Locker Room: The NSW Blues need Jack Wighton to pick up the phone

With only two more weekends remaining before Michael Maguire names his NSW team for game one against Queensland, Jack Wighton needs to pick up the phone, writes David Riccio.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – JUNE 08: Jack Wighton of the Blues looks on during game one of the 2022 State of Origin series between the New South Wales Blues and the Queensland Maroons at Accor Stadium on June 08, 2022, in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

The time has come for Jack Wighton to slip off the Ugg’s, loosen the dressing gown, or whatever it is that players wear in representative retirement and declare his hand.

Are you in Blue this year, Jack? Or are you not?

For the sake of the state, just tell us where you stand, Jack.

If not us, pick up the phone and tell someone at the NSWRL. Flick them a text. Drop them an email. Slide them a DM.

Take it as read, they’d love to know.

Or perhaps, the silence from Wighton is all that Blues coach Michael Maguire needs to listen for.

Particularly with how passionately clear the first-time Origin coach has been about wanting to pick players that are busting to wear the Blues jersey.

Maybe the South Sydney game-breaker is indeed retired. The end. No more coming back. To the recliner it is.

Maguire has been hopeful that Wighton would come out of representative retirement after making the call before last year’s series that his rep days were over.

Slip off the Uggs and into a Blue jeresy Jack. Art: Boo Bailey

“I had a big last year, there was a lot going on,” Wighton told this column earlier this year when asked about the decision.

“After the (2023) World Cup, it was one of the best experiences of my life, I was content.

“That was my personal choice. That’s why I done what I done.”

Back then, NSW adviser Greg Alexander described it as a “blow”.

“When you mention Origin, Jack’s name belongs with that style of football — tough, unrelenting, give anything for his teammates,” Alexander said at the time.

“He has been a big part of the NSW side for the last four years so it is a blow. Jack is a great Origin player.”

It’s the final six words that originally drew Maguire to dropping Wighton a line earlier this year.

“He’s still retired but I told him to get himself playing and see how he’s travelling,” Maguire told SEN radio last February.

“We’ll have a discussion as the season transpires. We all know he’s a big game player whenever he’s in that arena. In time, I’m sure Jack will decide whether he’s ready to go again.”

That time is now.

Right now, NSW State of Origin coach Michael Maguire could use a friend, following the devastating hamstring injury to chief playmaker Nathan Cleary and Tom Trbojevic.

With only two more weekend’s remaining before Maguire names his team for game one of the series against Queensland on June 5 in Sydney, Wighton remains the asterisk.

It’s an issue even more pressing given the loss of Cleary and Wighton’s capabilities of playing five-eighth with either Nicho Hynes, Jarome Luai or Mitchell Moses.

Maguire’s backline is also complicated.

He’s lost Trbojevic, so too Ryan Papenhuyzen (ankle fracture) and also has Latrell Mitchell needing to get on his bike, both in search for match fitness and form, after three weeks out.

Cameron Murray’s omission with a hip injury also impacts the balance of the side, due to his ability to shift from the middle of the field, to the edge and then potentially to the centres, if all hell broke loose with injuries during the match.

Should Wighton remain retired, and with Trbojevic ruled out, the centre position comes down to a battle of Stephen Crichton holding down one side and Jesse Ramien, Bradman Best, Kotoni Staggs and Mitchell fighting for the other.

One thing fans can also do is rule a line through Penrith champion Dylan Edwards being chosen anywhere, but fullback.

Sure, Edwards has three Test appearances for Australia on the wing.

But State of Origin is a different beast.

It’s a special game that needs to be played by those who are specialists in their position.

Which is why Wighton, who won the 2019 Clive Churchill medal at five-eighth for Canberra and the Origin series with NSW at centre earlier that year, is so important.