State of Origin 2015 Game 3: Cameron Smith shuns Channel 9 as Maroons claim ninth series for Mal Meninga

HE WORE No. 9 on his back - that was one thing Cameron Smith could not change about the State of Origin series decider.

State of Origin

HE WORE No. 9 on his back - that was one thing Cameron Smith could not change about Wednesday night.

Smith, annoyed by the refusal of producers of Channel 9’s 60 Minutes to give him a right of reply to comments by Alex McKinnon, treated Nine’s microphones like they carried the Ebola virus.

Smith’s manager told Nine’s sports team on Tuesday that in protest the Maroons skipper would not be interviewed by the network at the game.

How much the Test skipper will have to do with the network which paid about $700 million for free-to-air rights for the game for five years remains to be seen, to the nervousness of NRL and Nine bosses.

Three hours from kick-off, Nine reporter Yvonne Sampson tweeted that she would not be joined, as she was in the first two games, by Smith at a televised coin toss before the game. The toss was not telecast at all.

“Sadly, it’s not in the rundown for tonight,’’ she tweeted.

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In Game Two, Smith was interviewed briefly at half-time by Nine’s sideline eye Darren Lockyer and again at full-time.

There were reports, which The Courier-Mail could not immediately confirm, that Lockyer approached Smith for a word for Nine at half-time and been turned down. No player interviews were aired as players left the field at half-time.

Cameron Smith celebrates during Queensland’s win over NSW in State of Origin 3. Picture: Darren England.

Anyone who has been in a workplace could perhaps feel for Nine’s sports crew for the collateral damage wrought by their current affairs cousins.

Queenslanders can always find fault with the Sydney commentators, but Nine’s camera angles, which even caught Cooper Cronk’s cheeky grin when he milked the penalty which gained field position for the second try, and many other aspects of these Origin telecasts this year have been world-class.

As a badly ill-disciplined NSW side crashed to their most embarrassing night of Origin football, commentator Phil Gould rightly identified that the difference from Game Two was the sustained ferocity of the Queensland defence.

Viewers in Queensland could settle in to barrack for two Dad’s Armies, the Maroons on Nine and the Australian cricket team on the Gem digital channel.

At half-time, with the Maroons 20 points ahead, Nine reminded viewers about the cricket telecast.

Gem will have rated well in NSW after 9.10pm.

On the afternoon of the game, Sydney’s Triple M radio claimed 60 Minutes producers had not shown McKinnon an unedited version of Smith’s comments during the game in which McKinnon was replaced with injuries which proved to be career-ending.

It gave McKinnon the impression that Smith had been arguing with the referees while McKinnon was being assessed and assisted by medicos.

Triple M said McKinnon was not shown video including these words to a referee by Smith: “It’s unfortunate. I don’t want to see happen at any time in our game.’’

“There was a lot of stuff taken out of context (by 60 Minutes and the comments which had been edited out) showed Cameron in a much more sympathetic light,’’ said Triple M commentator Matt Johns.

The end result was that hundreds of thousands of Queensland fans who would normally hang off every word from their Maroons captain would go without his thoughts on his record-equalling 36th Origin appearance until they caught his post-match media conference comments online or in the newspapers.

Originally published as State of Origin 2015 Game 3: Cameron Smith shuns Channel 9 as Maroons claim ninth series for Mal Meninga