Campo’s Corner: Queensland are back where they started
Queensland are back where they were when their dynasty began, the enduring weirdness of Adam Blair and this week’s Golden Hombre - it’s all in Campo’s Corner.
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TEAMS: All the changes for Round 8
INJURY: Raiders lose Rapana
Queensland didn’t build their dynasty overnight.
The key players arrived to interstate football in staggered fashion but have left almost en masse.
Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk, Cameron Smith, Greg Inglis and Johnathan Thurston had their Maroons debuts stretched over seven years but played their final Origin matches within 12 months of each other.
There was no time for succession plans and heir apparents, like there was when Darren Lockyer and the previous generation of Queensland legends retired.
After riding into history on the back of some of the greatest players not only of this era but of any in rugby league history, Queensland are back to being just like everyone else.
The Maroons team that runs out for Origin I this year will be the first since Game II of 2003 that doesn’t have one of their big five.
It’s been so long since Queensland didn’t have at least one or two out and out legends to choose from it’s easy to forget what it was like.
As the first seeds of the dynasty were sown in 2003, when Smith debuted, the Blues were in the midst of a run that if not for one or two almighty Maroons efforts, could have rivalled Queensland’s recent run.
From 1999 to 2005 Queensland won one series and retained the shield twice because of draws in Game III. That’s one outright victory in seven attempts - retaining via a draw is not a title defence.
And while there were plenty of good teams, worthy players and shining moments sprinkled throughout, it was also a time when Queensland’s depth, which across the park will always be their greatest disadvantage simply because NSW has a bigger pool of players to choose from, was stretched to the limit.
Daniel Wagon, a fine back-rower by trade, played a full series at five-eighth in 2001. Andrew Gee played a full series in 2003 when he wasn’t starting for Brisbane week to week. Players like John Doyle, John Buttigieg, Russell Bawden and Chris Beattie all played multiple matches.
This isn’t a slight on any of the above players, who often rose to the occasion brilliantly – Doyle and Buttigieg in particular had some great Origin performances before injury ruined their careers and Queenslanders still reserve the highest of praise for Adam Mogg.
But accounting for the Queensland spirit and all that can only take a team so far. With the injuries to Jake Friend and Daly Cherry-Evans, Queensland aren’t left with many options. Corey Oates is locked in on one flank but the other Queensland-eligible wingers who started in the NRL last week are Corey Thompson, Edrick Lee, Justin O’Neill, Ben Hampton, Corey Allan and Dale Copley with Phillip Sami on the bench for the Titans.
Now Friend is out, at hooker Queensland are choosing between Ben Hunt, the consensus frontrunner despite not playing dummy half regularly, the incumbent and badly out of form Andrew McCullough, the badly floundering Jake Granville and the promising, but inexperienced Reed Mahoney.
A handful of injuries has blown the back out of Queensland’s playing stocks and they won’t just be forced into makeshift options and unexpected debuts, they won’t have any other choice.
These are not fatal blows and Queensland have won from worse positions before. But they always had the foundation of greatness, a Lockyer or a Langer or a Smith or a Slater, to lean back on when they really needed to.
Now even their trump cards are green – Cameron Munster and Kalyn Ponga will be two of their mainstays and they have five Origin games between them. Before Friend went down there was some talk he’d be captain on debut and it wasn’t that crazy.
There’s talk Cameron Smith or Cooper Cronk might come back but why would they? If they win they’re doing something they’ve done a thousand times before. If they lose it only blemishes their legacy. The two have everything to lose, nothing to gain and don’t owe Queensland anything.
Queensland squeezed just about every drop from their golden era, which was born from one of the greatest teams ever assembled. But before that they had to make more with less. The Maroons always try and position themselves as the underdogs – they turned a weakness into a strength and have won more than one series on defying the odds.
Now they are exactly what they’ve always yearned to be, but will be facing a NSW side that is spoiled for choice at several positions and with few of the scars of the past remaining. It shapes as a tall order for Kevin Walters, who may very well be fighting for his own Origin future.
WHO WINS A NIKORIMA DEAL?
