Why Walker postponed own wedding and said 'I do' to Blues

"We thought, 'if we can't have the wedding we're hoping for, we'll postpone it','' he said.

"She [Nellie] has seen a lot of marriage posts at the moment, so she's a bit down. But nobody planned for this to happen.

"We locked it in at the start of the year. We got engaged in December last year. We always thought about having it around now.

"We tried to hold off postponing as long as we could. There was a bit of chat about Origin and all those things. And being in the bubble the next four weeks, I couldn't have gone in and out of the bubble.

"It was best to call it early. We have a lot of family coming from long distances to travel down and they were going to make a weekend of it.''

About 200 people were due to celebrate the wedding at Watsons Bay. South Sydney and NSW teammate Damien Cook joked he was desperate to be part of the wedding party, but Walker nominated his three older brothers and two cousins.

The 30-year-old knows he will get the chance to celebrate a big day with the mother of his two children eventually. He's just as certain he will cope much better in his second Origin stint than his first.

How Walker will be used off the bench remains a mystery. Even Fittler said he was not sure and did not want to give it too much thought for fear he would ''outsmart myself''.

Walker made his debut in Origin I last year at five-eighth, was dragged mid-game and then returned to try and make an impact. But he was quickly dropped, and Walker was mature enough to discuss it with Fittler.

"I spoke [with Fittler] about how I was a little disappointed with how it all went down, and I was open and honest with him,'' Walker said.

"When the team was announced [for Origin II last year] I didn't get a phone call and I said I was quite disappointed in not getting a phone call, but he said, 'sorry, there are a lot of things going on', and I understood that.

"The No.1 thing is to get the win. I've grown up supporting the Blues for as long as I can remember. I remember watching it on TV ... I absolutely love the Blues and supported them a long time.''

Fittler admired the way Walker still tried to make things happen that night at Suncorp Stadium. He said no player had finished the past two NRL seasons in better form than the Souths star.

"I'm grateful for another opportunity, they don't come around too often,'' Walker said.

"My confidence definitely took a hit [last year]. In terms of how much, I'm not sure. I didn't recapture the form that had got me in there until the back end of the season."

Fittler said: "Cody is not one to go away and sulk - he goes away and works out why he needs to get better and does it.''