State of origin series

[Luke Bowden]

Frizell was one of our best

He was, but that’s not say Murray wouldn’t have been.
Frizzel on the bench makes way more sense.

Murray / Martin is an outstanding starting Backrow.

 

[Chins get the wins]

Luai had assists on 2 of the 3 tries we scored.

Also 2/3 LBA the side had.

He was one of the spine players to hold his own

Yeah I don't particularly rate Jerome but he went well apart from that awful miss tackle on Cobbo

 

[Munky]

Was Jerome trying to complete the tackle on Cobbo or was he making him go for the corner expecting Teddy to make the tackle into touch?

He cut off the line allowing Cobbo to step back in but Teddy went for the infield step anyway.

His contact should have been better though.

 

[Luke Bowden]

Lets Ignore the bombed tries.

All of QLD's tries the Fullback should of stopped.

The 1st one he was standing 3 in on the other side of the post.

It was good vision but a Fullback should stop that.

As with the other 3

I said it last night.

Edwards stops all of those tries.

He would have recovered grubber.

He would have tackled Cobbo and The Hammer.

There is no way in hell Lindsay Collins is out leaping him.

He is a must pick in Origin 2

 

[BossleyPanther]

Luai had assists on 2 of the 3 tries we scored.

Also 2/3 LBA the side had.

He was one of the spine players to hold his own

Yes he did. TBH I'm more critical with Nathan. 1 continuous play with a looped kick up. I'm sure he has a grabber in him.

All I was saying is that they need alot of position to have the team scoring.

It didn't feel like an Origin game to me as well.

 

[BossleyPanther]

Andrew John's " "

It's the halves and the imposter coach. Imaging a coach saying how amazed he is in how players train these days? That's Freddie's comments pre-game comments. Even Barrett is a better coach

 

[Iamback]

Yeah I don't particularly rate Jerome but he went well apart from that awful miss tackle on Cobbo

Prob expected the kick.

He has a 90% win record at the club in all grades. Was the last half standing for Samoa.

So the class is there, Sometimes the off field Luai clouds judgement

 

[Iamback]

I said it last night.

Edwards stops all of those tries.

He would have recovered grubber.

He would have tackled Cobbo and The Hammer.

There is no way in hell Lindsay Collins is out leaping him.

He is a must pick in Origin 2

Most fullbacks would of. It is a position that when you shows decline the most.

It is a young mans position in rep sides.

When NSW lose this series and heads roll, He will be the 2nd after Fittler to go

 

[Alintheeast]

Most fullbacks would of. It is a position that when you shows decline the most.

It is a young mans position in rep sides.

When NSW lose this series and heads roll, He will be the 2nd after Fittler to go

Hopefully he(Ted) does the right thing and retires if we lose O2. Can’t drop him he is on every ad. Adolf would get the flick but the whole selection panel is made of NSW Old Boys maybe they will make offer he can’t refuse but they couldn’t sack a mate out right.

 

[Fangs]

Edwards won't be picked. The media storm from dropping the NSW and Austrlian captain would be too tough to handle. Game 3 he might go however.

Crichton will make way for Latrell. TPJ for Leinu. That will be it as far as Penrith is concerned.

Pick Paulo and Murray to start. Potentially Cook for Hynes, maybe he benches Korisau who might be better off the bench. The only question mark I have is on Hudson Young. If he does go I'm not sure who comes in.

 

[Fangs]

And minutes wise Haas/Paulo need more. You can play Leinu in Paulos' role off the bench and he will be much more effective.

 

[Red&BlackBear]

3 points -

Freddy is stunting Clearys legacy with average coaching at rep

Cleary needs to own this time. Teddy can’t be the man anymore.

If you’re going to pick majority Panthers it has to be because of their defence not attack as Penrith is a defensive machine. If Freddy wants all out attack pick a Souths heavy side. Also a big reason Panthers defence is so good is because Dylan Edwards controls the line from the behind it.

 

[martielang]

This is blasphemy but I think I'd be benching Yeo for Murray. The whole Cleary / Yeo thing is a little predictable at the moment even for us. Murray getting behind the markers may give us some momentum and give Cleary some more space and time.

Think the criticism of Young and TPJ is overblown. I actually thought TPJ started really strongly and Young may have a bonehead mistake in him but he's good enough.

 

[ColdWetPanther]

First things first.

Teddy needs to go. Edwards in. That alone likely changes the result even with the other issues.

Next up. Play the right side club players on the right and the left side club players on the left. Fittler f**ked our defence up by throwing logic out the window and wasting club combinations.

Im happy for Young to get another crack. Hell same pack for Game 2 would be fine (aside from TPJ). TPJ out for Leniu. Start Martin and Murray. Young and Frizzell on the bench.

Not sure about Hynes. Fittler had no plan for him except injury cover it seems. He should have injected him at fullback to open up the attack on the edges. He certainly wasn't good at right centre.

Luai played well enough and shouldn't be dropped. Cleary was pinpoint kicking but the attack never flowed from him. But everytime he played his edge the handbrake stopped the attack. He linked well with Luai when going left. Such a wasted opportunity not throwing Hynes on at fullback and having him chime in on the right. He would have created space and passed unlike Tedesco.

Edwards definitely won't be picked though. So hopefully Hynes gets that opportunity for Game 2. I expect the only players dropped will be Young and TPJ because Fittler will blame the rookies. And Crichton will be replaced by the bloke who was originally selected.

Tedesco is the bloke that needs replacing above all else. We need a team player at fullback. Not someone padding their stats... And whos magically always out of position when Queensland score tries. The one time he's not he pulls a Darius Boyd impersonation.

