After thinking about it for a while, i fear Valentine Holmes more then i fear Slater. May sound crazy but hear me out. Queensland have a lot of older or out of form forwards. They also miss Matt scott immensly. They really struggled to get any go forward. This started from the kick. Blues were kicking straight to oates, pinning him down in his corner. What this did was eliminate oates from tabling a power hit up early in the set. Without oates it was up to the other members of the back 5 to get the go forward. O'neill was shithouse at this Boyd isn't good at this, while chambers and gagai are ok at it. This gave new south wales the forward advantage before the forwards were even involved. By comparison the blues back 5 done a great job of betting a roll on going. With this battle won it severely limited queenslands creative players, Boyd being one of them. Would Slater being able to succeed where Boyd failed? Boyd is no slouch. He has been great for Queensland and australia over the last 18 months. He has combined well with smith cronk and Thurston. I don't believe slater would have been anymore effective if he was in boyd's place on Wednesday. Qld will lose O'Neill, a huge bonus. But how he is replaced will be of interest. If slater comes in you can kick to oates and have slater, Boyd, gagai and chambers to start the roll on. If Holmes comes in you'd stick to kicking to oates but now Holmes, gagai, chambers and boyd will help start the roll on. If queensland get rolling Boyd will be back to his damaging best.
