NSW players stood and applauded as Alex McKinnon wheeled himself into the meeting room where they were preparing for training at Coffs Harbour on Saturday.
McKinnon, who is set to give an explosive interview about his life-changing spinal injury on 60 Minutes on Sunday night, made a surprise appearance at the Blues training with his fiancee Teigan Power.
The couple were driving from the Gold Coast to Newcastle and decided to visit the NSW team camp at the Novotel Pacific Bay Resort after being invited by McKinnon's former St George Illawarra teammate Trent Merrin.
Blues coach Laurie Daley met McKinnon on his arrival and wheeled him up a ramp to the room where the players were getting ready for the training. As he entered the room, McKinnon was met by loud clapping and cheering from the players.
The 23-year-old chatted with Merrin, Tariq Sims, Aaron Woods and David Klemmer before the session began.
Considered a future State of Origin player before his injury in last season's round three match between Newcastle and Melbourne at AAMI Park, McKinnon then watched from the sideline with Power as the Blues trained.
Daley and others in the NSW camp are expected to watch the 60 Minutes program in which McKinnon discusses his feelings about the tackle which left him with a crushed spinal cord, his determination to walk again and the support that Power has provided him.
"He's got great hope that science and technology will one day hold the key to him getting movement back," reporter Liz Hayes told Fairfax Media. 'He's also a realist. He's in a place where he understands that might not happen."
The program also details how McKinnon struggled to cope with the realisation of how devastating his injury was and had "wanted to die".
"I said 'you can't leave me darling, you are my life," McKinnon's mother Kate recalled.
Kate McKinnon was watching the game on television at the family's Hunter Valley home when Alex landed awkwardly in an ugly lifting tackle by Melbourne forwards Jordan McLean and the Bromwich brothers, Jesse and Kenny Bromwich
"I just stood and looked at the telly and said, 'Get up, Alex, please get up sweetheart'," Kate tells Hayes in the first interview she or husband Scott have given since the incident last May.
McKinnon, who is paralysed from the chest down, said he constantly asks himself: "Why didn't you just let go of the ball and put your hand down?"
"It was just a click and everything just stopped," he said of the tackle that left him prone on the field and unable to move. "Like a winter's night, it was just silent and ... cold."
McKinnon can't cough or sneeze since his head hit the ground in that tackle but he has learnt to pick up a spoon and can stand for short periods with assistance.
More than $1 million was raised for McKinnon through last year's Rise for Alex round but with annual living costs of more than $200,000, Fairfax Media recently revealed he was considering suing the NRL and Storm.
Hayes said the legal action was supported by Wayne Bennett, who is a mentor to McKinnon after coaching him at the Dragons and taking him to the Knights.
"He says that in 30 years' time, when no one's heard of Alex McKinnon, he's got to know that he'll still have a life," she said.
"I think financial security is what [McKinnon] would hope to achieve. He's not wanting Learjets. He's just wanting to survive."
