Stuart has blue print of Origin revival

[Spot On]

We have an abundance of good props. What we haven't had is many of them really stand up and say pick me. TLL and Weyman in the last couple of games finally stood up. I thought Mannah was good and looks a 10 year player. We just need some consistency, and one of Grant, Snowden, Douglas, Galloway etc to really show the goods.

Hmm, Weyman is good for two 7 minute stints and doesn't offer a great deal when he is on. Surely another shot at origin and that will be it for him - unless he can keep up with the QLD rotation. I doubt it though. I like Mannah. It was really nice of Bellamy to let him run out onto the ground in origin 3 and make a tackle and have a hit up before taking him off for the rest of the game. Well done Craig.

 

[chefman21]

Yup they have been uesd like meatheads, but i think that was because of the NSW front rowers getting dominated, which left the back rowers having to do the work. It was so bad, i watched Ben Creagh just charging into the line like a million times! Watmough did this quite a bit aswell. yea i agree Lewis at centre and Hayne outside him, but Chris Lawrence is making me have second thoughts, he played quite well against NZ.

BTW inside passes is what NSW really needs, imagine Hayne getting one of those in the clear !

I think half the problem with NSW is no one has been running good lines and hitting holes. It was almost like a bash and barge fest, which tired the forwards considerably allowing Slater and co to go straight through us in the middle. With a mobile pack like Lewis, Creagh, Bird and Watmough that shouldn't be happening. We've got some big boppers up front in Snowden, Weyman and TLL who should be able to draw three players each time -especially on the edges. The next play should be a flying Lewis or Watmough running at an angle looking for that big bit of space behind the markers in the middle of the park or a second big bopper getting the Maroons on the back foot. Even if they get caught, it's a quick play the ball for Farah, Gidley, Hayne and co to tear up that pack of theirs.

The other thing is I think our forwards have been getting the ball in a shallow back line. They end up going almost lateral looking for holes, or the Queensland defence being up in their face when they get the ball if they are about to hit a hole. The other thing is that if they are shallow, often they are at a standstill. They need to be moving at 3/4 pace by the time they hit the ball, and they need to have adjusted and hit the hole at full speed to either breakthrough and/or get an offload away or to get a quick play the ball. I don't want the back line to be deep as the Queensland defence will still be up in their face, but I think if the forwards got the ball one pace back they could adjust. I think inside balls to angled, deep runners is something we should be doing once or twice in a set of six also to get that play the ball. Sure, use them as bash and barge, but get them to hit the holes doing so to get that quick play the ball or offload.

Hmm, Weyman is good for two 7 minute stints and doesn't offer a great deal when he is on. Surely another shot at origin and that will be it for him - unless he can keep up with the QLD rotation. I doubt it though. I like Mannah. It was really nice of Bellamy to let him run out onto the ground in origin 3 and make a tackle and have a hit up before taking him off for the rest of the game. Well done Craig.

Weyman hasn't been used well. His game plan has been so one dimensional. He's a bash and barge forward, but I think he has been getting the ball too deep or too close to the middle of the ruck. A big guy like him is an easy target from the side. You can shift his movement from forward movement to sideways movement, or hit his legs to drop him like a sack of sh*t. I think with him you need to be giving him the ball two off the ruck, so that when the forwards tackle him they have to shift their movement back quickly to the middle of the ground where the next play should be heading. His short stints are the result of him being used as a one out bash and barge forward. It takes a lot to bend the line, especially against a pack with the likes of Shillo and Civo. If he can hit the edges of the ruck, or even the centres then it makes him very effective.

 

[timka4]

Mmm that is Gallen's biggest problem giving away dumb penalties. However, these days there are some many penalties blown that almost every forward and a back give away a penalty.

 

[1 Eyed TEZZA]

Mmm that is Gallen's biggest problem giving away dumb penalties. However, these days there are some many penalties blown that almost every forward and a back give away a penalty.

