Just finished watching the game.
What an amazing effort by Gidley - first time in his life he has played right centre, and about 5th game in the centres in his senior career, and he slotted in like he has been playing it all his life.
All the people making excuses for Hayne because he has only played 20 or 30 games on the wing, and Gidley just nails a position he has never played in his life - not even in the juniors (he played a fair bit of left centre in the juniors - but that was 9 years ago).
You've lost your marbles. Gidley was woeful out in the centres, absolutely woeful. In fact, I didn't even realise he was on the field until he knocked on. His kick for Slater's try at the end was good, but apart from that we would have been better served with ANYONE else out in the centres, even Civoniceva.
The problem with such an emphatic scoreline is that it papers over the fact that Tim Sheens is by far the worst coach of Australia in a very long, long time. Thaiday is a great second rower, but only a decent prop. Brett White is a woeful prop. Shillington has played better than both in his games, yet they both get selected ahead of him. Kurt Gidley is NOT a utility, so we need to end this myth right now. What SHOULD have happened was another prop on the bench, Luke Lewis moves out to the centres and Watmough or Thaiday come on into the second row. It's not rocket surgery.
Hopefully this game will put to bed the myth that Nathan Hindmarsh belongs anywhere near a rep jumper. When he wasn't giving away a penalty in the opening 30 seconds, he was constantly being stood up in defence and making absolutely zero impact in attack. A waste of a jumper that could have gone to anyone else in the NRL and they would have played better.
Thurston was absolutely woeful. I don't know what Neil Henry has done to him up there, but his decision making is nowhere near where it was last year. I wouldn't be complaining if Scott Prince or Cooper Cronk were in the 7 next time Australia run out.
And yet we still won. Amazing.