It was half-time and his beloved South Sydney Rabbitohs, playing against one of their great rivals in the 1980s, were behind on the scoreboard. Lane, a star of stage and screen, had been summoned to motivate the troops.

Lane had won several Logies, including the gold variety, but this was perhaps his greatest performance. The late, great entertainer delivered a spray current Souths coach Michael Maguire would be proud of. Then, to underline his point, he took off his gold watch and threw it against the dressing room wall, leaving the shards to shower the underperforming players.

History will show that, after sufficiently recovering from the shock of it all, said players returned to the sheds 40 minutes later to sing the team song.

It was great theatre that was forever imprinted on the mind of John Tedesco. A couple of decades later, he was coaching the side of his son, James. It was the under 11s grand final, played between two Camden sides to determine the best.

The elder Tedesco, realising his usual half-time address wouldn't do for a game of this magnitude, decided to channel his inner Lane.

"I thought that was a good idea," said John Tedesco. "But I didn't want to waste my watch."

Instead, reached into his pocket, pulled out his mobile phone, and threw it as far as he could.

"Everyone was in shock, seeing a phone go across the field," said James Tedesco.

It was only later, long after the full-time siren, that Tedesco snr confessed the phone was an obsolete model he had secretly replaced with a new one.

"But we won," said James Tedesco. "So I guess it worked."

It's a story that still raises a chuckle from all those involved. The latest retelling occurs at the family farm at Menangle, a sprawling 240 hectare property that still houses James Tedesco, his brother Matthew, father John, mum Rosemary and about 80 head of cattle.

Not that there is much of the farm boy in Tedesco. The flying fullback is much more comfortable on the football field rather than the one he has grown up on in Sydney's south west.

"Whenever I had to help [herd cattle] it was more running around and trying to use my speed to get them into the pen," James said.

"I wasn't naturally used to being around them. Dad was always out there working on them and he'd get me to help, even though I didn't really want to."

Having lived his entire life in the Wests Tigers heartlands of Ryde and Camden, Tedesco is as black, white and gold as they come. However, it wasn't always so.

"I was a Roosters fan because our Camden jerseys were red, white and blue, exactly the same strip as the Roosters. I always went for them as a young kid and was a pretty passionate supporter. My favourite player was Brad Fittler and I liked Craig Wing."

If not for his father, he could well have followed in their footsteps. Tedesco was overlooked for representative footy teams in his early years and feared, due to the amount of talented juniors in the area, that he wouldn't get a start at Wests. So they made the commute from Menangle to the eastern suburbs to trial for the Roosters' Harold Matthews side in case he didn't make the grade locally.

"He got a letter saying he could have been there," John recalled of the Roosters invite. "But I wasn't keen on driving him there."

Which is why, to this day, Tedesco is a Tiger. Not that there weren't opportunities to go elsewhere.

While all eyes will be on Tedesco for the Tigers' clash with Melbourne at Leichhardt Oval on Sunday, the narrative will shift the following week back to his decision not to head to the nation's capital. The Tigers' next opponent is Canberra, the club he turned down despite the riches on offer.

"There was a lot of money thrown at me then," he said.

"Even though I said 'yes' over the phone it wasn't signed. But I didn't feel comfortable. I went down on Thursday and had to give them an answer on Saturday morning. By the time I had time to think about it after I wasn't happy with that decision.

"It was very hard to ring Ricky [Stuart] and tell him I didn't want to come down.

"The money didn't really matter at that time."

It was a difficult time for a man of principle. John describes his son as the sort of stickler who, if he found a 16th item in the shopping basket, would point-blank refuse to stand in the 15-items-or-under queue.

"Whenever we would train, we'd put the markers out and there was one idiot kid who would go around the markers when everyone else was cutting corners," John said.

"That's the thing with James. We're Italian, we're a little bit sneaky.

"But he is as honest as anything. There's no Italian in there at all."

What is in there is guts. Anyone, who has suffered so many serious injuries in a career so short, must have them in abundance. Long after the physical scars of multiple surgeries had healed, the 23-year-old began to address the mental ones.

Tedesco pays credit to a secret advisor for contributing to the stunning form that has him earmarked as contender for a NSW Origin jersey.

"There is someone else I talk to, he doesn't want his name mentioned," Tedesco said.

"I've been seeing him since last year and I talk pretty much every week. He's a sports psych guy who speaks to a few of the boys and players from other teams.

"The main thing he talks to us about is playing footy and not putting too much stress on your mind about your game.

"That's a big thing for me, when you think too much about what you should do, that's when you're in your head and not playing what's in front of you."