The look on Hodges' face when he got called out was PRICELESS - "Who, me? Me? Are you sure you want me??" Hahaha...
Amazing game - that was even more dominant than a couple of years back when our forwards were apparently too old and slow after getting beaten up in Game II and we came out in the decider and blasted them off the park in the first 20mins.
Can't fault QLD at all, everyone stood up. Don't understand the McQueen hate, I thought he was great for his second game. He'll see a lot more Origins, along with Teo and Gillette. Big Papa was great, solid without trying to be too much of a battering ram and losing the plot. The big guns were brilliant, as they had to be. Slater looked like he was on one leg for most of the match, think he got rattled up a bit while making a tackle early on? I liked seeing JT, Cronk and DCE all together - never knew who was going to kick. Look forward to DCE playing many, many more Origins - I thought he was pretty good in the middle too, he's obviously not used to the position and had bigger guys running at him than he's used to but he didn't let us down IMO.
As far as NSW - disappointing really (but I don't mind!) Jennings, Reynolds and Fifita stood out to me as playing very aggressively. Maloney was a speed bump this game - welcome to Origin at Suncorp! Kicking was SHIT = brilliant :winky: I thought Pearce's running game was dangerous a couple of times during the match, but that was about it. Dugan was pretty good, looked semi-dangerous in attack but misread his position a bit in defence. I actually felt sorry for Merritt, I like him as a player but it was always going to be a HUGE ask on Inglis' edge. Epic fail. Farah and Gallen are the only keys really, and we shut both down brilliantly lastnight. A few of the usually-solid players went missing lastnight, Watmough in particular.
As far as the incident - my mate and I both agreed at half time it would happen if a) QLD came out and continued the rout with early points (check); b) it would be on inside 10-15mins (13mins = check!) Merrin and Hodges both had to go, they both threw punches. Tate should not have gone, he was reacting to Gallen laying on top in the tackle for an ETERNITY, that should have been a penalty before it even got to the push - they were doing it all game trying to slow us down, especially near their line. Jennings was damn lucky, I actually thought he came in worse than Bird did - and Bird should feel hard done by, no way should he have gone either. The refs clearly lost it.
Slater's elbow was a reaction to Pearce's shot on him in the tackle, penalty as given was sufficient. The only real bad call though was at the start with the two strips - nearly identical, with opposite results. That was pretty bad, if the one against NSW was a strip so should the next one have been. Oh and the coathanger to Hodges was probably worthy of a week on the sidelines but didn't get charged? And at one point NSW were playing the ball ON a line, while the ref had QLD back at least 2-3m back the other side of the next line, clearly well over the 10m - crowd started giving them hell with the BS chant. I have to mention the crowd in general - the sound of it warmed the cockles in my heart :tongue_smilie: There is NOTHING better than Suncorp at full song!!!
Whinging Blues Gallen and Farah annoyed the shit out of me. Laughed so hard when Parker was talking to one of the refs at one point and he stuck his fingers in his ear and basically said "sorry mate, not listening!"
Looking forward to Game III - Hayne should be back, it's in Sydney and they will not let themselves be embarrassed like lastnight down there - look out Maroons. Conversely, the Maroons have now woken up, and that game HAS to have dented the new-found Blues' "confidence that we can beat QLD" in a pretty big way, they had absolutely no answer to that first 20mins. It's there for the taking, I think either are capable - the hungrier team wins. It will be very close.
