The teams have been named and the battle lines drawn. State of Origin Game 2 is ready to rumble in Perth on Sunday night and, as usual, the focus has been near-completely upon the NSW Blues – and, more specifically, coach Brad Fittler’s team selection.
Fittler has made seven changes to an Origin team that lost Game 1 by four points, including dropping the centre who a month ago was regarded as the best player in the world. Fittler has picked fullbacks in the centres. He has picked a seven who’ll play second-fiddle to the six. He has picked a tyro in the front-row and four back-rowers on the bench.
And he has picked, arguably, a stronger team for Game 2 than he did for Game 1.
It’s arguable because chief enforcer, David Klemmer, is a huge miss for the Blues. His hard charges in the opener in Brisbane laid a platform of ragged, scattered, back-peddling Queenslanders into which the fleet-footed duo of James Tedesco and Damien Cook wrought havoc in the first 30 minutes.
But then Klemmer went off and the Maroons found starch in the guts. They swamped the Blues with committed, physical defence. They wrestled better, slowed things down such that Cook and Tedesco could scoot no more. Instead they made tackles. Cook would make 50 and Tedesco was the last line of defence against the multiple forays of Will Chambers, Cameron Munster, Dane Gagai and boy wonder, the remarkable Kalyn Ponga.
Those “generals” the Blues had in the halves, Cody Walker and Nathan Cleary, were inexperienced and effete. Their major weapon on the left, Latrell Mitchell, looked spent from the get-go. And the Maroons just kept on coming, bombarding the NSW line in defence and attack. There were only four points in it but the gulf was huge.
And so Fittler made seven changes and pundits and punters alike have been in a flap. People don’t understand why there are fullbacks in the centres, the halfback is not the dominant “quarterback”, and Mitchell is in Taree.
Yet he’s done it before, and recently. Indeed for Game 1 this year he had five new faces. In Game 1 last year he blooded 11 debutants. Another two were added before the series was done. That’s a full run-on side of new players. You could thus argue that seven changes – three enforced through injury – is conservative by Fittler’s standards.
And you’ll get that argument if that’s what you’re looking for, because this is rugby league and people are nothing but combative. So much of the prevailing wisdom goes that Fittler has rolled the dice and/or lost his mind. People love the guy, old cool hand Fred – but few can comprehend his selected XVII.
Yet it is very good. For in a game as attrition-based as State of Origin rugby league, quick play-the-ball in completed, “perfect” sets are the building blocks to beating one’s opponent into submission. Fittler has picked men with that in mind.
He has gone with speed. Josh Addo-Carr needs little introduction. He is the proverbial scalded cat. Tom Trbojevic is a huge inclusion for the Blues. Fittler had to put him somewhere; that it was in place of Mitchell is a talking point. But Trbojevic, even after one game with Manly, showed what a weapon he is. He’s flying under the radar and could lay waste to Queensland out wide.
The four back-rowers on the bench have distinct skill sets. Each can play-the-ball quickly after scurrying into space and wrong-footing defences, forcing low tackles with less time-slowing, wrestling potential.
And into this ragged D-line will come Cook, Tedesco, and Jimmy Maloney, who’ll throw an intercept pass one play, and a cut-out ball for a try the next. He’ll take heat off Cleary and that’s a good thing for Cleary; that Fittler was going to pick Mitchell Pearce and him together did not fit many pundits’ collective wisdom.
Elsewhere Knights marauder Daniel Saifiti will bookend the experienced Paul Vaughan and fill the breach left by Klemmer. They will have to be very good for long minutes, because Dylan Napa and Josh Papali await. They are not so much “forwards” as “belters”. Big, physical, heavy hitters. Bond henchmen.
The Maroons back row – Felise Kaufusi, Matt Gillett and the gnarly Josh McGuire – will go hard all game. It’s an excellent trio: a runner (Kaufusi), a defender (Gilett), and a squat ball-player (Maguire). They can do a bit of everything.
The Maroons’ bench looks less on paper than the Blues’ with the addition of generic new faces, Tim Glasby and Jarrod Wallace, to go with the talented colt David Fifita and experienced utility Moses Mbye. But Queensland’s changes (through injury) have made nary a blip. This time around, as we’ve seen before, it’s all about the Blues.