The winds blowing in from the north seem to indicate Kodi Nikorima is on his way to the Warriors before the week is out with Brisbane poised to throw 18-year-old Tom Dearden into the fray for the remainder of the season.
The Nikorima-Anthony Milford duo has always been an odd fit due to their similarities – they are both dynamic attacking playmakers whose greatest strength is their running game and fitting them together has never quite worked out. Milford has now reinvented himself as more of a distributor, which was on show against Cronulla, but surely that can’t be the best use of his talents given what he’s capable of when he takes on the line.
Dearden is still an unknown quantity but he’s a far more traditional first receiver and, stylistically, is a better fit with Milford than Nikorima or even Ben Hunt was. It’s easy to see why Brisbane would be in favour of such a move.
From a Warriors perspective it’s a bit less clear. Nikorima could end up fitting in well with Blake Green given their complementary skills but as talented as the New Zealand international might be can he really be the long-term replacement for Shaun Johnson the club has coveted? Does this mean they’re pulling out of the race for Parramatta’s Dylan Brown?
And if Nikorima is their guy, now and for the future, they’re hitching their wagon to a player with less upside, more obvious flaws and far less consistency than Johnson. Throw in Chanel Harris-Tavita, who has impressed since coming into first grade, and it’s hard to see just what the Warriors are trying to pull together.
ADAM BLAIR, THE WEIRDEST MAN ALIVE
Those of us who are statistically inclined dropped their jaws in horror when Adam Blair recorded one run in the Warriors’ loss to Melbourne on Anzac Day. How could a player, a forward no less, go through a game with one solitary carry?
Sure, it was for 13 metres and ended up with a try, but still – for someone on Blair’s salary with Blair’s experience it’s just not good enough especially given it backed up a six-run, 36-metre effort the previous round and two runs for 17 metres the week before that.
But this is simply the latest chapter in the very weird career of Adam Blair, the most winding, up and down road of maybe any player of the last decade.
Blair has been labelled an overrated, overpaid waste of time twice but he’s also played in finals series in 11 of his 14 seasons in the league. He’s scored 13 tries in 296 games but one of them was in a grand final.
He is the second most capped player in the history of New Zealand Test rugby league, playing in their greatest triumphs like the 2008 World Cup final, the 2010 and 2014 Four Nations finals. He also played in their worst defeats, like the draw against Scotland in 2016 and the losses to Tonga and Fiji a year later. If he plays on to the end of next year he’ll probably take down Ruben Wiki’s record.
Adam Blair was a top class edge back-rower at Melbourne and a world class exponent in the dark arts who excelled perhaps more than any other player when it came to doing horrible things in the ruck.
He was fair dinkum lost at the Tigers for two seasons and played terribly, before finally justifying his big pay cheque somewhat in 2014 after he was moved to the middle and reinvented himself as a ball-playing first-receiver type who led the line in defence.
Blair continued his reinvention in 2015 at Brisbane where he became one of Wayne Bennett’s favourites, playing a crucial role in the run to the grand final that season, giving them defensive steel and a little bit of edge.
The Warriors gave him big money to come home in 2018 and he brought those same qualities. The revisionist history was strong this week and some labelled him the worst buy in the club’s history (a title which will always belong to Sam Tomkins) but Blair was great last year, doing exactly what he was brought to the club to do and playing a huge role in their run to the finals and some of their best victories.
Blair is not a metre-eater as a forward and he never has been. At second row he’s a capable defender – and he made some key tackles against Melbourne – but his attacking talents (namely, his ball-playing and his offloading) are minimised. Still, that shouldn’t be an excuse for his lack of involvement.
This type of thing has happened before as well – in Round 2 of the 2015 season he recorded one run for eight metres in a win over Cronulla. Blair doesn’t need to churn out Taumalolo numbers but one run in 80 minutes is hard to do on purpose, let alone by accident.
Do not be fooled into looking for sense or logic here. There is no reason with Adam Blair, no order or pattern. Adam Blair can be two utterly conflicting ideas at the same time and has been forever – he’s played at least 23 games in a season every year since 2007, even when him and Glenn Stewart punched on in 2011 and Blair got hit with a heavy suspension. He might never stop playing.
