NRL: Marshall doesn't want a holiday, he wants more tough matches

Don't try telling Benji Marshall the league season is too long and demanding, that he should give a body that once seemed too brittle for the game a good long rest ahead of next year's NRL campaign.

He won't have a bar of it. It's been hard enough for the ace Kiwi playmaker watching the NRL finals after a late season rally from his Wests Tigers fell agonisingly short of securing a playoff spot. For Marshall, the forthcoming Kiwis campaign, which starts with a test against Tonga on Wednesday week and then morphs into a Four Nations tournament in Europe, is no arduous final assignment before he can hit the beach.

It is the chance to keep playing at a time when he feels he is at the peak of his powers.

"I was starting to feel like I was in the best form I've ever been in so it was disappointing I couldn't keep playing," he said.

While an early NRL exit spelled an immediate break for the likes of ailing Warriors Manu Vatuvei, Sam Rapira and Simon Mannering, to name but a few, Marshall entertained no such thoughts.

"From my point of view, I've missed my first few years of test footie so the more games I can play the better. I didn't want to stop playing and I don't feel tired. I feel fresh."

A horror run of shoulder injuries means this will be his first tour with the national side.

There was a time when Kiwis fans watched Marshall play with a sense of dread, when a serious shoulder dislocation seemed never more than an attempted tackle away. But after three reconstructive surgeries, all of that is the past, he insists.

"There were times I wanted to give up. But this is the best I've felt. To put two seasons in a row together injury free is pretty massive for me. I used to let it worry me in the back of my mind, the shoulders and that. But now I feel comfortable and probably the strongest I've ever been.

"When you are having the good times you seem to forget about all the negative things that happened in the past."

The best of those good times came at last year's world cup. Marshall seizing on to Billy Slater's wild pass and racing away for the try that sealed victory over Australia in the final has become one of New Zealand sport's most enduring images.

The disparate nature of league world cups means some will always question their value. Not Marshall. He rates the triumph well above winning the NRL premiership.

"It was the biggest thing that has happened to me. Representing your country is the biggest honour you can have. Playing club is good, you are with your best mates and that. But playing for your country you are representing everyone. To win the world cup, to be underdogs and come out on top was unbelievable."

A confirmed Sydneysider, Marshall insists he was never tempted to follow Karmichael Hunt's lead and switch allegiance to Australia despite the fact that it would have made him eligible for the bright lights and big bucks of State of Origin.

"I was asked a couple of times but at the end of the day I knew where my heart was and where I wanted to be. That was playing for Kiwis. That was my main goal. And now to be the captain is something special as well."

Playing in Rotorua will also be special for the Whakatane-raised Marshall. Busloads of friends and family are expected to make the trip to see him play in what will be his first league match on Bay of Plenty soil.

The Warriors have made no secret of the fact that they are after a marquee half and Marshall would seem a natural fit. But his home is most definitely in Sydney.