I know its a problem that he really does need to fix, but I honestly think that NSW should really just harden up and defend a set for the penalty he gives away. He offers a lot more then he gives up. And I feel like a hypocrite for saying that because I used to blast him every chance I got for giving away penalties.

 

[chefman21]

I know its a problem that he really does need to fix, but I honestly think that NSW should really just harden up and defend a set for the penalty he gives away. He offers a lot more then he gives up. And I feel like a hypocrite for saying that because I used to blast him every chance I got for giving away penalties.

I think the problem is that at that kind of level of football any mistakes are punished and punished harshly. And I think once those mistakes are punished, it is even harder to make up for that mistake through a try or repeat sets of six, especially against a team such as the current Queensland side. You need to remove as many liabilities and weaknesses in your side, which is why I think Gallen is one.

 

[1 Eyed TEZZA]

I think the problem is that at that kind of level of football any mistakes are punished and punished harshly. And I think once those mistakes are punished, it is even harder to make up for that mistake through a try or repeat sets of six, especially against a team such as the current Queensland side. You need to remove as many liabilities and weaknesses in your side, which is why I think Gallen is one.

And its that defensive attitude that I hate. We should not be selecting teams or going in there thinking, this is the safe option, this is how we are going to stop Queensland. We should be picking teams on beating Queensland. Selecting players with great defensive attitude and the ability to beat them.

I cant quite remember which selection it was exactly, but there was a selection made recently that smacked of that same attitude. The safe option. It was either Cooper at centre or Gidley at fullback. It just smacked of that loser attitude that is destined for failure.

 

[Big Pete]

Still don't know what to make of Gallen really...

He makes decent metres up the middle but really he was lucky to get those offloads away on the weekend, known to give away cheap penalties and his goal line defence at times can be embarrassing.

He'll have to earn his spot like the rest of the Blues squad.

If we were talking about Bird though, different kettle of fish.

 

[chefman21]

And its that defensive attitude that I hate. We should not be selecting teams or going in there thinking, this is the safe option, this is how we are going to stop Queensland. We should be picking teams on beating Queensland. Selecting players with great defensive attitude and the ability to beat them.

I cant quite remember which selection it was exactly, but there was a selection made recently that smacked of that same attitude. The safe option. It was either Cooper at centre or Gidley at fullback. It just smacked of that loser attitude that is destined for failure.

What defensive attitude? You pick players that are going to maintain pressure. That's how you win games. Repeat sets of six, discipline and good defence. We have a veritable plethora of great backrowers who don't give away dumb penalties. Gallen has yet to really shine in Origin. Yet he still manages to screw us each game he plays. I used to live in Brisbane surrounded by Queenslanders. Each and every one of them have told me Queensland's best player is Gallen. And it's hard to argue with. You can go back to each game we have lost when he has played, and the turning point has been Gallen giving away a stupid penalty in a stupid position almost every time.

 

[mrpwnd]

I know its a problem that he really does need to fix, but I honestly think that NSW should really just harden up and defend a set for the penalty he gives away. He offers a lot more then he gives up. And I feel like a hypocrite for saying that because I used to blast him every chance I got for giving away penalties.

It's a lot easier to accept the penalties before origin time.
Come origin time we'll all have the knives out

 

[Packy]

Gallen is a must imo. For all his negatives the one thing he wouldn't ever do is back away from a confrontation.

 

[timka4]

One of Gallen's other bigger problems is how he sometimes stifles back line movements if he injects himself into the play. He will always run it attempt to offload it while he is at the line, rather than just passing it on immediately.
Noticed a couple of times in the NZ game he got the ball, stopped and ran back infield, when a simply early pass to Tate would of got them a couple more tries.

I do also agree with Tezza though, sometimes we might give a dumb penalty away and give QLD great field position, but we need to be able to defend a set of 6 on our goal line, or we will never win.

 

[Talanexor]

The problem isn't Gallen, so uch that NSW have picked OTHER penalty magnets in the same side. When you have Ennis, Gallen, Watmough and O'Donnell in the same team, QLD are going to get a lot of cheap metres.

