Billy Slater acted ‘like a New South Welshman’ in horror coaching week

Billy Slater has enjoyed a flawless career as an Origin coach until this week - now he’s been accused of acting like the people he despises.

Billy Slater has had a tough week as Maroons coach.

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After experiencing an unholy flogging in prime time that was over before it began, Billy Slater now officially ‘gets’ Origin.

But while the Maroons’ humiliating 38-18 defeat will remain a festering wound on his psyche forevermore, it won’t be his most embarrassing memory from the MCG on Wednesday night.

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Nope, Slater may have invited a fragile Blues side back in to the series and violated Queensland’s soul in front of 90,000 proxy Maroon sympathisers, but the worst part?

He did so by self-sabotaging his team’s preparation, a move also known as ‘acting like a New South Welshman.’

Yep, this loss capped a week for Slater imprinted with so much Sky Blue behaviour that he should be harassed like Barack Obama for his birth certificate.

Think about it.

He made unnecessarily absurd decisions at the selection table that resulted in an imbalanced side of unconditioned Cowboys and a Fittleristic bench.

He continued to feed David Fifita lies and push him further down the pecking order, this time below forgotten servants like Felise Kaufusi and Kurt Capewell and a rookie who nobody clamoured for in Trent Loriero.

David Fifita hasn’t come into Billy’s plans.

Coach Billy Slater has had a tough week in charge. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

Then he spent the week in a moody strop over his comments about Joseph Sua’ali’i that he claimed he didn’t make only 48 hours earlier on national television, then tried to cover up with hormones and duckspeak and all the other dialects we’re fluent in down south.

Finally, he crowned his botched preparation in the most NSW fashion possible by overseeing a first half capitulation that broke records, but not any good ones.

Yep, Slater’s week was as NSW-centric as a road toll on a footpath, and once pundits started highlighting the positive for his side of ‘winning the second half’, he’d almost qualified for honorary citizenship.

As we know, Maroons fans are a low-vibrational species who will tolerate most poor performances, even when their side fizzes like they did at the MCG with all the speed and terror of a mobility scooter.

Maroons coach Billy Slater had an awkward meeting with Michael Maguire. Picture: Mark Stewart

Provided the tenets of Maroon dogma are upheld - i.e. being gutsy, brave, and three metres offside all night - they’ll accept the odd failure because they know they’re never more than 160 minutes away from playing again at Suncorp.

But while they’ll swallow occasionally losing to NSW, the one thing they won’t accept is being like NSW.

Whether tactics, game style or hyperbole, everything in the Maroon framework has to be bona-fide Queensland-bred - except the players - and anything less is tantamount to Luke Keary-level treason.

And that’s why Slater’s uncharacteristic behaviour has been as mystifying to Queenslanders as it is familiar to us Blues.

Can the coach address his team’s fortunes? And more importantly, his own identity crisis?

So far, it doesn’t look good.

His puzzling reply in the post match presser to a question about mooted team changes -“I haven’t even thought of that. We’re still Queenslanders” - indicates he’s still on a trajectory that could see him dump three halfbacks before the decider.

Billy Slater has had some bizarre comments in recent days.

NSW Blues coach Michael Maguire has got his side humming. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

But he also admitted that he’ll leave no stone unturned in the quest for answers, even vowing to “look at my own performance in the last 10 days”- and we can only hope there’s no expensive mirrors in his glass house.

But it’s hardly rocket science.

First thing he can do is lighten up, stop playing three card monty with the linguistics, and for heaven’s sake, pick the best 17 - including Fifita.

Then leverage the Suncorp decider by immersing himself inside his home state for a week before kick-off, if only to marinate in an echo chamber so powerful it could radicalise an ardent Russian national to hum ‘Yippi Yi.’

Then fall back on those famous Maroons principles of keeping the game plan basic, worrying about his own backyard, and overblowing the underdog status despite being a dog that’s had more days than a leap year.

- Dane Eldridge is a warped cynic yearning for the glory days of rugby league, a time when the sponges were magic and the Mondays were mad. He’s never strapped on a boot in his life, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt.

Originally published as Billy Slater acted ‘like a New South Welshman’ in horror coaching week