That 2017 game (which I presume you are talking about) was a great effort from him which is going to be forgotten about unfortunatley. City were just randoms thrown together but played superbly well as a team and came up with a very good win. His coaching of Lebanon at the world cup that year also filled me with more confidence about him.
I said at the time he was the right decision and boy was i right.
It wasn't that for me. It was actually reading his autobiography about 10 years back that warmed me to the idea of coaching. On the surface he seems like a fairly standard footy bloke who likes a beer and a yarn with his mates, but beneath that he's a fairly complex character- he has some unconventional ideas about stuff, but at Origin level it works because the psychological factor plays a bigger part. You have just 3 games, more intense games and a small lapse in judgement can cost your state the series. So all this stuff about barefoot training (which Freddy reckons Ron Willey had them doing when he began at Penrith 30 years ago) to those weird blindfolded trust exercises, to the no mobile phones policy, to walking to the game, to the meditation- you can see the positive impact it's had on the trust each player has in his team-mates. Without that kind of trust, you don't see a finish like last night. They never looked panicky at any time this series.
On top of that (like I've said) you can see how happy the guys who don't make the team still are, and how much they want NSW to win, the way Freddy has got all sorts of players from past Origin squads to play a part in shaping this team. Provided they keep these systems in place, the NSW Origin team is looking very promising for the next 5 years at least.
