- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
This Anthony Watmough business just doesn’t add up. Two weeks ago, he didn’t make the Blues team for Origin 1 because of ‘body shape,’ according to coach Ricky Stuart.
Now he’s there on the bench, with a body that is crying out for cortisone to treat a chronic neck problem.
I realise the coach needed to come up with a replacement for the injured Tony Williams but why pick a guy who needs injections in his spine and cannot train for two or three days?
Watmough told Stuart he’d be sweet to get through the game even though a week or so ago he told the media he felt “paralysed.”
Fine, but A. Watmough is no doctor, far from it. As for the doctor who is treating his neck injury – is he going to come out and admit that playing a game of such physicality is a huge risk?
State of Origin football, especially when your side is 0-1 down in the series, is not the arena where you take a punt on a semi-fit player, unless he’s a superstar such as Cameron Smith, Jonathan Thurston or Paul Gallen.
In a game of such importance, you might make a special allowance for a key play-maker or a captain but a bench warmer? No.
Watmough is a strong, willing performer, a potential weapon, but you have got to ask: Are the NSW stocks so low that the Blues need to gamble on his cameo appearance from the bench?
Surely there are other back rowers out there who could do the substitute’s job without the worry of injury.
I suspect that Stuart promised Watmough he’d get a start in the second game, irrespective of the circumstances and if my suspicion is correct, the coach has placed unnecessary pressure on his team and its chances of levelling the series.
For an impact player, I would have picked Keith Galloway, the red-headed bopper from the Tigers, who has been in tremendous form in recent weeks.
The chance is there for the Blues to square the account with a home game but what’s going to happen if one of our interchange players gets crunched the minute he enters the field and can take no further part in the game?
I am growing tired of Ricky Stuart’s weird and whacky selection policies and cannot see the Blues beating one of the best Origin teams in history with less than 17 fit players.
If the Blues lose a seventh straight series, I reckon it’s time for Stuart to seek other employment. And he can take his selector sidekick, Bob Fulton, with him.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.