State of Origin 2016: Who is the best Blues half since Andrew Johns?
THE Blues have churned through 17 halves since Andrew Johns played his final match in 2005. Which of them was the best?
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WHEN Adam Reynolds takes the field next Wednesday night he’ll become the 18th player to pull on the No. 6 or No. 7 jersey for the Blues since Andrew Johns played his final Origin match in the 2005 decider.
Since then we’ve seen them all — young bloods who were thrown in before their time, players shifted out of position, old hard heads who were wheeled out of the retirement home and a whole lot of Mitchell Pearce.
With one series win in 10 years it’s been a succession of lean winters for the Blues. Now that Reynolds and James Maloney are set to form what seems like the 1000th halves combination to take the field for NSW we’ve taken a look back and ranked each of the 17 halves who have pulled on the sky blue jersey since 2006.
Only Origin form was considered. You could win 10 premierships straight and it wouldn’t save you on this list.
17) Mark Gasnier
Gasnier had already played six Origin matches in the centres when he was shifted into the halves for the 2006 series decider.
Despite having just a handful of club matches at five-eighth the powers that be decided to throw their best attacking weapon into a new position and the result was a 16-14 defeat that kickstarted Queensland’s incredible winning streak. Gasnier played five more Origin matches, all at centre, where he was one of the game’s elite.
16) Craig Gower
A tough customer with a wonderful kicking game, it seems strange in retrospect that Gower played just six Origin matches from 1999 to 2006. Had he come along 10 years later and not been forced to battle with the likes of Johns and Brett Kimmorley he probably would have been an Origin staple. Gower never played in a full series and had just two starts at halfback, including the 2006 decider. The Panthers stalwart did some good things in the 16-14 defeat but probably didn’t provide the spark that was required. It was his final Origin match.
15) Jarrod Mullen
As if poor old Jarrod Mullen didn’t have enough to deal with after being saddled with “the Next Andrew Johns” label from his earliest days at Newcastle, he was also tapped to replace the future Immortal in the Origin arena. Mullen was barely 20 and had just 30 first grade games under his belt when he was thrown into the series opener in 2007. He did a serviceable job, setting up a try for Jamie Lyon and producing a couple of nice touches, but was dumped after one game.
14) Jamie Lyon
Lyon’s famous reluctance to play representative football means his Origin resume is nowhere near as studded as it could be but the Manly star was lured out of rep retirement by Craig Bellamy in 2009. After playing two games in the centres for the Blues in 2009, Lyon was switched to five-eighth for the series opener in 2010 and managed two try assists and two line break assists despite playing out of position. It was Lyon’s final Origin match.
13) Terry Campese
The Canberra half had the hottest run of form of his life towards the back end of 2008 and did enough in 2009 to earn a debut in the series opener at Etihad Stadium. He acquitted himself well, helping to set up a try for Ben Creagh with a well-placed kick, but wasn’t able to fully put his stamp on the game as the Blues opted to run most of their attack through Robbie Farah. The instinctive playmaker seemed to have done enough to be retained for Game Two but was dumped for Trent Barrett and never played Origin again.
12) Braith Anasta
Anasta’s Origin carer was better than advertised — he played five-eighth in all three matches of the victorious 2005 series — and he tried his best to put his stamp on matches once he was recalled in 2006.
A strong runner of the ball with a fine kicking game, Anasta had a different scrum-base partner in four of his final five Origin matches and walked away with only one win post-2005. His best performance was also his last and it came in the 2008 decider alongside debutant Pearce, where the Roosters five-eighth desperately tried to spark a winning play without success in the 16-10 defeat.
11) Peter Wallace
A good start to his first season with the Broncos in 2008 put Peter Wallace into the Origin frame and he produced early, setting up a try on debut for Anthony Quinn in a 18-10 victory before rupturing a testicle in the 30-0 defeat in Game II and missing the decider. He returned for Game Two and Game Three of 2009 but lost them both.
Wallace did a better job than people might remember — he managed two try assists, four forced dropouts and one line break in his four matches, which might seem like pedestrian numbers until you realise that Mitchell Pearce managed six try assists, two forced dropouts and two line breaks despite playing an extra 11 matches.
10) Brett Kimmorley
Kimmorley’s decade-long Origin career had various peaks and valleys but it seemed to be dead in the water when he threw a golden-point intercept to Matt Bowen in the series opener of 2005.
However the veteran half was recalled just two years later to play in the final two matches in the 2007 series before bobbing back up for one match in 2009 and one in 2010. His stats are not flash — he has just three Origin try assists, which all came in the 2000 and 2001 series — but his two wins from four matches give him one of the best winning ratios of anyone on this list.
9) Todd Carney
Carney was selected for all three matches of 2012 and the Blues rode the wave of his form in the most entertaining and closest series of the Maroons streak. After a nervous debut in Game One, Carney set up a crucial try for Brett Stewart in Game Two that helped give the Blues a vital 16-12 win.
He wasn’t able to replicate that form in the series decider but did nail a brilliant late conversion that levelled the scores at 20-all. However, as a noted field-goal kicker his failure to even get a shot away in the Blues’ eventual 21-20 loss was disappointing.
