holdzy
State of Origin Captain
Contributor
- May 5, 2016
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In fairness, let’s deal with the negatives:
- NSW core players are young, look very comfortable at this level, and will likely be around for a long time to come
- Queensland have a huge dearth of quality Front Rowers, whilst NSW seem to be churning them out with ease. Our Front Row stocks have been immense during the last decade and a really underrated part of our success over that period. Without an ability to find some consistent performers in the engine room we’re destined for plenty more Origin pain potentially. Napa was much better tonight, but Wallace was again a passenger mostly, and the sad fact is we don’t have anyone really putting pressure on those two guys at all. It shouldn’t take a rocketing from the media to get Napa to put in like that, and frankly Wallace just appears unable to take the step up in quality.
- The best in play Kickers we have are Hunt, who now seems destined to be a ‘never in a big game’ kind of player, DCE who is no spring chicken, and Taylor who is currently going through his own bit of second year syndrome issues. Michael Morgan is injured, out of form and looks really fatigues, and Bodie Croft is currently languishing in ISP. If we can’t find our own version of Nathan Cleary to build our side around we could be in for a tough few years.
I love the idea of a Walters and Lam Halves combo in the future, but by the time those guys are ready we could have already lost several series and they’d have all the momentum.
- Inglis, despite his best series in a long time, is almost finished, and Chambers has become a total liability, and Queensland do not appear to have anyone looming in that position to replace these two guys. Sure, Gagai can shift, but he’s been immense on the Wing and we’ll be relying heavily on him continuing that form in the Centres, but outside of that our options are very thin indeed. Considering NSW left out the likes of Aitken etc they’re light years ahead of us in this key position at the moment. This and our Front Row stocks appear to be the two biggest obstacles facing Queensland from a depth position both currently and in the longer term.
It will be Milf and Taylor in the halves in a few years, I'm quite sure. At their full potential, playing to their strengths, they would carve up.
Ofa should have replaced Wallace tonight. Wallace is a pea heart.