‘That’s a choice’: Slater’s blunt admission as Maroons’ attitude slammed, DCE’s plea

Queensland coach Billy Slater has called out his side for one aspect of their performance in the Origin opener that “wasn’t good enough”.

Queensland coach Billy Slater has slammed his side’s discipline in their series opening loss on Wednesday night, but he doesn’t believe changes are required for a must-win Origin II.

The Maroons were beaten to the punch from the opening whistle and found themselves on the wrong side of a 9-6 penalty count in the 18-6 loss at Suncorp Stadium.

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Ill-disciplined ruck penalties put Slater’s side on the back foot early and they failed to learn from their mistakes in the second half.

The fourth-year Queensland coach was asked whether he believed the loss was due to personnel or attitude.

“To be honest, I don’t think it’s either,” Slater said.

“I definitely don’t think it’s a personnel thing. I know what this team’s capable of and that’s why… you can probably see I’m disappointed because they haven’t played their best footy and I feel responsible to try and help them get there.

“So yeah, it’s definitely not a personnel thing, to be honest, and they’ve had a great attitude as well. But with the discipline side of the game, the attitude wasn’t good enough.

Watch Billy Slater’s press conference in the video above

Queensland coach Billy Slatter slammed his side’s discipline in their series opening loss.

“We needed to change things and we didn’t change things enough. It might look close but (it wasn’t). In terms of how close we were to play our best footy, we were nowhere near it.”

The series now heads to Perth and Slater was asked what it’s going to take to turn things around and level the series.

“Decisions from the playing group. I’ve just spoken about the discipline part of the game and that’s a choice,” Slater said, with those last three words particularly damning.

“So probably a shift in that to start with and I’ll look at my preparation as well.

“I know there is so much more in this footy team. It’s best of three, you’ve only got to win two games and that’s still alive and we’ll be going after it.

“It doesn’t just happen, you’ve got to make it happen and we weren’t prepared to make it happen the tough way tonight.

“Too many leg ups, too many penalties, a few errors and that part of the game NSW did better than us.

The Maroons were well below their best in Game 1. Photo: Adam Head

“It’s pretty simple, if you don’t have the footy you make it really tough on yourself. I can’t question the effort or commitment the team have, it’s a tough game out there, it’s not easy to play that sort of game and they kept hanging in there and turning up for each other but we just made it way too hard for ourselves.

“Like many of our players, Harry (Grant) wasn’t at his best unfortunately, but he wasn’t on his own.”

Queensland have scored just one try in their past two games, both at Suncorp Stadium, and under pressure halfback Daly Cherry-Evans said he hope Slater sticks solid with him.

“With losing comes the question (if he’ll be dropped). We’ve opened ourselves up to these sorts of questions but I’d love the opportunity to come back and correct it,” Cherry-Evans said.

“Disappointing is the best word to explain (the attack), especially where we’ve played the last two games and to only walk away with one try… there’s a bit of work to do there.

“When you’re ill-disciplined you put yourself under pressure and we gave them a lot of possession.”

Originally published as ‘That’s a choice’: Slater’s blunt admission as Maroons’ attitude slammed, DCE’s plea