Mike Colman: Is Kevvie Walters a new age guy or has he been sucked in?

By claiming Queensland will definitely win on Wednesday night Kevin Walters has broken one of the Maroons’ golden rules, writes MIKE COLMAN.

On Wednesday night we’ll know whether Kevvie Walters has taken the Maroons into the brave new world, or lost the plot.

Whether he is at the forefront of the next generation of rugby league coaches, or has been sucked in to being something he’s not.

When Kevvie all but dissolved into tears at the Maroons team announcement, that was fine.

A little dramatic perhaps, but this is Origin and the Queensland success story has been based on passion.

An emotional Maroons coach Kevin Walters announces that Queensland will definitely win Game 1 of the series. Picture: Josh Woning/AAP

When he told reporters that his players were banned from so much as mentioning the Blues (or according to some reports, even the colour blue) that was a little weird, but acceptable.

After all, isn’t that what coaches say all the time?

“We’re not worried about the opposition, we’re just concentrating on our own game.”

But it was when he said, “we’ll win the first game” that the alarm bells starting going off.

Since when has a Maroons coach been so forthright in his prediction of victory?

That’s not the Queensland way. Confident, yes. Competitive, absolutely. But cocky? Never.

Leave that kind of stuff to the Yanks ... or Blues.

Walters telling the media that his team would definitely win the first game was like Babe Ruth “calling” a home run during the 1932 World Series or quarterback Joe Namath “guaranteeing” that his underdog New York Jets would beat the Baltimore Colts in the 1969 Super Bowl.

Babe Ruth “called” a home run in the 1932 World Series, but would he dare to “call” an Origin win like Kevvie Walters?

Or former NSW captain Benny Elias stating categorically that the Blues would win the 1995 Origin series three-nil.

For the record The Babe hit a homer precisely where he had pointed, the Jets beat the Colts 16-7 and the Blues lost the series three-nil.

Which is why the Maroons have always made a point of letting the opposition talk themselves up while doing their best to stay under the radar.

In 2006 after losing the first game of the series Queensland coach Mal Meninga went so far as to tell a NSW radio commentator that “we’re no chance of winning” Game II.

Admittedly it was a position that became increasingly harder to maintain as the Maroons won the next eight series’, but even at their most dominant Big Mal would never have proclaimed, as Kevvie did, that Queensland would definitely win a game.

If for no other reason than “Tosser” wouldn’t have allowed it.

Queensland manager Dick 'Tosser' Turner (right) with Mal Meninga in 1994 would never have allowed any of “his boys” to give the Blues a morsel of motivation.

The late, great Dick “Tosser” Turner was the Maroons manager of the century, the one the players called The Grand Poobah, the one who loved beating NSW more than just about anyone.

The one who, as founder of the Former Origin Greats, ensured that the eternal flame of Maroons culture continued to burn brightly from one generation to another.

One of Tosser’s catchcries was, “give ‘em nothing”. By that he meant never let the Blues know what you are thinking, and never, ever, hand them a morsel which they can use against you.

That Blues, on the other hand, couldn’t help themselves. For years the Sydney newspapers would be required reading among the Queensland players in the lead-up to matches. They would read them out to each other, the over-the-top descriptions of the NSW players’ superhuman talents being all the motivation they needed.

And if the words of the Sydney reporters weren’t emotive enough, Queensland coaches such as Wayne Bennett weren’t above coming up with up with their own.

Bennett was a master at firing up his team by having former players such as Greg Dowling criticising them in print.

Wayne Bennett, chaired off by Greg Dowling and Wally Lewis in 1987, wasn’t above enlisting old players to criticise his own team.

No Queensland coach or player would ever make the mistake of appearing overconfident, let alone arrogant.

Not until Kevvie, anyway.

So why would he do it? Why would he break with tradition and “do a Joe Namath”?

Well, there’s a few theories on that.

Maybe it was precisely because he wanted to break with tradition. He has said that he has been planning this campaign since the moment the 2018 series was lost.

Maybe he realised that with the likes of Smith, Thurston, Slater and Cronk no longer part of the side there wasn’t going to be a struck match between the two teams in terms of talent. What the Maroons needed was to be shown that the old days and the old ways were gone, and the way to do that was to do something that had never been done before.

Or maybe it was because he was still reeling from the disappointment of missing out on the Broncos’ job to “new age guy” Anthony Seibold.

Word around town was that when Kevvie was interviewed by the Broncos he gave them the full Kevvie treatment. He was honest, sincere, spoke with passion and enthusiasm.

And then Seibold came in and blew them away with terminology straight out of Harvard Business School. They might not have understood it all, but they figured it was the way of the future.

Broncos coach Anthony Seibold. Was his “new age” style the catalyst for changes to the way Kevin Walters is preparing the Maroons? Picture: Darren England/AAP.

The question is, did Kevvie get spooked? Did he think, ‘well if that’s the future, I’d better get on board’?

Is that why he called in the now famous $5500 an hour “coach whisperer”?

If so, maybe he’s right. You only had to read the headlines about indigenous players refusing to sing the national anthem tomorrow night to realise that Origin isn’t what it was.

But by the same token you also have to remember how things used to be.

Like when Trevor Gillmeister played his first game back in 1987. The Maroons were just about to run out and captain Wally Lewis turned back to give some last second instructions.

The crowd were banging their feet on the Lang Park grandstand floor and the noise in the dressing room underneath was deafening. Gillmeister couldn’t hear a word.

“What did he say?” he asked his teammate Fatty Vautin.

“Bash ‘em,” said Vautin as they ran out.

They won that series 2-1 — and they didn’t need any $5500 an hour guru to help them.

Originally published as Mike Colman: Is Kevvie Walters a new age guy or has he been sucked in?