And I can’t unsee it now @snickers007 has put it in my head; get some f@cking shorts with a waist band in them! It’s f@cking embarrassing that he loses his shorts every bloody run. It happens to other players every once in a while, but it is every time with Teddy. I don’t care about having to see his underwear, but he has to untangle himself every ruck!

 

[ColdWetPanther]

This is blasphemy but I think I'd be benching Yeo for Murray. The whole Cleary / Yeo thing is a little predictable at the moment even for us. Murray getting behind the markers may give us some momentum and give Cleary some more space and time.

Think the criticism of Young and TPJ is overblown. I actually thought TPJ started really strongly and Young may have a bonehead mistake in him but he's good enough.

I would be playing both Yeo and Murray, both through the middle and have them linking up. I was surprised how little they turned Murray underneath and back up through the middle. That is classic Pantherball to collapse the opposition and in Murray, have probably the most effective player in league (alongside Kiks) to do that role.

 

[ColdWetPanther]

3 points -

Freddy is stunting Clearys legacy with average coaching at rep

Cleary needs to own this time. Teddy can’t be the man anymore.

If you’re going to pick majority Panthers it has to be because of their defence not attack as Penrith is a defensive machine. If Freddy wants all out attack pick a Souths heavy side. Also a big reason Panthers defence is so good is because Dylan Edwards controls the line from the behind it.

Cleary is young and has so much time on his side. As an example, let’s look at Johns (almost universally consider a great Origin player) versus Nathan at similar ages.

Age 20 - Cleary stood beside Mahoney as he led us to a 2-1 win in Freddy’s first series. Largely there to tackle.

21 - Johns. Was the halfback for the first two games when NSW went down 3-0 against Fatty’s ‘nobodies’ (who really were the worst QLD (and Papua New Guinean) side of all time). Dropped for the third game as Toovs came back from injury.
Cleary. Was halfback for Game 1 (when we lost) and for the first half of game 2 (which we had won at half time). Had some nice touches; his sindersmoses injury occurred when he made a half-break, but he still got a quick PTB and NSW scored on that play. NSW won the series in Game 3.

22 - Johns. Hooker for all three games as NSW won 3-0. Won MoM in Game 2.
Cleary. Was halfback as we lost 2-1 in the post-season COVID origin agains the worst QLD team ever. Missed two shots at goal in the first game as we lost by 4 points having scored a similar number of tries. Won MoM in Game 2 as NSW rebounded to force a decider.

23 - Johns. Played hooker in Game 1 and 3. We lost game 3 which was a dead-rubber, as we had already won the series.
Cleary. Played the first two games as we won both (both in QLD) to win the trophy. Played the second half of game 2 with a separated shoulder. Is widely known as the Trell and Turbo series, but that neglects to mention game 3 where Cleary and Luai didn’t play due to injury (but Trell and Turbo did) NSW lost having dominated the earlier two games.

24 - Johns. Halfback in all three games as NSW lost the series 2-1. Kicked 1 from 5 in the first game as NSW lost despite scoring 5 tries to 4 (albeit he did kick a field goal). We lost the decider at the SFS.
Cleary. Halfback in all three games, with NSW losing the series 2-1 to the worst QLD team ever (seeing a recurring theme). Was MoM in the second game as NSW bounced back to level. In the third game as NSW was chasing a try to square it, chipped into Ben Hunt who raced away to score to seal the game.

25 - Johns. Played halfback in probably the closest series ever (1-1, with all three games decider by 2 points or less, meaning QLD retained the trophy). Girds replaced him as kicker.
Cleary. One game so far and NSW lost despite having a lot of possession. Was halfback.

I am not trying to say that Cleary has had a better Origin career at this stage (albeit you could argue he has; while both had a 50% game record, Cleary has played more games, more games at their preferred position, series wins, MoM awards) but making the point that John’s dominance at this level didn’t occur until much later in his career; in fact at 26 after two lost series in a row Kohns was moved back to the bench as Kimmorlry was handed the No 7.

So Nathan has plenty of time left to cement his legacy and the amount of big games he has won for Penrith will give him plenty of opportunities to continue to do so.

That is not to see I wouldn’t like to see him improve some elements of his game; particularly (and this will please @Girds89) I would like to see him mix up his kicking game. Kick earlier in the tackle count coming out of trouble and the when we are closer to the line try different kicks; love the banana bender at the posts and the ‘22 final series was punctuated by lots of little dinks behind the lines for tries (in all three games). Would love to see that at Origin level, but we know he can do it in the big games.

 

[Iamback]

This is blasphemy but I think I'd be benching Yeo for Murray. The whole Cleary / Yeo thing is a little predictable at the moment even for us. Murray getting behind the markers may give us some momentum and give Cleary some more space and time.

Think the criticism of Young and TPJ is overblown. I actually thought TPJ started really strongly and Young may have a bonehead mistake in him but he's good enough.

The side needs Yeo's defence, Especially with Jake out.

You can't make errors in a big game. It was 10-0 before Murray and Martin came on.

They were risky selections and proved it

 

[Iamback]

Edwards won't be picked. The media storm from dropping the NSW and Austrlian captain would be too tough to handle. Game 3 he might go however.

Crichton will make way for Latrell. TPJ for Leinu. That will be it as far as Penrith is concerned.

Pick Paulo and Murray to start. Potentially Cook for Hynes, maybe he benches Korisau who might be better off the bench. The only question mark I have is on Hudson Young. If he does go I'm not sure who comes in.

If you run with this pack

Murray

Haas
Martin
Frizzell
Yeo

They all play big minutes. There isn't much time left for someone like Young anyway, So you can have anyone in that role

 

[Fangs]

If you run with this pack

Murray

Haas
Martin
Frizzell
Yeo

They all play big minutes. There isn't much time left for someone like Young anyway, So you can have anyone in that role

I'm wondering if Big Jake will be included.

 

[John Hamblin]

AND Spencer