if there are 2 certainties in rugby league, its that Tate will play out of his skin in origin, and thaiday will drop the ball at a crucial moment of the game.
3) Tate gone, Slater to wing for him, Inglis to fullback and Chambers to centre.
are you shitting me?
tate was our best player along with parker, and has been in our top 2 players pretty much every single match for 7 years. dropping him is the absolute last thing we should do.
game 2 we need to do this, as QLDER said:
1. Inglis
3. Tate
5. Slater
Inglis NEEDS to get his hands on the ball every set, and needs to be roaming around in attack. Slater was great last night, easily top 3 Qld players, but Inglis is in career best form.
on the game, sadly it played out like i thought it would - just like last year, QLD came out looking uninterested and lethargic. boring broncos style football for an hour, 4 1-off rucks followed by a bomb on the halfway line because we're only making 30m per set. carbon copy of last year, only this year our kicking game was absolutely atrocious, and our forwards were even slower as a whole.
cronk had the worst game ive ever seen him play. mid-field bombs that were neither high or deep enough or positioned well, and a "long" kicking game consisting of 30m distance per kick. terrible.
thurston shouldnt have played if he cant even take a shot at goal cause of an injury. quite selfish if you ask me. glad hes got the record, but not a good way to get it.
butterfingers thaiday.....shouldnt have been selected in the first place on form, should be dropped after that pathetic match, but will no doubt be rewarded with another go around. cost us any hope of winning with that pathetic carry of the ball after slaters big run.
mcqueen was decent, but was a pointless selection and barely got any minutes. should be dropped for hannant.
teo came out all guns blazing, some great runs and great tackles, but didnt seem to get many minutes either.
gillett did a few great runs and tackles, but again, not many minutes and had little to no impact that an impact player should be making. should be dropped for papali.
parker was best on field with tate for QLD. great running, great offloading, good tackling, but shouldnt be on the bench. i love harrison, has given his all for the team, but its time to give parker the lock position and 80 minutes.
hodges had easily his best origin game ever, which despite not really saying much since his origin career is pretty bad, he was dangerous all night.
scott just kept giving his trademark 10m+ hitups, carrying 3-4 defenders. absolute machine. unfortunately being one of only 2 props in the team means he had to carry the entire team, which he did his best to do like he does for the cowboys every week.
myles wasnt his usual self. busy, but wasnt very effective. took gallens bitch cheap shots like a man though, didnt take a step backwards and despite 2 clean hits didnt even go down. respect++.
boyd did what ultimately his job is, follow inglis and reap the rewards. wouldve liked to see him more involved, but his game has dropped significantly since going to newcastle and he probably shouldnt have been their either, especially with his injury. its annoying that hes now iirc the second highest overall try scorer in state of origin history yet he hasnt actually done anything other than catch the ball and put it down a few metres further up field.
slater was excellent, top 3. his goal line defence attempts on jennings and hayne were pathetic, but it shouldnt have even gotten to him having to tackle them. that was schoolgirl type defence by about 4 other defenders.
smith tried hard to get a roll on but the forwards just werent responding. his kicking game was also poor. why do a 4th tackle kick from dummy half 42m out from your line? why not do it inside the 40? it wasnt catching NSW off guard, it just threw away a tackle and lost us field position.....and he did it like 4 times!
not confident at all going in to game 2. we played terrible so theres room for improvement, but NSW's handling was atrocious. if they just fix that up theyll blow us away in both game 2 and 3. i have no doubt mal will pick the same team for game 2, so i have a feeling ill be there for our first series loss in 8 years :(.
now im very glad that i bought the 7 in a row jersey last year.
