Why Blues coach Laurie Daley said no to this tough-tackling machine who is punching out the numbers every week

When are people going to understand that winning Origin matches has little do with form, fitness, age and certainly not statistics after 11 rounds? It has everything to do with character.

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NSW coach Laurie Daley is too nice to publicly say why Wests Tigers prop Terrell Maywas overlooked for the State of Origin opener against Queensland, even if it means he’ll keep wearing bruises from the public.

“I think the others are playing better,” he said at a Monday morning media conference. “He needs to keep knocking on the door.”

Blues coach Laurie Daley discusses his team at a press conference on Monday. Picture Thomas Lisson

Sitting third on the Dally M leaderboard, May has been banging down the door. He’s become a hard-running-offloading-tackling machine since the Roosters let him go at the end of last season.

And?

When are people going to understand that winning Origin matches has little do with form, fitness, age and certainly not statistics after 11 rounds?

It has everything to do with character. That’s why May isn’t in the Blues team.

On Thursday night, he was live streaming while playing Call of Duty on Twitch. (Ask your 10-year-old nephew what that means, like I had to).

“You know that Blues jersey I bought you?” he told another gamer on the stream. “Chuck it in the bin.”

He was responding to an unsourced News Corp report about Daley having concerns about May’s defence around the ruck.

“Nah, it’s not the media,” May added. “How do you think it got leaked? You think they’re not just playing Chinese whispers?”

Then this: “Might have to switch my allegiance.”

Would Queensland coach Billy Slater pick a player, who has never worn the Maroon jumper, after speaking like this?

“Character is really important because that’s what you’re going to lean on when you’re tired out there,” Slater said at his Monday morning media conference. “You can’t go down to Coles

to buy it.”

Arthur Beetson is surrounded by fans as he walks off the field at the end of the first Queensland v NSW State of Origin match, played at Lang Park in Brisbane on July 8, 1980. Queensland won 20-10 – and character triumphed. Picture: News Corp

Queensland have long understood the importance of character. They’ve understood it from the moment an unfit 35-year-old called Arthur Beetson was plucked out of Parramatta reserve grade in 1980 and led his state to victory at Lang Park in the first Origin played.

The Blues lose unlosable Origins when they forget this is how it’s done.

In not picking May, Daley has shown he’s learnt the lessons from 2017, his last series in charge of the Blues.

Managing the NSW side that year was akin to herding cats. After winning the first match at Suncorp Stadium, underlined by a brilliant performance from prop Andrew Fifita, the campaign quickly went off the rails.

Daley bowed to a request from the NSWRL for the squad to stay at The Star – a major sponsor – for game two in Sydney.

A bunch of footballers spending 10 days at a casino … what could possibly go wrong? Some of the yarns from that camp are stuff of legend, none of it good and none of it reportable.

The Blues lost the match 18-16. In the dressing-room afterwards, I interviewed captain Boyd Cordner and found him choking back tears. They’d blown a chance to wrap up the series before a home crowd and would now have to do it in Brisbane.

Elsewhere in the room, Fifita was blowing up about staying in a casino while some of his teammates clearly didn’t care, joking and laughing and listening to music on a beatbox.

Terrell May, overlooked for Origin I by Blues coach Laurie Daley, fends off the Rabbitohs at Campbelltown on Sunday. His form in 2025 can’t be denied, but a coach looks for other attributes as well. Picture: Getty

Former Blues halfback Andrew Johns, who was working for Channel 9 and doing post-match interviews, was furious that halfback Mitchell Pearce hadn’t directed play at Queensland counterpart Johnathan Thurston, who had badly injured his shoulder.

Despite this, NSW were still hot favourites for the decider at Suncorp Stadium. If you knew what was happening behind the scenes, you wouldn’t have picked them.

Outside backs Josh Dugan and Blake Ferguson on the Saturday before the match figured it would be smart to leave the team hotel in Kingscliff and head to Lennox Head for an eight-hour beers-and-bets session.

If that wasn’t enough for Daley to cope with, he soon had to deal with Fifita throwing his toys out of the cot after being told he would be on the bench instead of starting.

When Fifita threatened to walk out on the team, Daley caved in and started him. The Blues were pumped 22-6 and Daley was eventually sacked.

He replaces Michael Maguire this time around, taking over a side that won a decider in Brisbane last year. Maguire was slammed for picking Jake Trbojevic as captain, but he was proved right – the Manly skipper only played a handful of minutes in all three matches but his leadership was instrumental in the series win.

Daley has so much more going for him in his second stint as Blues coach.

He has two key men standing alongside him: Storm coach Craig Bellamy as adviser and Frank Ponissi as team-performance manager. Neither of them have much tolerance for selfish players.

Matt Moylan, stepping through a tackle by Cameron Smith and Johnathan Thurston, was a late call-up to start the game at five-eighth in Origin III in 2016. NSW showed grit to win that game but had already lost the series. Picture: AAP

More importantly, Daley returns with NSW brimming with options.

For the 2016 series, he couldn’t buy a playmaker. Now he’s leaving out Jarome Luai. Tom Trbojevic, one of the Blues’ best players when he’s fit, couldn’t get a start. Neither could Ryan Papenhuyzen, who’s starting to become one of those players born in the wrong era.

As for the pack, Daley had middle forwards and backrowers falling out of the sky over the weekend, all keen to be picked. It’s a strong side when Manly’s Haumole Olakau’atu can’t make the starting 17.

Broncos prop Payne Haas was the first player picked, with the Warriors’ Mitch Barnett joining him in the front row. The Bulldogs’ Max King and Roosters’ Spencer Leniu are the reserve props, with the Storm’s Stefano Utoikamanu in the extended squad.

The game’s increasing injury rate means coaches rarely have the luxury of picking the same team twice. You suspect at some point they’ll be down a front-rower and the calls will start about picking May.

Daley has been heavily criticised for not picking up the phone to May to explain why he wasn’t chosen. People have lost their minds. What does the NSW coach owe a player who has never played Origin?

Maybe May should pick up the phone to Daley instead, if he hasn’t already changed allegiances.