Now that Lyon is out.........

[anjado]

Cooper touched the ball about five times in origin one and dropped it three times, He is also reaching the end of his career you aren't going to shut Queensland's back's down they will at least score three tries. NSW have to make sure they are capable of scoring more then three, QLD have Inglis,Slater,Lockyer and Thurston who are all match winners. NSW in game one had Hayne who was on the wing, Cooper isn't a match winner Jennings is a match winner all this crap about his defence is crap.

He played last year he wasn't found out defensively at all. Jennings along with Hayne can be a match winner and can create things out of nothing. Jennings is putting up with the same sh*t that Girdler had to put up with for years despite being the best centre in NSW for roughly 4 seasons he was always chosen behind guys like Terry Hill because he was a better defender.

Jennings will offer NSW far more then the likes of Tahu and Cooper. Like Hayne everytime he has the ball the opposition panics, NSW needs more flair and more points not a lets shut down queensland mentality you have to fight fire with fire.

Jennings played two matches last origin series NSW conceded 28 points in the first game mostly down to Gidley and 16 points in the third game.

This season we played one game conceded 28 points so the whole defensive centre thing is complete bullsh*t game one was played in the pouring rain.

Let me put it this way even if we picked a defensive team and they played well, Can you still see NSW completely shutting down Inglis,Thurston,Lockyer and Slater ? or can you see Queensland scoring at least three times every time we play them ? Have to factor in our forwards are always dominated it makes the selections of Cooper and Tahu pretty useless.

 

[hybrid_tiger]

Coopers a great defensive center, has origin experience, and has played in winning origin sides.

We haven't won for five years.

Our problems aren't defensively, they are in attack and Jennings is an attacking centre who adds spark.

And there is nothing mythical about Jenning's defensive shortfalls. You only ever watched him with the ball in hand before or something? His positional play and tackling technique are both poor. If you can't see this, your deadset blind.

Jennings isn't what I would call a great defender, but his defence is not so poor that you wouldn't pick him for Origin. Like I repeat ad-nauseam in here, our problems are in attack and Jennings is a centre who can create things. Did Jennings fail defensively last year in Origin? NO.

Nobody we pick in the centres is going to stop Inglis and co. only limit them. QLD are always going to score points, we have to score points too and the sides they are picking at the moment can't score points. anjado summed it up best above.

And Chris Lawrence? His defense ain't improved that much since an unfit and over the hill Tonie Carroll steamrolled him 5 times in one game. How do you think he's going to cope in origin?

Utter garbage and proves you haven't watched any of him in the last two years. Lawrence is one of the best defensive centres in the game and is a far better player than Matt Cooper.

 

[Direct]

The selectors won't see any need to change the backline at all from Game 1, except with Idris starts instead of Hayne, given that's he's going to miss the match.

 

[hybrid_tiger]

Idris on the wing? :lol:

Great, another player out of position. Not to mention a mediocre one at that.

FMD the stupidity knows no bounds.

 

[greeny12]

I think Lawrence would do a good job. To be honest he reminds me of a younger version of Cooper. Cooper is towards the end of his career... but has been in top notch form for the dragons this season... I think he just had an off day in Origin - and it could've been due to injury.

 

[smacky]

As a dragons supporter I think its time to give some few guys a run over cooper. He may only play for another year anyway and we need to build a team for the future.

Although people bagging him out obviously dont watch him enough. Sure he had a shocker in game 1 but hes always been pretty good in origin otherwise and is probley one of the inform centres at the moment. Today against the warriors he was very good scoring 2 trys and good defence as usual.

But We need to bring in someone like jennings, j morris or lawrence to build for the future and stick with a good side.