An ill-fated short-lived stint with the Blues Super Rugby franchise last year saw him roundly criticised as being too old and too slow before he eventually admitted defeat and headed back to Sydney to revitalise his league legacy.
The former Kiwis captain returned to New Zealand this week as skipper of St George-Illawarra's nines squad, and used the two-day tournament to showcase the silky skills and attacking mind-set that defined his 201-game 10-year career with Wests Tigers.
After losing their opening day one encounter against Newcastle, the 29-year-old led the Dragons to a thrilling last-minute win over Manly, before starring in their final pool match against the Eels on Sunday morning.
The crafty playmaker set up Kiti Glymin for the first try of the day with a deftly placed chip-kick, and then cleverly created a second-half four-pointer for Shannon Crook to put the Dragons within two.
Marshall then finished the job with what was close to being the try of the tournament, when he jinked across-field on a typically bamboozling run. Just when he looked to have run out of space, a no-look pass found an unmarked Eto Nabuli, who sped down the left touchline before flicking a speculator over his right shoulder, into Marshall's safe hands as he dived in to score the match-winner.
Despite his efforts, the Dragons bowed out with a third-place finish in the Rangitoto Pool.
"Physically it's not that tough, it's probably more demanding on your lungs," Marshall said of his nines experience.
"We wanted to work mainly on our defence, we played Newcastle yesterday and they scored three tries off kicks, so we fixed that up today.
"We didn't have a lot of time, we only trained for about 20 minutes on our structure, but I think we got better as we went along. We put on a few tries today and blew a few as well.
"If we had played a bit better in our first game yesterday we probably would have got through."
Back in 2004, Marshall starred in the pre-season World Sevens competition, helping the Wests Tigers to win the title, but he rates the nines as the more challenging game.
"The intensity here is a lot more then what it was back then. But it was pretty full on and there is nowhere to hide out there for sure. I am feeling tired. That is tough work."
- By David Skipwith of the New Zealand Herald
