MATT Scott's journey to the top echelon of rugby league has been tougher than most.

Unable to hone his skills in his home town of Ilfracombe, Scott and his teammates would board a bus and play for the Gemfields Giants over 200kms away.

Bone dry pitches, littered with rocks and kangaroos' dung were small-time problems compared to the sheer distances they covered to play the game they loved.

"It was a four-hour trip for home games and up to eight hours for away games," the North Queensland Cowboys co-captain said.

"And mum would drive the bus.

"Before we could play we had to go around and pick up a lot of gidgee stones and rocks off the pitch, you sort of learn to just deal with it back then, it is a far cry from what I play on now.

"We couldn't really train because the team was so spread out, we had blokes come from Longreach, Ilfracombe, Barcaldine and the Gemfields.

"It wasn't my first taste of rugby league but it gave me the opportunity to get back into the game, it was sort of my pathway back into playing rugby league. I am very thankful for that opportunity.

"It was great fun, the central west comp faded out a bit when I was growing up so there was no junior footy, we actually had a pretty good year in under-15s when we won the comp."

After playing for Central West, Scott was identified by St Brendans Yeppoon coach Terry Hansen.

Scott completed Year 12 at the rugby league nursery and won a contract at the Townsville club - proving that country kids can make it.

"It was obviously tougher as you have a lot less opportunities, you don't do the type of training that the city teams do, but saying that it's a lot more fun," the 30-year-old said.

"There's no pressure and you play for the love of the game at that age.

"You have got to learn to love it before you can do it as a job so it taught me a lot about that, about team work. But it was tough.

"You would play teams that were a lot more professional, with 17 players against our 13, or even 11, I guess it was a good way to learn to be tough and resilient and play the game how it should be played.

"Probably to not give up, a lot of guys think it's too hard or they don't make it straight away and they give up and move on - but if you really want it - stick at it.

"I didn't get my opportunity until late in Year 12 where I played Con Fraternity Shield in front of some scouts."

Scott sat on the sidelines as the 18th man in the 2005 grand final and had to wait another 10 years to reappear in one - all worthwhile for the veteran forward who recalled the dying moments of the epic.

"I remember it pretty clearly as I played the ball just before the try," he explained about the Cowboys try on the bell.

"I played it, saw that they were struggling on the right and Jake Granville actually passed it left to Johnno (Thurston) and I thought 'Oh no what's he done' but Johno seems to come up with these plays and got it to Morgs (Michael Morgan).

"We had talked a lot about the Broncos left edge backing off so he had a crack, couldn't really believe when he got that ball over to Feldt. It was pretty exciting to say the least.

"I thought he had nailed it (the conversion), the way he had started off I thought it would hook back in so I started running towards him, celebrating already and I realised no-one else was and I knew what happened.

"But then Johnno stepped up again like he always does."