Kite, Weyman, Bailey all played like rubbish. O'Donnell had a dig and Poore was ok in patches. McManus seemed starstruck and Gidley had probably the worst game he has ever had in his life. His "escorting" of Inglis to the tryline was a particular lowlight of the game and an absolute amateur mistake. As a fullback in cover defense, you should always smash the man with the ball. If he is good enough to offload then you hope that the other blokes coming across cover the support but in a situation like that one last night, he should have made a B-Line straight at Inglis and tried to put him in the third row of the grandstand. If you try to cover the man with the ball and all his support, invariably you end up being made to look like a goose.
Campese and Wallace also had crap games. For quite a while there NSW looked like a ship with no rudder. When Wing came on and took the direct route, that snapped NSW out of it and they started going forward again. Just a couple of good dummy half runs and some quick play the ball was all it took and they looked much better. I also thought that Jamie Lyon was quiet. Strangely, he looked in patches like he didn't want to be there. Jennings looked dangerous when he got early ball, Hayne had a good game and that was about it for NSW backline.
