Origin Buzz: Highlights and lowlights from the clash between the Blues and Maroons
PHIL “Buzz” Rothfield gives his take as a new era dawns for New South Wales with Brad Fittler’s ‘Baby Blues’ defeating Queensland 22-12.
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PHIL “Buzz” Rothfield gives his take as a new era dawns for New South Wales with Brad Fittler’s ‘Baby Blues’ defeating Queensland 22-12.
HIGHLIGHT I
Thank you Todd Greenberg for reading my open letter in Monday’s Daily Telegraph and acting on it.
Wednesday night’s match was a fabulous exhibition of rugby league because Gerard Sutton and Ashley Klein put away their whistles.
The football was no different to what we have had all season.
It’s just that the referees dropped the nit-picking and allowed the football to flow.
MATCH REPORT: Freddie’s ‘Baby Blues’ claim first blood
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THE FULLBACK: Tedesco shreds Maroons with power of one
When you get 34 of the best footballers in the world in front of four million viewers and a crowd of 87,000 they want to see fast open rugby league. And that’s what we got.
From five penalties there was just three minutes and 39 seconds of stoppages.
There was not one penalty in the second-half.
Had it have been a club game they could have found a dozen.
Slight offsides, some poor play the balls and markers not square.
The attention is now this weekend’s round of NRL.
We can only hope refs boss Bernard Sutton instructs his whistle-blowers to copy what his brother Gerard and Klein did.
Just penalise the blatant infringements.
Show them all a video of Origin I. They’ll love it just as much as we did.
And for the rest of the competition we can write and talk about the players, not the refs.
HIGHLIGHT II
The monster Origin crowd of 87,122, providing a wonderful atmosphere at the MCG and a financial windfall for the NRL from gate takings and the money from Victorian tourism.
LOWLIGHT
A 15-minute delay to the advertised 8pm kick-off time for the showpiece game of the year, to allow Channel Nine time to run pre-game ads. Could you imagine a Melbourne Cup or a Boxing Day Test ever running a quarter of an hour late? Never.
SPOTTED
This time last year he produced one of the all-time great front-row performances in State of Origin. On Tuesday Andrew Fifita was shopping and pushing a pram around Westfield Miranda.
SPOTTED II
Maroons warhorse Nate Myles lining up for a 6am schooner at the famous The Australian pub in New York City owned by former Manly reserve grader Matt Astill. The man who took more Origin hit ups than most others, still taking the ball up early.
SPOTTED III
Blues forward Jake Trbojevic broke from Origin camp to attend a fundraiser for his junior club the Mona Vale Raiders last Saturday night. He not only sold raffle tickets but donated his 2018 heritage round jersey which fetched $2000. Matt Ballin, who now lives in Brisbane, also flew down at his own expense to attended the dinner and help with the fundraising.
SPOTTED IV
Further proof that rugby league is nowhere near being a national game. One interstate newspaper ran the Origin line-ups with the Blues team listed as QLD with a Maroons background. The Maroons were run as NSW with a light blue background.
GUS TUCKER
Gus Gould told us all on Twitter before the game that his pre-match meal before stepping into the commentary box is the healthy mixture of a meat pie and a can of Coke.
I usually have a pie and a coke. https://t.co/OIxL8xARzo
— Phil Gould (@PhilGould15) June 3, 2018
NO SHOW
James Sutherland was originally on the NRL guest list along with other sporting administrators including AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan for the game. We’re told the cricket boss, who stood down on Tuesday, didn’t attend.
WATCH AND LEARN
Channel 9 commentator Matt Thompson stood in the broadcast box last night behind legendary caller Ray Warren, who was doing his 88th Origin game. “What a great experience,” Thompson said, “I just watched, listened and learned.”
NRL 360
Catch you on Thursday night for a special edition of NRL 360 on Fox Sports with Ben Ikin and Paul Kent to discuss and dissect the biggest issues from the MCG.