Brad Fittler’s loyalty to Nathan Cleary over Luke Keary will make or break Blues
Brad Fittler is putting his reputation on line with a “loyalty” selection — going against the advice of his great mate.
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The only person in the NSW Origin camp under more pressure than Nathan Cleary is Brad Fittler.
Because if this is supposedly the worst team in Queensland Origin history, where will that leave Fittler if NSW don’t win on Wednesday night?
Of course, NSW again has by far the superior team on paper - and this time they will be playing on their home turf at ANZ Stadium.
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But what can’t be ignored is that Fittler had his pants pulled down by Wayne Bennett in the series opener - when the game was won and lost at halftime despite NSW leading 10-0.
And now Bennett has got this unlikely Queensland squad actually believing in what they are capable of, it is only going to make it even tougher for NSW.
Which brings us to Cleary’s selection over Luke Keary.
Fittler has really put his reputation on the line with this call — and it has only put more pressure on Cleary by making Keary the sole scapegoat for what went wrong in Adelaide.
Regardless of how they try and sell Keary’s axing, the fact is the Sydney Roosters playmaker has been the only forced change aside from injuries.
And what can’t be downplayed either is that Cleary’s retention came after Andrew Johns did a stunning backflip on his initial call to dump Keary.
While Johns has copped backlash for calling for Cleary to be rested, what he said was exactly the type of honesty you want from ex-players who are paid to comment.
As a NSW great, the easy thing for Joey would have been to stick with the popular opinion that Keary was the one who should go.
But after having time to think over his initial comments that Keary should be dropped for Cody Walker, Johns changed his view based obviously on what he deemed would be best for NSW.
It wasn’t a personal attack on Cleary or Fittler and it shouldn’t be seen as that.
And of course it’s not Cleary’s fault that he has Fittler’s loyalty.
But while it is almost unfair that a playmaker as young as Cleary has been thrown into this debate, as Mitchell Pearce found out previously it comes with the territory of wearing the NSW No.7 jumper.
While there is no question Cleary is an exceptionally talented and tough kid who is going to be a mainstay of this NSW team for many years, Joey’s point was that right now he just looks like a long season has caught up on him and he needs a rest.
Of course we all want to see Cleary succeed as NSW fans.
But I wrote a column immediately after the grand final that I thought it would be Freddy’s greatest challenge to get Cleary back up for Origin and was howled down for it.
Again, it wasn’t personal, it was just an honest opinion.
As is his right, Fittler defended Cleary’s reselection by saying: “I’m all in with all of them”.
“We haven’t just shown faith in Nathan, we’ve shown faith in a lot of players,” Fittler said.
But obviously that faith didn’t extend to Keary.
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You can only imagine how Keary must be feeling.
Meanwhile, Freddy’s coaching reputation now goes on the line.
Freddy proved many of us wrong last year when we were questioning some of his selections after game one and the Blues came back and smashed Queensland in the second game.
They surely have the team capable of doing it again.
But the Bennett factor is huge.
No disrespect to Kevvie Walters, but coaching against arguably the greatest in the game’s history will be a different proposition.
And we will find out on Wednesday night if Johns or Fittler got this call right.