Opinion: If NSW had won Origin, their off-field drama would be seen as comedy

THEY say history is written by the winners. When it comes to the NSW Blues, it is obviously written by the losers. Let’s look at the known facts, says Mike Colman.

Blues coach Laurie Daley looks dejected after Origin III. Photo: Getty Images

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THEY say history is written by the winners. When it comes to the NSW Blues, it is obviously written by the losers.

The hoo-ha over the goings-on in the NSW camp prior to their latest series loss to the Maroons would suggest that Laurie Daley had lost all control over his team, the lunatics had taken over the asylum and those that weren’t staggering around drunk were vandalising journalists’ cars.

That’s one way to look at it. The other is to relate the known facts.

NSW coach Laurie Daley. Photo: Brett Costello

One NSW player was told he would be starting the match but the player he was supposed to be replacing was apparently not told. For reasons best known to himself, the NSW coach decided against the plan.

In addition, two players went to a pub on their day off and got back to the team hotel at around 8.40pm.

That’s it? That’s the spark that led to this week’s southern media firestorm? Oh please.

Back in the 1980s when men were men and Origin was legalised mayhem that “scandal” wouldn’t have warranted a single column brief under the shipping news.

Yet somehow, it has been blown into Andrew Fifita “going off like a two-bob watch” and bullying Laurie Daley into letting him start the match.

Andrew Fifita. Photo: Getty Images

As for Blake Ferguson and Josh Dugan, the two players who had a day on the booze, they were apparently “hidden” from media by team management.

Well, why wouldn’t they be? It was the players’ day off. They had no obligation to front the media and of course management would prefer that photos of them looking less than 100 per cent didn’t appear on front pages around the country.

Do you think the legendary Maroons manager Tosser Turner wouldn’t — or didn’t — do the same thing to protect his boys?

Tosser Turner. Photo: Derek Moore

Not that too many Queenslanders during Tosser’s time would have been coming home from a drinking session before midnight.

Of course there were still plenty of stories about heavy “bonding” that made their way out of Maroons camp during the early days of Origin.

More often than not they became part of Queensland Origin folklore: halfback Mark Murray being so “tired and emotional” during a training session that coach Arthur Beetson put him on the wing to sober up (when it didn’t work he called the session off early and led the way to lunch); Julian O’Neill spending a night on a fire-escape when he couldn’t find his room key, and any number of anecdotes that added to the legend of Jacko.

Not too much moral outrage there, but the difference was that more often than not the Queensland team was winning.

Imagine how differently the NSW media would have handled this week’s revelations if Laurie Daley’s Blues had won the last three halves of the series instead of the first three. Imagine if Fifita had played a blinder in Game III, and Blake Ferguson had scored the winning try off a Josh Dugan pass.

Josh Dugan. Photo: Getty Images

Daley’s decision to bench Klemmer for Fifita would be a “coaching masterstroke”.

Fifita allegedly pushing Daley to let him start would have been reported as “emotional Origin hero Andrew Fifita pleading for a chance at redemption and repaying the faith of his coach and team-mates…”.

Klemmer accepting the decision and having a strong game would be evidence of the Blues’ “strong team-first culture” and the Ferguson-Dugan winning try would have been, “a knockout blow concocted over a quiet beer at a secret location away from the prying eyes of Queensland media”.

David Klemmer during State of Origin III. Photo: AAP

But of course the Blues didn’t win. Fifita was about as effective as Hair-in-a-Can, Ferguson might as well have stayed in the pub for all the good he did, and Laurie Daley is now walking around with a target on his back.

The only people in NSW who seem to have anything to be pleased about are the local media who exposed the “atrocities” that apparently derailed the Blues’ campaign.

After all they, to a man, tipped NSW to win Game III and take the series.

They even outdid themselves with use of the “D-word”.

In 2014 it took the Blues to win their first series in eight years for them to start talking about a dynasty.

This year they only won one game before it was in a front-page headline.

Almost as big as the ones this week.

Originally published as Opinion: If NSW had won Origin, their off-field drama would be seen as comedy