On a Wednesday night in 2025, 80,256 people at Accor Stadium watched Queensland beat heavily favoured New South Wales in a State of Origin decider. Tom Dearden was named man of the match, and won the Wally Lewis Medal as player of the series. He had started that series playing second fiddle to Daly Cherry-Evans.

That has been a pattern in his big-game career. Some of the chances have arrived because someone else was unavailable, and he has taken them.

It began on the Test stage. Dearden made his Kangaroos debut in October 2024 against Tonga at Suncorp Stadium, scoring a late try in an 18–0 win and making 23 tackles. A month later, in the Pacific Championships final, Australia beat Tonga 20–14 at CommBank Stadium, and he was named man of the match.

In Origin, his first full chance came at five-eighth in 2024, when Cameron Munster was injured. In 2025 Billy Slater dropped captain Daly Cherry-Evans after Game 1 and moved Dearden to halfback. Queensland won Game 2 by two points, then took the decider 24–12. Dearden scored in the decider, and he also got his nose through the line just before halftime to set up Harry Grant’s try.

The opening this year was bigger. Nathan Cleary’s compound fracture in Penrith’s preliminary final loss left the Kangaroos without their usual No. 7. Coach Kevin Walters said in early October that he had not decided who would wear the jersey, and described a “duel” between Mitchell Moses and Sam Walker. He also called Dearden a world-class player who could play six or seven.

Dearden kept the jersey. In the 66–6 win over the Cook Islands in Townsville, he had two try assists, 136 running metres and 22 tackles, setting up tries for Tom Trbojevic and Kotoni Staggs. Walters named the same 13 for the semi-final against Samoa, with Dearden at seven and Munster at six. He is 25, with nine Test caps and seven Origin appearances.

None of it came easily. He was a Broncos debutant in 2019, played in the wooden-spooner’s side in 2020, and was released to North Queensland in 2021. His first Cowboys win ended a 14-game losing run. He won the Dally M five-eighth award in 2024, the Cowboys finished 12th in 2025, and he is now the club’s co-captain, contracted to the end of 2029.

This season did not hand him the Queensland jersey. A syndesmosis injury in Round 10 ruled him out of the Origin series, and Walker was man of the match in Queensland’s Melbourne win.

Several of his biggest opportunities have come through an injury or a selection call. The final at Lang Park on Sunday, 15 November is the next test of whether he can hold on to it.