JUST hours after he was taken off ANZ Stadium on a stretcher, eight-year-old Lachlan Dooley was back at school - convinced he was a star. And he may be back on the football field by Sunday.

Dooley was injured in a pre-State of Origin under-8s game and was rushed to hospital amid fears that he had damaged his neck. He was cleared of any significant damage and watched some of the Blues' 18-10 win from his bed at the Children's Hospital at Westmead, disappointed only that he had missed the pre-game guard of honour his Carlingford Cougars teammates took part in yet somehow satisfied that he had become a story on one of the game's biggest nights.

"His friends at school are very excited," Dooley's father Tom said yesterday. "Everyone was asking him a million things. He was bigger than Ben Hur - he thinks he's a bit of a star."

The Arden Anglican School student was injured during a Mini-mods game, which cut short the curtain-raiser between the NSW and Queensland under-16 sides. He was eventually taken from the field in a medicab about 15 minutes after suffering the injury.

"I was tackled by three people and my shoulder was first point of contact," Lachlan said. "I ended up rolling over on my shoulder. They said I had a pinched nerve."

Tom added: "It was only his fifth or sixth game. His mum took a bit of convincing to let him play. When he first went down I thought he might have just been winded but when I saw that he didn't move his legs, I got out there fairly quickly. Once he saw how concerned we were it got a bit much for him and he got a bit frightened, a bit upset. He was in pain, and it was very overwhelming.

"But in the ambulance all the colour came back to his face and by the time we got to hospital he was ready to go back to the game. They wanted to keep him there for precautions, though."

Lachlan will get to see his Origin game. ANZ Stadium has invited him to game III. He remains in doubt to play at half-time in Sunday's NRL clash between Wests Tigers and Gold Coast at Leichhardt Oval but is hopeful of being cleared.