Laurie Daley opens up Daley opens up on NSW’s shock State of Origin loss

Almost a week after NSW’s shock defeat in the State of Origin decider, Laurie Daley has addressed the Blues series defeat and what went wrong.

NSW coach Laurie Daley has revealed he’s still recovering from his side’s shock State of Origin series loss to Queensland, declaring: “I have to take full responsibility.”

Daley spoke about the defeat on Monday morning when returning to work on the Big Sports Breakfast radio show for the first time since the defeat.

The fancied Blues led the series 1-0 before crashing to defeats in Perth and Sydney.

“I’m trying to recover from Wednesday night. It will take a while to get over. I’ve been reflecting,” Daley said.

NSW Blues coach Laurie Daley has opened up on his side’s shock State of Origin series loss. Picture: Getty Images

“The first couple of days were tough. We expected a better performance, obviously, so I’ve been scratching my head (and asking) why? Why did we have a performance like that?

“That has to start with the coaches, me in particular. I’ve got to look at myself and make sure I go through what I did to see whether that was the best I could have done.

“As head coach, I have to take full accountability because I’m the leader. I get that, I understand that.

“Going on what I felt after the game, I’m still none-the-wiser because I was so happy with the way we prepared and went about it.

“We have to find out why we started the way we did in games one and two. We have to find out what happened and why we weren’t ready to go out at our best, why we made the mistakes and what positions we put them in.

“Are there other things that I could have done that would have made a big difference?

“We have staff meetings to come this week, coaches meetings to come, leadership meetings. There is a lot to still happen behind the scenes. You want to get it while it’s fresh – the thoughts about the week, the game, what do we need to do better, why did we miss the jump. All those things.

“There were no suggestions at all that we were going to give a performance like that. Our preparation was as good as I’ve seen and I was very confident going into the game.”

Daley said he would accept criticism, knowing that strong opinions and debate were part of the Origin landscape.

The Blues were stunned in the State of Origin decider as they loss the series to Queensland. Picture: NRL Photos

And while NSW’s game three performance has been panned, Daley wasn’t about to offer up any excuses.

“There were moments where we were made to pay and when Queensland got a sniff and some momentum, they were always going to be hard to pull back,” he said.

“We will go through the review, which won’t be great, and look to be better than what we were. We will go through the review with a fine tooth comb.

“It’s a collective thing. We got punished for every mistake we made and Queensland were perfect with the football. Their completion rate was up around 95 per cent.

“But that’s certainly no excuse. No matter what I say today, we have to fix what happened. It was disappointing, very disappointing, but what do you do? You‘ve got to move forward. There’ll be times when you reflect and you go over things.”

When interviewed by co-host Gerard Middleton, Daley denied blundering by starting injured players Payne Haas and Brian To’o.

“Brian and Payne had limited preparations in games one and two and they were players-of-the-match in games one and two,” Daley said.

“With that body of work behind them, you trust them. Look at Brian’s performance, he was great. He carried the ball 25, 26 times.”

Asked how difficult it was to start work again on the radio show at 5.30am after a six-week break for Origin, Daley said: “You’ve got to front up.”

Originally published as Laurie Daley opens up Daley opens up on NSW’s shock State of Origin loss