8) James Maloney
From 2011 to 2013 the Blues chose three different five-eighths to partner Mitchell Pearce, and in 2013 it was Maloney who got the call. The Orange junior didn’t quite show his best football but would have been an intriguing choice if given another series.
His strong running game was on show in Game One but a failure to create inside the attacking quarter in a close series decider are marks against him. He’ll make a deserved return to the sky blue jersey on Wednesday night.
7) Jamie Soward
Of the three five-eighths the Blues used from 2011-13, Soward enjoyed the best series and could feel most aggrieved at being dropped. Wonderful kicking displays in Game One and Game Two kept the Blues in it and were it not for Paul Gallen’s heroics in the latter game Soward would have been a certainty for man of the match.
He also created the match-sealing try for Anthony Minichiello and had previously been one of the Blues’ bright spots in the 16-12 defeat in Game One. Even in the 34-24 defeat in the decider Soward did some good things, helping set up tries for Minichiello and Akulia Uate.
6) Trent Barrett
Barrett returned to the NRL with Cronulla in 2009 and was rushed back into Origin for Game Two of 2009 in place of Campese. The big-five-eighth didn’t quite have the speed of his younger days but was still a tricky customer and his size and kicking game made him a dangerous prospect.
He managed three try assists and three line break assists in his four matches and captained the Blues in the 2010 finale but enjoyed just one win, a dead rubber victory in 2009.
5) Mitchell Pearce
There have been thousands of words written on the State of Origin career of Mitchell Pearce and the role he’s played in the six losing series in which he’s played, but there are a few things we can be sure of. He was put into Origin way too early — he was just 18 when he was thrown to the wolves in the 2008 decider. He’s not the sole cause for the Blues’ many losses, but he has failed to close out tight matches and has never been able to consistently build pressure or show the same level of creativity as he does at club level.
He’s been given more chances for less production than any player in Origin history and has had a couple of good moments for the Blues but his failure to win a series overshadows his Origin record. His 15 games in the halves are more than double the next highest total of the post-Johns era and he’s played more Origin matches in a halves than any Blues player apart from Johns himself. In those 15 games he has a 4-11 record.
4) Brett Finch
Brett Finch only played three Origin matches. Two of those were as a late replacement and the other was a 30-6 defeat. In a mark of the performances of Blues halves over the past decade, a single, brilliant match is enough for Finch to crack the top five.
He was called into the Blues squad the day before the 2006 series opener and played the game of his life, scoring a try, setting up another and kicking a 35-metre field goal in the dying minutes for a memorable 17-16 victory. Unjustly denied the man of the match award, Finch showed everything the Blues have lacked from the halves during Queensland’s reign and rose under the greatest pressure of all. The Blues lost Game Two 30-6 and Finch never played Origin again.
3) Greg Bird
Johns won man of the match in Game Two of the 2005 series with one of the best individual performances in Origin history. Since then the Blues have had one player from the halves win a man of the match award — Greg Bird.
He made his NSW debut in the 2007 dead rubber at five-eighth and was judged best on ground before backing that up with another man-of-the-match turn in Game Two of the 2008 series, becoming the first player since Ricky Stuart in 1992-93 to win the award in back to back matches and just the fourth player to do it in Origin history. Despite his numbers being unnotable (one try assist, two line break assists and one line break) Bird has something no other Blues half can match, so he’s cracked the top three.
2) Josh Reynolds
Reynolds has played three Origin matches in the halves, all in 2014, and his attacking stats are non-existent. He has no try assists, no line break assists and no linebreaks. But the Bulldogs scrapper checks into the top two because he did what nobody else could and won a goddamn series.
Despite his lack of attacking spark Reynolds was typically tenacious in the 12-8 victory in Game Two and had an underrated game in the 6-4 drought-breaking win in Game Two. He probed and threatened the vaunted Maroons defence and came up with a well-weighted kick and a superb chase that forced a drop-out that led to Trent Hodkinson’s series-winning try. He might never play Origin again and just about every player on this list has him beat for raw skill but Reynolds’ tenacity and hustle, which have always been his best (and sometimes worst) attributes, helped the Blues to a historic victory.
1) Trent Hodkinson
Who else could it be? Hodkinson was the unlikeliest of Origin heroes — at the start of the 2014 season you could have written your own odds on him claiming the Blues jersey but a series of clutch performances for the Bulldogs and an off-field Mitchell Pearce incident got him the gig and he never looked back.
A solid performance in the Blues’ victory in Game I meant he retained his place and had a shot at history in Game Two. Hodkinson’s running game is not his strength — in fact, he’s made just 31 line breaks in 126 NRL matches — but after 70 minutes of struggle it was the Blues No. 7 who stole the show and the series with a show-and-go, a try and a clutch conversion that eventually earned a 6-4 victory and NSW’s first series win since 2005. He could have announced his retirement that night and still topped this list.
Originally published as State of Origin 2016: Who is the best Blues half since Andrew Johns?
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