I was initially in favour of Gidley at hooker, but after seeing their combination in the 4N i now think that having Farah and Lawrence in the team would be very useful.

1. Dugan (positionally and defensively better than Hayne)
2. Gordon
3. Jennings
4. Lawrence
5. Hayne (still NSW's best back, and can still get involved from the wing)
6. Carney
7. Pearce
8. Learoyd-Lahrs
9. Farah
10. Douglas
11. Lewis
12. Bird
13. Gallen

14. Gidley (you know he's going to be there, get used to it)
15. Laffranchi/Minichiello
16. Snowden
17. Mannah

 

[Direct]

The problem isn't Gallen, so uch that NSW have picked OTHER penalty magnets in the same side. When you have Ennis, Gallen, Watmough and O'Donnell in the same team, QLD are going to get a lot of cheap metres.

I was initially in favour of Gidley at hooker, but after seeing their combination in the 4N i now think that having Farah and Lawrence in the team would be very useful.

1. Dugan (positionally and defensively better than Hayne)
2. Gordon
3. Jennings
4. Lawrence
5. Hayne (still NSW's best back, and can still get involved from the wing)
6. Carney
7. Pearce
8. Learoyd-Lahrs
9. Farah
10. Douglas
11. Lewis
12. Bird
13. Gallen

14. Gidley (you know he's going to be there, get used to it)
15. Laffranchi/Minichiello
16. Snowden
17. Mannah

This is a really strong team. The idea of playing two ball playing backrowers in Bird and Lewis seemed to work well in game 3 last year and it should be repeated. There are plenty of good club combinations there, like Farah and Lawrence, Pearce and Carney, Jennings and Gordon. A good prop rotation, with workhorses like Snowden and Douglas mixing with damaging impact props like Mannah and TLL. I also like that the backs have been picked for their attacking ability, rather than negative defensive selections like Lyon, Cooper or Tahu.

I'd be leaning towards Minichiello more than Laffranchi, mainly because I think he's a better wide running backrower. I can see him hitting holes and breaking the line more, playing the role the selectors were expecting Ben Creagh to do, although I'd expect Watmough to get the bench backrower spot.

It's a shame we have to accept Gidley on the bench as a utility. Effectively Gidley is wasted unless there is an injury in the backline. I'd much prefer another forward on the bench and just let Lewis cover any the backs if they go down.

 

[1 Eyed TEZZA]

After my appointment yesterday the resurrection starts now. It has to.

And it starts with you.

I still remember driving from the airport to Suncorp Stadium before Game II this year, looking at the grown men walking along the footpath to the game, in their good dress pants and their Queensland jumpers. We don't have that kind of support in NSW. It has always been something uniquely Queensland.

We have struggled to have that as fans and along the way I think we have slowly lost that as a team, the sense that Origin is something bigger.

I've never believed for one moment that the Queensland Origin team has more passion, as they always tell us, than the NSW Origin team.

Not among the players.

But outside that you might have an argument.

I can't remember the last time I saw a NSW businessman heading to the game in his Blues jersey.

Every time a junior Queensland player puts a football jumper on he hopes that one day it will be a Queensland jumper he is putting on.

It is ingrained in them.

They're already thinking about Origin.

I know Craig Bellamy was as thorough as a coach could be over the past three series.

I believe he simply came up against one of the great Queensland teams and that history has forgotten how a loose pass here or one missed tackle (a Johnathan Thurston show and go, for example, for a Billy Slater try in 2008), turned it from a winning series into a losing one.

I go back to a mountain of errors early in Game II, 2009, which saw the series over before they even got the chance to compete for it.

Then you remember Game III, 2006, the series wrapped up until a loose Brett Hodgson pass allowed Darren Lockyer to steal it at the end.

That's how close it was. In two of those five losing series, one moment changed the game.

But to beat Queensland we can't have our sole intention being to out-skill them, or out-talent them.

We have to do everything better and smarter.

It has to begin to mean as much to us in this state as it does in Queensland, because I want my players to feel it from the fans.

