2021 Origin III - NSW 18-20 QLD @ Cbus Super

[ColdWetPanther]

Exactly. Cleary was pathetic in 2 of the 3 games last year.

Never mind that Cleary was rated by his teammates and coaching staff as the best NSW player last year, but I think you are missing the point.

Cleary is today 23 and was identified 3 years ago as the future for NSW; the first few years were alongside a dominant half as he learnt on the job, and today that strategy seems to have been shown to be successful; last year he was Blues man of the series and this year he was the dominant half of a team that won the first two games 76-6. Baring injury, he is the half for the foreseeable future.

Moses is three years older than Cleary and realistically his role is to come in and play a role in the event of injury. To that extent, I don’t think that his game the other day was all that bad; you don’t expect him to win the game for you, you want him to be solid. The problem was that he was playing alongside someone else with a similar role in Wighton; neither half was going to take control.

But the important thing is that Moses doesn’t have a couple of series to ease his way into Origin; he needs to do his job from the off as there is no longer term pay-off associated with his development.

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

The loss bothers me more than it should. If you gave the Qld 2008-10 team 3 games in a series in NSW you know they would give an arm and a leg for a clean sweep on NSW soil. That should have been our motivation.

Freddy again trying to be too cute with his selections. Our outside backs are incredible, just pick a set of halves who can get them early ball, kick well and not overplay their hand (Adam Reynolds to a T). He completely butchered his game management too, burning all his interchanges with 10 to go, and the decision to take the penalty goal was moronic. Happy to win the series, but we let Qld get more out of that series than they should have (same with 2020 & 2019).

Agreed.

He's not the "foot on the throat" type of coach. We need to be ruthless. We aren't ruthless.

Yes we lost some players for Game 3 but Qld had some missing too. Some of the selections smacked of "next year" rather than here and now. There's never been an opportunity going into Game 3 in the history of SOO to absolutely annihilate the the opposition in a series. Yet we picked two halves who've never played those positions at this level.

Nothing against Moses - who I thought went ok and especially considering it's his first outing. He was quite good in the second half. But while qld played much much better than the first two games - that third game was one we lost. And I don't point the finger at any players...

Its the coach and selectors who I've got an issue with.

History will say Fittler has won more series as the Blues coach in over 15 years, maybe longer. That's not a true reflection of Fittlers ability. To me it's not because of his coaching skills, it's that he's been "gifted" a strong NSW team and an opposition who've been rebuilding since the retirement of many superstars from the golden Qld Era.

 

[Jim Rockford]

Squeels fans really don't like to be told their Lebanese Cucumber is nowhere near the player they mistakenly believe he is.

 

[Marshall_magic]

Agreed.

He's not the "foot on the throat" type of coach. We need to be ruthless. We aren't ruthless.

Yes we lost some players for Game 3 but Qld had some missing too. Some of the selections smacked of "next year" rather than here and now. There's never been an opportunity going into Game 3 in the history of SOO to absolutely annihilate the the opposition in a series. Yet we picked two halves who've never played those positions at this level.

Nothing against Moses - who I thought went ok and especially considering it's his first outing. He was quite good in the second half. But while qld played much much better than the first two games - that third game was one we lost. And I don't point the finger at any players...

Its the coach and selectors who I've got an issue with.

History will say Fittler has won more series as the Blues coach in over 15 years, maybe longer. That's not a true reflection of Fittlers ability. To me it's not because of his coaching skills, it's that he's been "gifted" a strong NSW team and an opposition who've been rebuilding since the retirement of many superstars from the golden Qld Era.

i think the best thing about Mal for Qld is he didn’t need to prove himself as a master coach. He knew he was sitting on a once in a lifetime squad who would run through walls for him and so he just kept it simple. He didn’t insist on moving players out of position when he got an injury, he left GI at centre for his entire origin career, apart from when Slater got an injury and played him at fullback (where he played his club footy at the time).

Freddy I feel tries to prove he’s a master coach. I get the sense the players like him, but he was caught out overplaying his hand in 2020, and he’s done so again in game 3. Put a Sticky in charge and we are sitting on 4 straight series wins, including a clean sweep here (and probably another in 2018 or 2019).

 

[billygilmore]

People will also remember that NSW were odds on for a whitewash against a QLD team that wasn't given any chance of holding them out, but NSW just couldn't do it.

This how I felt about our final game in 2009, first team to win 4 series in a row, home game to win it 3-0 against a pathetic blues team, but we decide to grub it up and Steve Price gets knocked outto compound the embarrassment, could have won 9 games in a row if it wasn't for this shit house game

 

[ColdWetPanther]

i think the best thing about Mal for Qld is he didn’t need to prove himself as a master coach. He knew he was sitting on a once in a lifetime squad who would run through walls for him and so he just kept it simple. He didn’t insist on moving players out of position when he got an injury, he left GI at centre for his entire origin career, apart from when Slater got an injury and played him at fullback (where he played his club footy at the time).

Freddy I feel tries to prove he’s a master coach. I get the sense the players like him, but he was caught out overplaying his hand in 2020, and he’s done so again in game 3. Put a Sticky in charge and we are sitting on 4 straight series wins, including a clean sweep here (and probably another in 2018 or 2019).

I like Freddy's 'no d!ckhead policy', and I am equally glad that also applies to the coach. Freddy might not be the best coach, but at least I am not embarrassed that he is leading my state....

 

[Captain Apollo]

With information emerging now that Mitchell Moses played most of Origin III with a back fracture, I think I may have been too harsh about his lack of running the ball during the game. I've had back problems over the years so I know that it can be incredibly painful.

 

[wittyfan]

So courageous of him to have played 70 minutes with a fractured back.