I posted this in the Origin game thread, thought I'd post it here too.
Keep in mind I'm a QLD fan, so I'll try to be as unbiased as I can.
The Greg Bird penalty for upending the player: Fair dinkum. If that's a penalty, I'm not here. I thought it was a good, solid tackle and Bird was hard done by with that penalty.
The Jennings sin bin: Turn it up. He came running in and threw a punch, yes, but it hardly connected, and he barely looks like he could fight his way out of a wet paper bag. It's Origin. It deserved a penalty, but not the sin bin.
The Inglis try: If that's a try, I'm not here. I understand if we apply the rule book to it, that it's a try, well, I say the rule book is wrong. Inglis dropped that ball and I would have been happy with a knock on. It was too hard to determine if Farah deliberately played at the ball with his foot, IMO, and so it's a knock on.
Other points:
NSW - It was a funny old game. The better team on the night lost this one. I thought NSW out played QLD, especially their backs. Jennings and Hayne particularly in attack were extremely good. Hayne played his best game for years for mine. Morris did an excellent job on Inglis in the centres, much better than Gasnier has in previous years. I thought Tamou was really good, and Tony Williams when he came on had an immediate impact. Greg Bird troubled QLD all night, too. I thought Carney was average, at best. His kicking game was woeful, and his few touches were generally errors. Pearce was okay, but pretty much went missing for most of the game. Farrah was excellent. He really tried hard all night and made good meters out of dummy half around the big QLD forwards.
QLD - How we got away with that one, I don't know. Cameron Smith was obviously still affected by the flu pretty bad. I've never seen him gas in a game, ever. Last night he was gassed hard after about 20 minutes. Petero and Scott were okay, but Hannant and Shillington were good, particularly Hannant - he was excellent. I really think Hannant needs to start next game and bring Petero off the bench. Inglis was shut down well all night by Morris, and Hodges had a quiet night guarded well by Jennings, but particularly Hayne. Boyd - well, 2 tries but a dropped bomb which let NSW score, but an overall good performance by him. Tate was tremendous and deserved the man of the match. He kept turning up for QLD, taking the hard yards when the forwards were tired, and was safe as a house under the high ball. Slater had a horror night, worst I've ever seen from him. Dunno what was up with that. Taylor and Gillet had minimal impact, but it wasn't the kind of game for them to really shine.
John Thurston - fair dinkum. If he's not the best player getting around ATM, I'll give it up. Without Lockyer there, Thurston really took on that ball playing delivery role. Some of his back line moves for the Boyd tries were spectacular. He was solid in defence, and his kicking game was excellent too.
I'm not going to get into the refereeing side of things, because it's pointless. Good close contest overall. NSW probably deserved to win it, but QLD managed to grind out a really ugly win. Can't wait for game two!