What does this mean? What does it say about Adam Blair, that he is both a willing assassin of opposition halves and a natural leader who teammates follow instinctively, both statistician’s bane and coach’s favourite, both of empty stat sheet and consistent success, both Kiwi legend and Twitter punchline?
I don’t know. He’s just that weird.
RUGBY LEAGUE’S BIGGEST LOSERS
And now, with Paul Gallen on the verge of breaking the record for most career defeats, here’s some of rugby league’s biggest losers and the things I know about them.
Scott Prince – The former Cowboy, Bronco, Tiger, Titan and Bronco again currently holds the record for most career losses with 166 from his 300 first grade games.
Those early years at the Cowboys really knocked Prince’s win-loss record around – in his three seasons there they won 12 of 43 games he played.
Despite captaining the Tigers to a premiership and making two more trips to the finals with Gold Coast, Prince kept racking up the defeats and by the time he hung them up at the end of 2013 he’d knocked over Steve Menzies’ old record of 149 losses.
Prince has always been a favourite of mine and didn’t deserve this tag, so pay tribute to the great man by watching this absolutely brilliant highlight reel.
Brad Thorn – Thorn won just about everything a player can win in rugby league or rugby union during his epoch-length career but he never did get over the hump for Queensland at Origin level. The Brisbane giant has the gravitas and strength usually associated with fictional characters, but won just one of his 11 Origin appearances for Queensland from 1996 to 2005.
Having said that I’m not willing to rule out Thorn coming out of retirement, showing these goddamn young fellas how to win some damn footy games and steering Queensland to a series victory. If Brad Thorn decides it then it will be so.
Danny Levi – With 13 wins and a draw from his 73 first grade matches, Newcastle’s Levi currently has the lowest winning percentage of any player in the NRL.
It’s better than it was though – at one point Levi had three wins from 43 games for a winning percentage of bugger all.
Adrian Vowles – Vowles was a talented utility for Gold Coast and North Queensland in the early to mid-1990s and oh man, if you know how bad Gold Coast and North Queensland were in the early to mid-90s you know where this is going.
Twelve wins and a draw from 79 matches gave Vowles a win rate of 15.19 per cent, the lowest of the modern era.
In 1996 the Cowboys won six of the 21 games he played and it was the most successful year of his career by a huge margin.
Presumably fed up with the rubbish, Vowles headed to England and became a star in Castleford, earning the Man of Steel award in 1999 and winning far more often.
THE GOLDEN HOMBRE
Is there anything more thrilling than when a big man gets into the clear and attempts an ill-advised dummy, or perhaps a chip kick?
Is there anything greater than when a large lad decides the time has come for him to show the world the ball skills he knows lurk deep within?
Is there anything that lifts the spirit more than a hefty fellow crashing across the stripe for his second NRL try in his 179th first grade match?
I say no, and to honour these big fellas each and every week of the year, which many have dubbed #BigManSeason, we hand out The Golden Hombre, named after Todd Payten, the biggest halfback God ever created.
It was another stacked field this week – the aforementioned Adam Blair scoring his 13th career try in his 296th NRL game off a pass from Tohu Harris the five-eighth no less, Corey Waddell kind of playing in the halves for Manly, Viliame Kikau beating half the population of the South Sydney area on the way to scoring Sio Siua Taukeiaho galloping 20 metres to score untouched would all be worthy winners.
But there can be only one and you know what it was before I even say it – Paul Vaughan charging into the clear on Anzac Day off a James Graham pass, trying to load up the big right foot step on James Tedesco and instead just falling over. It was like when a dog gets off the lead out in the open and is so overwhelmed by the choices at its disposal it totally panics and doesn’t do anything. Magical stuff.
A GUY YOU SHOULD KNOW
Tevita Tatola played a lot for the Rabitohs last year without playing a lot, if you get me.
The Tongan international was listed in 24 games but only averaged 25 minutes per game but this year he’s getting more responsibility and thriving on it – a regular starter, he’s averaging a tick over 100 metres a game in less than 40 minutes playing time.
South Sydney’s forward depth was their undoing last season but that shouldn’t be the case this year with Tatola showing he’s more than capable of holding up his end.
Originally published as Campo’s Corner: Queensland are back where they started
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