Paul Kent: Why ‘sulking’ David Klemmer copped NSW axe, Wayne Bennett rings rookies for Maroons
David Klemmer is considered a “shock” omission from the NSW State of Origin team after missing just one game in the last five years. Here’s the real story on why he was cut.
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Wayne Bennett has ruined Brad Fittler’s Origin moments previously, if memory serves.
It was nothing personal from Bennett, of course, just an obligation.
After NSW tossed hand grenades at the Maroons towards the end of the 2000 series, turning the Maroons into stooges for their impromptu comedy act, Bennett was so affronted by the Blues’ lollygagging he announced his comeback to Origin coaching with a firm declaration to turn it around.
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From there it was for the QRL to sort out the details, but Bennett was in.
For many of us it seemed typical Bennett hubris. The Maroons were shot at the time.
Allan Langer was off in Siberia, playing halfback for the Warrington Wolves, Ben Ikin broke his jaw in the first game and fractured his leg in the third, earning him the nickname Kid Candle from manager Chris Close.
“One blow and you’re out,” Close said.
After the third game the Maroons were walking through Sydney airport bent and defeated and a depressed Close was on the phone to another former Queenslander with Ikin, all blown out, limping alongside him.
“It’s done, mate,” Close said into the phone. “It’s all over.”
More than the previous night’s score, the loss for Queensland was felt deeper. It was the loss of Origin itself.
Close’s admission was an acknowledgment that the Maroons had become an extension of club football and that there was little to be excited about anymore and that, whatever magic dust got sprinkled over Queensland in the 1980s and 1990s, it was now gone.
And then Bennett found it.
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With an understanding not only that Origin was different, but why, he returned in 2001 and sacked most of the Queensland squad and picked 10 players to debut, and as the sniggers in NSW grew louder the Maroons went out and won 34-16 and Origin was alive again.
Bennett hijacked the series.
The early reviews were all about this being Brad Fittler’s last year in Origin football and how his farewell would be written, a fitting end with a series victory, but then after the Blues squared the series in Game II Bennett pulled the masterstroke of recalling Langer from Warrington and Fittler’s farewell became a subplot.
Now Bennett has struck again.
Last week he was confirmed as Kevin Walters’ late replacement for next month’s series and on Wednesday the first instalments of Bennett’s rebuild will be revealed when he names his Origin train-on players, immediately sprinkling a little magic dust over the series.
The list will be notable as much for who makes the squad as who misses out.
Josh McGuire, who has stood for all that Queensland has stood for, will miss the cut.
Jake Friend will toughen them up through the middle like few do.
Bennett’s challenge is immense, and it begins not only with getting “Fa’asuamalaeaui” across the back of an Origin jersey but with then turning another group of young and highly talented players into Origin players.
Fittler, not to be outdone, has done a little reinvention himself.
The key selection moment so far was the omission of David Klemmer who, like McGuire, has missed just one game these past five years.
Unfortunately for Klemmer, the one game he missed last year will cost him more.
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He returned to the Blues later in the series but sulked throughout camp for that day on.
Given this year’s series will be run almost like a touring team, with players in camp for the whole three-game duration, there were concerns how Klemmer might rub off teammates if he missed selection in game one.
Origin has taken a strange enough twist in recent years without that.
Fittler, as NSW coach, drove an existential campaign unlike anything seen in Origin before. Players walked a lap after training barefoot to absorb the minerals from the grass, clearly to help the edge defence, alongside other outside the square ideas like breathing coaches and meditation.
On the flip side, Kevin Walters was inspired by the Coach Whisperer to such an extent Maroons players were fined for each mention of “NSW” or “Blues” or any NSW player by name.
It’s still unclear how that helped them get in shape, or how they knew who they were playing against.
Somewhere in it all the old fashioned magic dust, that unidentified quality that made Origin work, shifted.
Not with Bennett returning, though.
Bennett will dust off the old formula that worked so magnificently once before.
It could not come at a better time for Queensland with Fittler heading for three straight series wins and odds-on favourite to do so.
NSW has won the past two and was seemingly pulling away, already prohibitive odds for this year’s series.
Now into the mix comes Bennett, looking to ruin Fittler’s Origin campaign again.
Originally published as Paul Kent: Why ‘sulking’ David Klemmer copped NSW axe, Wayne Bennett rings rookies for Maroons