Dragons 2020: Pereira ready to soar after banishing demons

With the stakes low and audiences small, very few pre-season tries are memorable for those who make a living from scoring four-pointers.

But when Jordan Pereira dived towards the try line and grounded the ball in the 58^th minute of St George Illawarra's trial victory over the Knights last month, the moment meant a lot more than the four points it added to his team's tally.

Having feared he may never walk again after landing head first in grounding the ball while playing Canterbury Cup last July, the try marked the moment Pereira knew he had overcome the mental demons with suffering such an injury.

"I definitely still think about it," Pereira said. "There were a couple of tries (in the trial) I had to just catch them and put the ball down, I wasn't too excited.

"But there was one where I dove in the corner and just because I put it down and I stood up and I got really excited, I was quite expressive of my happiness.

"I dove in the corner, landed safely and stood up and I was really happy, because I was like 'Oh thank God, it's sweet, it's just a freak accident.' Now that's out of the way, I won't think about it from then on."

Pereira's injury came amidst a challenging season. Coach Paul McGregor dropped him to reserve grade in round 12 after a number of poor performances and Pereira conceded his fitness let him down.

"I started to find the game getting tougher and tougher as the season went longer and longer," he said.

"Being a regular first grader, it's not easy playing at the high level, but this year I'm prepared for that and I've been doing extra sessions to keep on top of the fitness side of things.

"It's a fast game, NRL, it's very taxing on the body and the mind. It's the one per cent effort areas that Mary's been drilling into me this pre-season.

"He's let me know if he's ever caught me slipping in an area that you wouldn't notice on the tele, but something you would notice with eagle cam."

Now having recovered physically and mentally, Pereira is preparing to run out for his first NRL game since the incident when the Dragons host the Tigers at WIN Stadium on Sunday night.

The match will be his 21^st in the top grade, Pereira only breaking into the NRL as a 25-year-old after a lengthy journey through Western Australia and Queensland.

The winger admits he felt a sense of information overload at times throughout the last two years, as he struggled to fully grasp the intricacies of playing in the NRL.

This pre-season, however, that all started to change for Pereira and now he's found a level of confidence, the New Zealander is determined to take his game to another level in 2020.

"I enjoy learning things, but in other preseasons I've had, I was being given lots of information," he said.

"I was absorbing it, but it didn't sink in as deep as it has this preseason.

"The game's started to slow down for me and I'm able to read defences a lot better and position myself better in attack.

"I've really put all the information I've gathered in the last few years and put them into play this season."