1. Dugan
2. Hayne
3. Jennings
4. Lawrence
5. Uate
6. Carney
7. Pearce / Maloney
8. Snowden
9. Ennis
10 Gallen
11 Watmough
12 G Stewart
13 Campese
14 Mannah
15 T Williams
16 Bird
17 Gidley
Logic - for years NSW have taken the field with one ball player and occasionally two. Whenever NSW has the ball QLD know where to group defenders because one pass and the catcher runs the ball. Every time they take the hit up and try a fast play the ball. That's been their only tactic for 6 years. Name the number of quality second rowers that NSW has put up against the Queensland defence and look what happened to the NSW attack.
We need something MORE to defeat Queensland. Screw matching them, let's f**king run rings round them. We need cool heads, great passing ability and fast feet. Queensland has always used this combination to defeat NSW and it's about time we woke up to the fact.
Thurston, Lockyer, Cronk etc can all run at the line, pass late and keep the ball moving to find fast runners in space. We find a runner and run at a defender. It's too f**king simple to win us games.
Firstly we needs Carney. He is fast on his feet, difficult to tackle and can make the spectacular look easy. We need speedy outside backs. Jennings, Uate, Hayne and Lawrence fit the bill. Carney is not an organiser, he needs to play alongside someone who does the percentage things well. Pearce is a dogged defender, but Maloney is a classier player. I'd be tempted to go with Carney and Maloney, but they've never played together before, so maybe Pearce is the best option.
But to beat Queensland we need more ball players. I'd actually play Campese in the lock forward position - playing the same role that Fittler played when Johns and Daley were in the halves. He is big and strong, can pass and gives us another kicking option. He also has a really good relationship with Dugan and that could be the key for NSW in the same way that Slater makes things happen for QLD off of Cronk and Smith.
The rest pretty much picks itself with Tony Williams getting a bench spot and Bird getting the nod over Lewis.... just.
Couldn't disagree more Lambretta.
State of origin is all about discipline, control and go forward. When we were dominant from 03-05 it was on the back of hard working backrowers and genuine metre eating props. Who were our last starting props in a winning series? For those who don't know it was Ryles & Bailey
Whether you rate them or not you can't deny both are genuine workers who have consistently averaged well over 100m every season even up until today. Why they were dropped for Kite & Mason in 2006 I'll never know. It's really quite simple you pick starting props who make metres, QLD have been doing it for the past 6 years. Steve Price averaged well in excess of 150m nearly every season, Civo the same, Hannant, Shillington, Scott you all get the drift. You'll never see QLD pick a backrower (Mason & Fitzgibbon) to start in the front row, or a Josh Perry/Brett White who at club level couldn't even average decent go forward.
Sticky has thankfully gone back to this simple formula. He starts Gallen who plays middle third at club level, don't think I need to remind everyone of how good his go forward is at club level and Mannah who is consistently one of the top metre eaters in the NRL (unfortunately he's probably still a little raw).
Anyway onto the backrowers, same story our success was built around workers like Craig Fitzgibbon, Ben Kennedy, Nathan Hindmarsh, Steve Simpson & Andrew Ryan. Losing Fitzy and Kennedy from the 2005 to 2006 series was a HUGE blow. Not picking Fitzy was criminal. There's nothing fancy about these blokes just like there's nothing fancy about Nate Myles, Ashley Harrison, Corey Parker, Dallas Johnson & Sam Thaiday. They make their meters, they make their tackles and they just don't stop.
SOO is a war of nutrition, trying to play an attacking style off footy will just see us get our arses handed to us for the 7th year in a row. There were some promising signs last year and Sticky is the right man to take us forward.