Then it's up to us to do the rest.

One call I remember from my time as NSW coach in 2005 came from Trevor Gillmeister after we won Game III to take the series.

"They out-Queenslanded Queensland," he said.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...ues-ricky-stuart/story-e6frexnr-1225955142713

 

[1 Eyed TEZZA]

THIS is a different job to what every other NSW Origin coach has had. It is a different job to what Mal Meninga has in Queensland.

No Origin coach has gone into a series after five straight defeats, or against a team that is as dominant as Queensland are at the moment.

Ten of the 13 players who started in last Saturday's Kangaroo team, as example one, were from Queensland.

They held all the key positions, and their depth in those areas is strong.

It's not the losses that concern me, though. That's just football.

The job ahead is for NSW football, and how we resurrect it, and it's a job the NSW board believed deserved a fulltime coach and it's a job where, as that fulltime coach, I need your help.

For a long time the success of Origin football has dipped and soared on the strength of the Queensland team. When the Blues dominated, interest in Origin waned somewhat. It was never as strong as when Queensland won. But now they have won five series in a row and completely dominate the Test team with no end in sight.

After my appointment yesterday the resurrection starts now. It has to.

And it starts with you.

I still remember driving from the airport to Suncorp Stadium before Game II this year, looking at the grown men walking along the footpath to the game, in their good dress pants and their Queensland jumpers. We don't have that kind of support in NSW. It has always been something uniquely Queensland.

We have struggled to have that as fans and along the way I think we have slowly lost that as a team, the sense that Origin is something bigger.

I've never believed for one moment that the Queensland Origin team has more passion, as they always tell us, than the NSW Origin team.

Not among the players.

But outside that you might have an argument.

I can't remember the last time I saw a NSW businessman heading to the game in his Blues jersey.

Every time a junior Queensland player puts a football jumper on he hopes that one day it will be a Queensland jumper he is putting on.

It is ingrained in them.

They're already thinking about Origin.

I know Craig Bellamy was as thorough as a coach could be over the past three series.

I believe he simply came up against one of the great Queensland teams and that history has forgotten how a loose pass here or one missed tackle (a Johnathan Thurston show and go, for example, for a Billy Slater try in 2008), turned it from a winning series into a losing one.

I go back to a mountain of errors early in Game II, 2009, which saw the series over before they even got the chance to compete for it.

Then you remember Game III, 2006, the series wrapped up until a loose Brett Hodgson pass allowed Darren Lockyer to steal it at the end.

That's how close it was. In two of those five losing series, one moment changed the game.

But to beat Queensland we can't have our sole intention being to out-skill them, or out-talent them.

We have to do everything better and smarter.

It has to begin to mean as much to us in this state as it does in Queensland, because I want my players to feel it from the fans.

Then it's up to us to do the rest.

One call I remember from my time as NSW coach in 2005 came from Trevor Gillmeister after we won Game III to take the series.

"They out-Queenslanded Queensland," he said.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...ues-ricky-stuart/story-e6frexnr-1225955142713

 

[1 Eyed TEZZA]

INCOMING Blues coach Ricky Stuart intends to assemble a core group of NSW players early next year as he begins his campaign to arrest an ''embarrassing'' run of five successive series losses to Queensland.

Stuart was yesterday announced as the first full-time NSW State of Origin coach, and will split his time between overseeing the three-match series and designing and implementing a high-performance program for emerging talent seen as future Origin players. He has signed a two-year contract, although if he is offered an NRL coaching job after next year's series, he could seek a release from the NSWRL board.

He said he would bring together a selection of players he saw as central to NSW success well before the Origin series begins next May. That group is likely to include Mitchell Pearce and Paul Gallen, the favourites for the Blues captaincy, Luke Lewis, Kurt Gidley and Jarryd Hayne. Todd Carney, Anthony Watmough and Greg Bird are other candidates.

