Brad Fittler’s game two gamble was confusing but it paid off
Cronulla star Wade Graham turned up in NSW’s moment of need and will be rewarded with the five-eighth spot for the State of Origin series decider, writes PAUL KENT.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
BIG BOOST:Reynolds returns for Origin audition
Wade Graham will be the NSW five-eighth for Game III.
Once again, that special kind of luck that Brad Fittler possesses falls his way.
Graham’s performance on Sunday night and Nathan Cleary’s injury has saved Fittler from making the one big decision he was reluctant to do: drop Cleary.
Graham turned up in NSW’s moment of need and will be rewarded with the No.6 jersey in the decider.
Talk that Fittler might move Jack Wighton to five-eighth and call back Latrell Mitchell is little more than empty speculation. The same with talk that Mitchell Pearce will come into the halves for the injured Cleary.
Graham replaced the injured Cleary and proved the perfect foil. He immediately returned NSW to an era where they most often dominated; whenever they had a big five-eighth, like Laurie Daley or Fittler himself.
Graham has finally arrived to where he should have been years ago, if not for injury.
It surprises no one. Regarding Graham or Fittler.
Cleary went down injured Sunday and Graham settled in and began bringing the kind of performance everybody knew he had in him.
He was clever and tough and unpredictable.
Fittler’s luck is already well established.
The talented Fittler lives the kind of charmed life that only supreme talent, a happy-go-lucky attitude and a hidden work ethic can achieve.
His talent and work ethic are so immense that many around Fittler are often lulled into focusing on one at the expense of the other. He has both in equal amounts.
Fittler gambled and won in Game II. He dared and he delivered.
To put it all down to divine planning, though, is to again get lost in Origin’s smoke and mirrors. If it was all so obvious why wasn’t it there in Game I?
Nobody knew what Fittler was planning for Game II in Perth. It appears Fittler was somewhat conflicted as well.
Seven changes from the team he picked for Game I, admittedly three driven by injury, do not suggest a settled mind.
The biggest stir was in the centres and halves.
Fittler insisted on picking Cleary and looked set to partner him with Mitchell Pearce before Pearce told him on selection morning that he was injured.
He then called for Maloney.
Maloney soon showed he is the dominant playmaker between him and Cleary with a performance that suggested that it was him, and not Cleary, with whom Fittler should have stuck loyal before the series.
Former Penrith coach Anthony Griffin said as much before the series but his opinion drifted off in the wind.
Fittler’s other night change came in the centres. He dropped Latrell Mitchell and Josh Morris despite the logic offered before Game I.
Morris was solid and defensively sound, the perfect foil to close down Queensland’s left edge that had Cameron Munster and Kalyn Ponga looming large.
Morris did all that and more. He was superb.
Mitchell failed in the effort areas. Particularly defensively.
The difficulty of dropping him was that Mitchell is a five-star game-breaker. Like some of the big, great centres he can fall asleep in games but destroy them when awoken.
Fittler had a big decision and finally decided against it.
Former NSW coach Phil Gould, for so many years Fittler’s mentor, was seen leaving the NSW team the morning the team got selected.
It was a strong coincidence. The team Fittler eventually arrived on had all the hallmarks of when Gould coached the Blues a lifetime ago. Big and tough, the kind whose undying instinct is to never quit. Pick the best 17 and find them a jumper.
So into the place of Mitchell and Morris came two players sharing six games of NRL experience at centre between them. Any suggestion Fittler knew exactly what he was doing was questioned by the decision to fly Mark Gasnier to Perth for the week to advise them on centre defence.
That small admission showed at least part of it was gamble. But like so much that Fittler does, it came off.
Intuition is a powerful weapon.
It is a poor world where we are not allowed to change our mind when new information is received.
Fittler showed as much with the seven changes between Game I and Game II.
New information, new team. The difficulty for those not inside the coach’s room was trying to figure it out.
It began to make sense, at least here, last Wednesday when Cooper Cronk rolled in to NRL360 and picked up the NSW team and looked at it for what must have been at least 40 seconds.
“He’s picking an effort team,” Cronk said.
It was as simple as that. And it was spot on.
Originally published as Brad Fittler’s game two gamble was confusing but it paid off
Locker Room: Giant self-inflicted wound unleashes tsunami of pain
GWS are a sporting club that no other franchise in Australia would want to be right now, a club struggling for a pulse up against a thriving NRL and dealing with a wholly avoidable scandal, writes David Riccio.
Gutherson chase risks Dragons being labelled hypocrites
St George Illawarra’s open pursuit of Clint Gutherson risks giving the Dragons’ wantaway star Ben Hunt all the ammunition he needs in his own battle against the club, writes BRENT READ.