firstly, in years gone by that was the game we lose. NSW get 2 lucky tries off us dropping bombs, we made NO ground with the ball, our forward pack was dreadful, our play the balls were the slowest ive ever seen, and NSW were making 10m+ before they even caught sight of a defender.
to win that game was awesome.
my thoughts on the players:
Hannant was our best prop by a country mile. ran strongly and made ground - unlike any of the others.
Thaiday went missing and was ineffective.
Scott was poor for the most part. had a few minutes of good fired up runs though.
Civo, well he didnt deserve to be there on form, and he played poorly.
Myles was great, got through a mountain of work and was always around.
Harrison was great, sure he got penalised a few times but with the amount of work he was doing and the metres he was making i can forgive it. seemed to be the only forward putting his hand up for a run.
Slater had a mixed game. horrible under the high ball, but played well other than that. dangerous with the ball.
Boyd, well he did all that was required - catch and put down - but also helped us out when our forwards went missing for 60 minutes of the game.
Tate, in origin, is the thing dreams are made of. never doubted him, knew hed give his all, and he didnt disappoint. clear MotM, how the selectors got it so wrong ill never know. if we had 17 Tates we'd never lose a single game.
Cronk had a shocker with the boot.
Smith played very well, and when he kicked we were much better off.
Thurston was epic yet again. probably the difference between the 2 sides.
Inglis looked sensational in the first half and whenever he got the ball. the ball to him dried up in the second half though.
Hodges, did he even play?
Gilletts not ready for origin, like i said last week. he was rushed in on the back of hype.
Taylor was MIA, although from the looks/sounds of it he shouldnt have even been on the field.
as for the blues - Bird, Hayne, Williams, and Farah were their shining lights. Bird played one of the dirtiest games ive seen in a while which was a shame, but with ball in hand he was very tough to handle. like with parramatta, when Hayne decided he wanted to play footbally he was very threatening. Carney sucked, Pearce went missing, Jennings is an absolute idiot, Creagh justified all the "WTF?!" comments on his selection with a laughable showing, and Buhrer also lived up to the "why is he in the team?" comments. i rate buhrer, but not as a hooker for 7 minutes in a state of origin.
now on to a few of the calls.
Hayne punches thurston in the face......no penalty? even after the replays? disgraceful.
Jennings was lucky not to be sent off, absolutely moronic thing to do.
the inglis try - there is NO doubt that its a try. its either a try or a penalty try - either way we're getting 6 points. you cant kick at the ball while a player has it in ANY circumstances, so that gives a penalty try. even if you COULD kick at it, it would then be classified as a steal, meaning play on. inglis then regathers and puts ball down - try. NSW seem to forget that they got a penalty try like last year or in 2010 for this, even though Thurston had more right to kick at the ball than Farah did.
