sport news How Liam Martin's late older brother helped make NSW Origin star the most hated ... trends now
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NSW Blues star Liam Martin has been branded a 'massive grub' after footage of his no-holds-barred play in game one of this year's Origin series enraged Queensland fans - and now he has revealed how tough play was drilled into him by his brother Jarred.
Martin's family was shattered when his older sibling took his own life in 2014, aged just 22. But before then the talented former Canberra Raiders under-20s player taught the Panthers forward some harsh lessons about what it takes to make it in top-flight footy.
Despite being six years older and weighing 110kg when he was 18, Jarred wouldn't hold back when the pair locked horns out the back of the family home.
'We'd be playing backyard footy and he'd beat up on 12-year-old me,' Martin told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Jarred (left) was a rugged and talented player for the Canberra Raiders under-20s when he put Liam (right) through the school of hard knocks in their backyard
Jarred weighed around 110kg and was six years older than Liam, 12, when he smashed him in footy games and showed him footy wrestling techniques
'I loved it ... when he'd come home from Canberra he'd show me all the new wrestling techniques he was learning down there.
'I'd cop an absolute hammering, then he'd drag me out to do his fitness drills, too. That's