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''Over the coming months, I'll have a core group of players that I'll lean on and have them help me with a lot of decisions and give them some responsibility,'' said Stuart, who replaces Craig Bellamy. ''I don't think we're too far away. I've sat down and looked at squads over the last fortnight and we'll certainly come up with a football team that's going to be competitive enough to challenge them.''

Carney is yet to make his Origin debut but as the Dally M and RLIF player of the year following a brilliant season, he is firmly in Stuart's mind. ''I don't want to be singling players out now. But with that type of form and that type of season he's had, it'd be stupid of me sitting here saying no,'' Stuart said. ''He's young and he's got a huge career in front of him.''

Stuart, who in 2005 was the last NSW coach to win an Origin series, will discuss the appointment of a senior adviser, the role that is to replace the selection panel as a result of the Brian Canavan review of Origin operations. The favourite for that job is Bob Fulton. Stuart has yet to appoint his assistants and support staff.

After four months out of the game since leaving Cronulla, Stuart said he was ready for what he acknowledged was ''a huge challenge''. ''It's been a huge task for Craig and his team over the last couple of years because they're playing against a football team that I think we're in awe of,'' he said. ''I've got to put a plan in place in regards to trying to take the momentum away from them.''

Stuart also assumes an ambassadorial role, labelled ''the face of rugby league in this state'' by the NSWRL. His initial task, however, is setting up a high-performance program, to be managed by former North Sydney fullback Wayne Portlock.

An office is to be set up at Homebush Bay, and the facilities of the NSW Institute of Sport will be used in a program to instil an ''inculturation'' of the Origin concept into young players aged between 14 and 20. Queensland already have an established scheme for emerging players, run by Wayne Bennett and Maroons coach Mal Meninga at the Queensland Academy of Sport.

''Queensland have done that very well in regards to their academy that Wayne Bennett set up many years ago. You've only got to see the way David Shillington has handled his progression into Origin and into the Australian team,'' Stuart said.

Meanwhile, NSWRL chairman Colin Love confirmed he would not seek re-election to the board at the annual general meeting on December 3, as revealed by the Herald yesterday. ''I've been there for 12 years now,'' Love said. ''I've done my penance, and it's probably an appropriate time that there is a change.''

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...lots-end-to-origin-misery-20101117-17xne.html

 

[1 Eyed TEZZA]

He said he would bring together a selection of players he saw as central to NSW success well before the Origin series begins next May. That group is likely to include Mitchell Pearce and Paul Gallen, the favourites for the Blues captaincy, Luke Lewis, Kurt Gidley and Jarryd Hayne. Todd Carney, Anthony Watmough and Greg Bird are other candidates.

''Over the coming months, I'll have a core group of players that I'll lean on and have them help me with a lot of decisions and give them some responsibility,'' said Stuart, who replaces Craig Bellamy. ''I don't think we're too far away. I've sat down and looked at squads over the last fortnight and we'll certainly come up with a football team that's going to be competitive enough to challenge them.''

Im a massive fan of this. The right idea is being put in place.

 

[Raiders_Premiers]

Mitchell Pearce a favourite for the captaincy? Surely not

It should go to Luke Lewis IMO

 

[hybrid_tiger]

Kurt Gidley

:sarcasm:

 

[Lambretta]

NSW has always made strange decisions, but the last five years have been stranger than most. We do have to remember that many positional changes are forced by injury (usually our best players are injured come Origin) and then we compound the problem by picking players out of position or who don't compliment the players they're playing alongside.

The selectors would pick Kimmorley at halfback and Ennis at hooker and remind us of their club connection. Fine - but then they ignore the fact that Ennis has no kicking game and they then pick Lyon at five eighth, so he's out of position or they pick a 2nd rower to play five eighth who doesnt have a kicking game either.

The result? NSW have one kicker and QLD know where the ball is going at the end of every set. The NSW forwards struggle for room and then the kicker has no room and is pressured.

Keep that up for a whole game and there is only ever going to be one result.

Then everyone blames the failure to win on the winger or who came off the bench at what time.

The whole f**king process just depresses the sh*t out of me. Being a NSW Blue supporter is enough to make you suicidal.