Laurie Daley's Blues jigsaw looks lopsided with Mitchell Pearce back

AS is so often the case, the NSW Origin team announced by Blues coach Laurie Daley on Sunday, asks as many questions as it answers.

AS is so often the case, the NSW Origin team announced by News Ltd journalist Phil Rothfield last Thursday, and again by Blues coach Laurie Daley on Sunday, asks as many questions as it answers.

Such as, what does Mitchell Pearce have on the selectors?

For years NSW supporters have been begging Blues officials to show some faith in their players and get some consistency in the side.

Now they finally have.

But Mitchell Pearce? Why?

Two wins in nine outings, highlighted by a lousy kicking game and a refusal to run to the line, are hardly the credentials to build a team around. Yet Daley's first official act was to declare that Pearce would be his halfback, regardless of his form or that of others.

You would think the selectors would stick with Tim Grant, who put Petero Civoniceva on the seat of his pants in the first hit-up of Origin II last year: the only game NSW won.

UNLESS Blues winger Brett Morris, who has scored three tries in eight games this season for the underperforming Dragons, fails to prove his fitness it would appear the closest Nathan Merritt (11 tries in 10 games for the table-topping Bunnies going into last night's game) will get to Origin this year is a TV screen. In recent years the NSW selectors have been accused of racism in their continual brushing of the South Sydney flyer. No grounds for that this year with Blake Ferguson, chosen to make his debut on the other wing, also indigenous.

Might it be that the man Merritt has just overtaken to move into eighth spot on Australian rugby league's all-time try-scoring list is NSW selector Bobby Fulton? Hardly.

If the Blues brains trust is guilty of anything, it is "sizeism", feeling Merritt is too small to outjump or muscle up to the big Queensland outside backs.

How many Origin games would Merritt have played if he was eligible for Queensland? And how many would Matt Sing or Matt Bowen have played if they were from NSW?

THE bounceback factor is alive and well. In round 10 of the NRL the Tigers, Bulldogs and Warriors all lost with a total of 160 points scored against them.

Round 11, they all won. It would appear certain that the Eels, beaten 42-2 by the Titans on Sunday, are specials to win their next game. Against the Roosters. Maybe.

Oh, and it has become obvious that Wayne Bennett has tweaked his successful tactic of 2006 when he rested his Broncos stars for three weeks at the end of the regular season to have them fit for the play-offs and, ultimately, the grand final.

This season the Knights have clearly been instructed to rest every second game, meaning they are specials to win on Saturday.

Against the Rabbitohs. Maybe.

BOOKMAKERS Glenn Munsie and Gerard Daffy won't send Christmas cards to Tom Waterhouse this year, I'd wager.

With the Government putting an end to live-betting odds being broadcast during sporting events for fear of the influence on children, Munsie and Daffy will be amongst those who have their plugs pulled.

The two veterans of spruiking betting odds live on TV could have come straight out of the Central Casting catalogue under B for Bookie.

Round of face and body, jovial in nature and looking like they'd rather be sitting at home with their slippers on than sweating on a hot sideline, they are hardly the types to have the young and impressionable following a glamorous life on the punt.

Tom Waterhouse, with his $200 haircut and $2000 suits, looking like the manager of One Direction, is another thing entirely.

INTERESTING that the great Sachin Tendulkar should choose this week to retire from the Indian Premier League.

It is true that, as Tendulkar said, he is 40 "and must accept reality".

It is also true that the IPL is imploding into a cesspit of corruption, match fixing and illegal gambling. One of the greatest players must disassociate himself from this fast collapsing house of cards before his reputation is tainted. Those close to the goings-on in India say recent allegations against players and officials are the tip of the iceberg.

Well played, Sachin.