No one is harder on Brodie Jones about his performances than himself.
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The Newcastle Knights forward is a self-described "perfectionist" .
But that attention to detail has at times been Jones' Achilles heel.
It's why he is now reaping the benefits of recently working with a club-employed mental coach.
This season, the weight of being too critical on himself has been lifted, and in recent weeks, playing Newcastle's past four games, Jones has put in some of arguably his best displays since his breakout campaign in 2021.
"I feel like I'm playing good footy," Jones said, speaking ahead of Newcastle's trip to Tamworth to face Wests Tigers on Saturday.
"I've put a lot of effort into the mental space over the past six months, and it's paying dividends at the moment.
"I'm pretty confident in how I'm playing and I know what I've got to do for the team, and I just go out and do it."
Jones will come off the bench against the Tigers, making his fifth consecutive NRL appearance after starting the year in NSW Cup, where he has also performed well. The 26-year-old has been preferred this week ahead of the likes of Jack Hetherington, Mat Croker and Jed Cartwright.
It's been a quality stint in first grade for the Cessnock junior, who debuted in 2020 but made 22 of his 58 NRL appearances in the 2021 campaign. The past two seasons, Jones has played 13 and 12 NRL games, respectively.
"It was more just the over-thinking side of things," Jones said, elaborating on improvements to his mental game. "I'm very big on trying to be a little bit of a perfectionist, I suppose, I try to be too good at everything and it would hinder my performance a little bit.
"Keeping things simple."
After starting his NRL career as a centre/back-rower, Jones has moved into the middle in recent years, a positional transition he focused on even more this year.
"I play predominately in the middle. I've played a lot of that in NSW Cup," he said.
"I put a bit of weight on through the off-season to help me ... If I have to go to an edge, I will."
The forward, whose family has a rodeo background and lives on property at Quorrobolong outside Cessnock, was eager for his side's trip to Tamworth and the opportunity to play in the country.
"It's pretty exciting to see how pumped they are to watch a game of footy," he said. "They all love it.
"We were up there for our camp in pre-season but we didn't get too much time for media and fan-interaction stuff, so the open training session will be awesome.
"Hopefully we get a good turnout. It's always good to see kids excited about footy."
