The famed Queensland culture will be put to the ultimate test in State of Origin II
QUEENSLAND like to be loyal when it suits them and cry about disrespect when it suits them. For State of Origin II, writes PAUL KENT, all that talk will be put to the ultimate test.
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NSW will get better after its performance in Origin I. Queensland has to get better.
They are the two certainties ahead of the State of Origin teams selected after this weekend.
NSW coach Brad Fittler has already said he will pick the same team if all are available.
Queensland coach Kevin Walters faces the greatest test of his coaching career.
Walters is without the advantages of last year.
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Queensland lost the first game and the coach could rely on the wisdom of his key players, Cameron Smith, Johnathan Thurston, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk, to get the changes right for Game II.
So into his team came the unlikely Tim Glasby, and Gavin Cooper, along with the returning Slater and Thurston and debutantes Val Holmes, Jarrod Wallace and Coen Hess. Queensland won 18-16.
Slater returns for next week’s game but what Walters does outside that is uncertain.
Smith, Cronk and Thurston are gone. Not only from the team but from the discussion about who they prefer to stand beside them.
Last year they helped get the changes exactly right.
The Blues will be better next weekend because that is the evolution of Origin. The less changes from game to game the better. Combination and cohesion are vital.
Queensland has lost that advantage.
Just as concerning, they have three days less preparation.
It pressures Walters to stay loyal to the team that lost Game I.
It throws up for examination Queensland’s famous pick and stick policy, its credibility at stake when Walters announces his team Monday morning.
The Maroons have already suffered several lacerations of the credibility this series.
When the Blues named their Origin I team former skipper said he thought there should have been a place for Josh Dugan and Blake Ferguson, two former Origin stalwarts.
In many ways, it was a Queensland-type statement. A question of loyalty to those who have been there before.
Queensland applied their own interpretation.
“They don’t get it,” former Maroon Corey Parker said on Queenslander’s Only.
“Paul Gallen has come out this week and he’s had a whinge that Ferguson and Dugan should be in the team.
“Just get behind your team that’s there and really endorse what’s going on.”
Sitting next to Parker was Chris Close, one of the Queensland greats. Close once stood in front of a team to tell them what it meant to play for Queensland and got so choked up he stepped down in a flood of tears.
“It’s really disappointing to hear an ex-NSW captain come out and bag his team,” Close said.
“That would never happen in Queensland, it’s just not in our fabric, it’s not what we do.
“And you’re right, they don’t get it. And as long as they continue to do that we’re a chance.”
Gallen said nothing more severe than he believed two stalwarts should have been selected.
He didn’t bag the Blues or criticise the players chosen. He just spoke to loyalty.
But Queensland liked to have it all their way.
Earlier this week Ben Hannant was on television, there by virtue of his 12 Origins games for Queensland.
Hannant had some advice for Queensland.
“Andrew McCullough doesn’t have the pace,” he said.
“A bit more speed around the ruck with Billy Slater coming back for game two. I think that would make a massive difference.
“Granville would be a lot quicker but also you could move Ben Hunt there, which could see Michael Morgan move to the halves.”
Yes, never happens in Queensland. Except when it does.
One of the strongest statements made by NSW coach Brad Fittler is his low-fuss call of rubbish on Queensland’s supposed loyalty and superior culture.
They have had the best players for a decade, pure and simple.
And a tremendous ability to turn the current situation to their advantage.
The moment Cameron Smith retired, for instance, the Maroons scrambled for underdog status, their most comfortable position.
They claimed the gap left by Smith on top of last year’s retirements of Thurston and Cronk surely left them as outsiders for Game I.
Never mind that Thurston and Cronk were replaced by two men who had already played for Australia, Hunt and Cameron Munster. Or that Smith was replaced by McCullough, a veteran more than 200 games into his career.
As well as McCullough, the Maroons also picked two more players on debut, Felise Kaufusi (who had already played for Australia) and Jai Arrow.
Against that NSW chose a team that had 11 debutantes. Only two, Tom Trbojevic and Reagan Campbell-Gillard, had played for Australia.
Then, bookmakers made it official when they put up the Blues as short-priced favourites.
So Queensland got what they were striving for. The Blues shrugged and said what can you do?
I sat in a small radio box with Gorden Tallis before Origin I when it suddenly got a whole lot smaller as he took offence at NSW assuming favouritism.
The rest of Queensland was equally offended.
Somehow, after campaigning to be underdogs, the conversation got twisted into a lack of respect towards Queensland — because people believed exactly what Queenslanders set out for them to believe.
Suddenly, Blues were arrogant for thinking they can win.
So it surprises no-one that the theme out of Queensland now is that NSW is getting carried away and the Blues believe they have won the series already even though not one bold statement has escaped the Blues.
Before the first game in Melbourne former Queensland greats Mick Crocker and Billy Moore hosted a private plane full of Queenslanders from Brisbane to Melbourne.
Fourex at 20 paces the whole way down, the return flight a little more sombre.
After the game Crocker, his arm twisted through marriage, was forced to attend the Blues post-match function.
He was expecting the Blues of reputation. A room cock-a-hoop, filled with backslaps and the boasts of a new era.
Instead, Fittler took stage and brought the tone down.
“You’ve won nothing,” he said.
Of all the things Crocker has heard out of a NSW mouth, this terrified him more than any.