Crawley Files: Time to boot Mitchell Pearce haters into touch
HE’S been loathed as much as Wally Lewis, and that’s by his own Blues fans. But it’s time we all gave Mitchell Pearce a break, writes PAUL CRAWLEY.
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IT’S time for NSW to lay off Mitchell Pearce.
That includes me, you, your neighbour and his dog. Ok, I’ll cop it if the poodles still hold a grudge.
As for the rest of us, if the Roosters half is the best player to partner James Maloney this year, it’s our duty to get on board.
Yet almost as soon as the Blues launched their State of Origin promotion this week — two months out from the opening game — the Pearce haters were back.
“Mitchel (sic) Pearce worst soo player of all time bar none ... only nsw coach and selectors would be stupid enough to pick him,” Sam posted on The Daily Telegraph’s website after Dean Ritchie and I named our sides.
“Haha pierce (sic) my ass,” someone calling himself “junior” added. I’m tipping “junior” was no relation to Wayne “Junior” Pearce, or Mitch “Junior Junior”.
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As you would expect, Queenslanders were also having fun.
Robert “Crash” Craddock from Brisbane’s The Courier-Mail couldn’t help himself when he overheard our selection talk.
“Please, you have got to keep up this push for Mitchell Pearce,” Crash laughed.
“Up here there is a huge vote of endorsement. He’s got to play, please.”
In fairness, Crash is a master at the tongue-in-cheek, a parochial Queenslander, bordering on blinkered.
The point is, while you can understand Crash having a crack, I’ve never heard him bag a Queenslander for being picked in their Origin team.
Yet if we ran a poll on the player NSW fans have loved to bag most over the years, Pearce would give Wally Lewis a run for his money.
Of course, we loathed Wally for good reason. The King came from Queensland.
But all Pearce is guilty of, barring his one-off sledge that fired up Johnathan Thurston, is playing his State of Origin career during the mightiest Queensland era ever.
The Maroons have won 10 of the past 11 series because they have the best core group of players that ever combined in one team. We are talking all-time greats, if not future Immortals.
Darren Lockyer, Cameron Smith, Thurston, Cooper Cronk, Billy Slater and Greg Inglis.
Still, everything that has gone wrong since Andrew Johns retired is almost always directly linked back to Pearce.
Even when he’s not playing, like last year.
Since Pearce made his debut in 2008, 19 other players have had a start in the NSW halves. And with the exception of Trent Hodkinson and Josh Reynolds in 2014, no others have been able to match what Thurston and Cronk delivered, and before them Lockyer.
In fact, going back to Johns’s last series in 2005, the only other player in the NSW halves to win a man-of-the-match award before Maloney in game three last year was Greg Bird, playing out of position.
Bird won two man-of-the-match awards playing five-eighth in 2007 and 2008, while since 2006 the Queensland halves have shared seven between them.
Pearce didn’t do himself any favours in his last series when he antagonised Thurston with his “too old” jibe.
That inspired Thurston to another starring performance in that record 52-6 flogging, during which Thurston ridiculed Pearce for being the “worst halfback” to ever play for NSW.
You will remember JT telling Pearce to go and get his photo taken with the Wally Lewis statue “because that’s the closest he was going to get to holding the Shield”.
No doubt if Pearce had his time over, he’d probably keep his mouth shut.
But if Pearce is picked this year, it will be his best chance to deliver.
Now 27, he is playing the best football of his career, with composure, authority and a new-found maturity on and off the field.
Everything he has done since that episode with the poodle on Australia Day last year suggests he’s learnt plenty from past mistakes.
While everyone is quick to knock Pearce, I’d also bet if we asked the same Blues fans to name their team right now, Pearce would get the majority vote.
The argument is also relevant this week given Pearce will go up against Daly Cherry-Evans when the Roosters take on the Sea Eagles tomorrow night.
After a slow start, Cherry-Evans has hit form at just the right time to put his name back among Queensland’s long list of halves contenders if anything was to happen to Thurston or Cronk.
It you go through the options available to Queensland, you’d be flat out fitting them on a mini bus.
Along with Thurston and Cronk, there’s Michael Morgan, Cherry-Evans, Ben Hunt, Anthony Milford, Corey Norman, even young Ash Taylor wouldn’t look out of place.
Everyone pretty much agrees that if Maloney stays fit he has to be in the NSW halves. But who is his partner?
You could make a case for Adam Reynolds, Matt Moylan, Blake Austin, Jack Bird and Luke Keary (if Keary even agrees to play for NSW ahead of his first preference Queensland).
But of those, who would give you more confidence of doing a better job than Pearce?
And be honest.
DON’T TREAT FANS AS FOOLS: FIX DES MESS
HOW do you teach an old Dog new tricks?
I tried it once on a Saturday morning at PETstock and they sent me home with a bag of Schmackos.
Like you, I’ll be interested to see what the Bulldogs dish up tonight against the Brisbane Broncos.
I agree with everything that has been said about Des Hasler, and I mean everything.
Over the past decade he has been one of the game’s most successful coaches along with Craig Bellamy and Wayne Bennett.
Yet you get the feeling the old Dogs just aren’t listening anymore.
And while the easy out is to say it’s time for the players to take responsibility, let’s not forget it is a coach’s job to whisper the right words.
The fact is Hasler was given power to build this team and for too long legitimate questions have been raised about its attack.
It all goes back to the Bulldogs’ spine, and recruitment.
Hasler let Michael Ennis go to bring in Michael Lichaa, allowed Trent Hodkinson to chase the money in Newcastle because Moses Mbye was the priority, and brought in Will Hopoate to play fullback but not on Sundays.
So when they told us before the season things would be different, I did wonder how because the same spine players were in the same positions, along with the same coach.
This is not to say Hasler is a bad coach, he is a great coach.
But sometimes tough calls have to be made, for the sake of everyone.
It is no use chairman Ray Dibb and chief executive Raelene Castle saying they are not a reactionary club.
The board started this last November when Bulldogs legend Steve Mortimer spoke out against Hasler.
Don’t let them make you believe this is now a media beat-up. There are obviously divisions within the club, as Mortimer staked his reputation on.
The other thing is that players who are off contract, like Lichaa, Josh Reynolds and Hopoate, need to know where they stand.
The club can’t let this drag on any longer. Either give Hasler his new deal, or let him go.
But don’t keep treating the fans as fools.
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