NSW legend Steven Menzies believes the Blues can break Queensland’s series-winning run and win Game III and has also questioned the new zero-tolerance policy towards punching on the field.
Menzies played an impressive 20 games for NSW. The second-highest try scorer in NRL history, who is retiring at the end of this season, played in Blues series wins in 1996, 1997 and 2005.
The 39-year old feels that NSW can finally win a series this year with the 2013 edition as tight as any in the past few years.
“I think even last year, I thought for the overall 240 minutes NSW were the better side but Queensland are Queensland you know,” Menzies said.
“They’ve only got to be the better side for 20 minutes and they’ll score two or three tries. You’ve got to play for the whole 80 minutes. But I’d definitely think NSW have the got the team to do it, they showed how they can play in Game I. In Game II obviously they were taught a bit of a lesson there on how to play on your home turf. But I think this is as close as a series has been probably for the last four or five.”
NSW defeated Queensland 14-6 in Game I at ANZ Stadium then Queensland squared the series in Game II with a comfortable 26-6 victory at Suncorp Stadium.
“I think a lot of Origin is momentum,” Menzies said.
“Teams get on a roll. Even that first Origin game NSW were in control the whole game, Queensland were on a bit of a roll for maybe 15-20 minutes to go, and that I’m sure plenty of NSW people were thinking ‘here we go again’ because they just hang in there and hang in there.
“And once they get a few bounces of the ball and a little bit of a roll on, and a bit of possession, they can do anything. It’s the hardest tactical game you can play I think.
“It’s half a yard here, half a yard there. It’s who wants to chance that little extra metre on the ball when it just bounces the wrong way, those types of little things are going to maybe swing a bit of momentum, like a getting a dropout instead of it going dead, those little small things.
“They’ll be two or three turning points in the game which will give it to one team or the other, but there’ll be a hundred of those chances.
“It’s just you have to keep putting your hand up, keep putting yourself in that situation to be there when those one or two chances bounce either way and force an error or something like that. It’ll be those small little things that make the difference.”
Menzies scored four tries in Origin and played under NSW coaches such as Phil Gould, Tommy Raudonikis, Wayne Pearce and Ricky Stuart. The forward was the 130th player to wear the Blue jersey in the history of the Origin arena, he won one Origin man of the match award and was given the Brad Fittler Medal for the NSW player of the series in 2006.
There are few players out there who know more about Origin, who have experienced the intensity and ferocity, and the changing nature of the contest, than Menzies. For example, he played in 20 Origins while Fittler has the record for the most for NSW with 31.
Menzies was part of Raudonikis’ Blues side that introduced the famous ‘Cattledog’ call to incite an Origin brawl.
The Manly legend has seen Origin evolve first hand from the mid 1990s into the past decade and the modern edition where Queensland has dominated. He is not a fan of the controversial automatic sin-binning of players who throw a punch.
“Origin’s Origin, I think you’ve got to leave it,” Menzies said.
“I didn’t mind the shoulder charge but medically if that’s the best way for the game [to ban it] to go forward [then fair enough]. Sometimes a punch is a punch.
“When someone whacks you with an open hand is that a punch or do they still get 10 minutes? In an Origin if one bloke punches, can you just give one bloke 10 minutes if the other bloke hits you, you know what I mean? I understand you don’t want it to be spoiled by someone having 10 minutes.
“I don’t know. It’s a fine line because you don’t want to say fighting is the way to do it but having a complete ban on, ‘if this happens you have to get sent off’, is sort of making it hard for yourself. Whether it’s just a ‘lets calm things down, this is the heat of the battle, was that a punch was it something else, lets play footy boys, you go back there, you go back there and calm this down’.
“You know, if this is the rule and you have to send someone to the bin for 10 minutes, do you have to send one of each team off to the bin? Is that the only fair they do it? I don’t know. I think Origin’s Origin, but they make the rules not me.”
Follow John Davidson on Twitter @johnnyddavidson
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