick it in. At the start of the year I was struggling. I was not my old self.

"I remember lying down in the recovery phase from the surgery, it was about two to three weeks after it and it took a long while for me to recovery. I was thinking this isn't right and I wouldn't be able to play rugby league again. I was calling our physiotherapist and I was calling him saying I don't think I will be right. He was saying it was normal and it would be right.

"Even coming back to training, I lost a lot of weight. I wasn't myself. I didn't know how I was going to come back to rugby league. It's a tough sport and having a neck injury is always risky.

"No one ever told me that I would have to give it up, if anything it was the opposite. Everyone was telling me to keep going, keep pushing."

In his own words, Tamou "struggled" in his opening three games of the NRL season and looked a shadow of the player who had challenged Matt Scott as the games best prop. And then, finally, the penny dropped.

"Every game in my head I just wasn't right confidence-wise," Tamou said. "It wasn't until after round four against the Melbourne Storm. I did a hit-up and the body felt fine, so I thought 'why can't I do it more often?'

"That was a good feeling. I threw my body into contact and the neck pulled up fine. That's where all the confidence came back."

Despite recapturing his best form, Tamou has not been without panic throughout the season. He was taken to hospital in round 24 in New Zealand after a knock to his neck and needed attention to the injury in the Cowboys last-start win against Melbourne.

"I've had a few scares," Tamou said. "In New Zealand I got carted off and that was just a burner and I could've got up but the doctors said I had to stay down just in case. And then against Melbourne, I had another burner and I told them I knew what it was and I would be fine.

"They said 'get up' and I walked off. It takes about five minutes to settle down. Once it settles down there are no symptoms and I'm right to get back on."

Injury aside, Tamou could have easily have been watching Sunday's grand final from the sidelines had he accepted an offer to join the Raiders for family reasons. Tamou had all but packed his bags to make the mid-season switch to Canberra.

The 26-year-old said it had been a "long road" to be able to stand alongside his teammates for the national anthem come Sunday.

"I wanted to come back and play rugby league," Tamou said. "The love of the game and prove to myself and to everyone else that I could play. Growing up with this sport and watching it religiously, it's for the love of the game and that I wanted to play rep footy and do everything that I had done pre-surgery.

"It was determination."