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NSW Blues team for 2014 State of Origin Game 3: Expert reaction

1st July, 2014
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Hayne will turn up in Blue. (AAP Image/Dan Peled)
Expert
1st July, 2014
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11195 Reads

After noticing my face streaked with maroon tears following Game 2 of State of Origin 2014, The Roar editor kindly offered up the New South Wales team for Game 3 for my appraisal. What happens next won’t surprise you.

With 2014 State of Origin glory already going the way of the Blues, the dead-rubber chatter has mostly centred around the inevitability of a brawl following the Game 2 niggle-fest.

There’s something deeper at stake, though. After enjoying eight years of dominance, Queensland fans don’t look at this NSW team with hatred so much as bemusement, like a Clive Palmer policy announcement or whatever Justin Bieber is up to this week.

>> Queensland’s team for State of Origin Game 3: Expert reaction

With victory in Game 3, the Blues can ensure nine million Queensland mouths will spit their names like cane toad venom for years to come, reanimating the corpse of a concept that lost its life force as soon as NSW went 2-0 up two weeks ago.

Here’s how the squad of super-sized Smurfs lines up.

1. Jarryd Hayne
Damn you, Jarryd Hayne and your skilful ways! Damn you to hell.

2. James McManus
Not so much an Origin specialist as a pinch hitter, with Blues hierarchy only having enough faith in him to play one game in each of his two previous Origin series. Even fellow Knights old boy Adrian Brunker got two shots at Maroons glory in 1992.

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3. Josh Dugan
Very talented, very unlikable. A try or two at Lang Park followed by a celebratory RTD or five on Caxton Street could elevate him to the top of Queensland’s Most Wanted list.

4. Josh Morris
Only a complete jerk would hate this guy. I am one, and even I don’t hate him.

5. Daniel Tupou
Selected so the Blues halves could utilise his leaping skills over stockier rival Brent Tate, yet Hodkinson and Reynolds have barely kicked a ball in his direction all series.

Sound tactics.

6. Josh Reynolds
A directive came from the upper echelons of Roar HQ that the word ‘grub’ was banned from our collective vocabularies, yet Josh Reynolds’ nickname really is ‘Grub’.

I love a good loophole.

7. Trent Hodkinson
Has now won more State of Origin series than Mitchell Pearce, the girl in the yellow dress, and every Expert columnist on The Roar combined.

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As if he cares what I think.

8. Paul Gallen
My Nan and Pop (bless his soul), New South Welshpeople to the core, used to hate Wally Lewis more than hate itself. ‘Spitting Wally’ they called him, a nickname they later bestowed on ‘Spitting Gordie’.

Gal is a Queenslander’s equivalent of Spitting Wally and Gordie rolled into one. We really, really hate that guy.

9. Robbie Farah
Hasn’t spent anywhere near enough of this Origin series thinking he was the halfback. Sort it out, Robbie.

10. Aaron Woods
Has the scruffy appearance that would blend into the crowd on the Henson Park hill while the Newtown Jets run around on a sunny Saturday arvo. Plays like a prop who would’ve fit into Bluebags colours when Tommy and the Wok steered them to the grand final in 1981.

Seems a decent bloke.

11. Ryan Hoffman
Fellow Roarer Ryan O’Connell declared Hoffman as a reliable “7 out of 10” player in his assessment of the Blues squad for Game 2, in which the Storm second rower promptly turned in a textbook 9.

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There needs to be an investigation.

12. Beau Scott
How angry is this guy?

13. Greg Bird
See: 8. Paul Gallen.

14. Trent Merrin
I’m contractually obliged to mention Sally Fitzgibbons here. Apparently Merrin is in sparkling form on the paddock as well.

15. Boyd Cordner
When Cameron Smith finally retires, Cordner has a long and fruitful career ahead of him as the most chiselled jawline in the game.

16. James Tamou
Easily one of the top two Kiwi front rowers to lace up a boot in the Origin cauldron.

17. Luke Lewis
Lewis has rivalled Maroons enforcer Ben Te’o as the most effective impact player off the bench all series. His charges up the centre in the closing stages of Game 2 were instrumental in the Hodkinson try that created history.

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Which is to say, I don’t really have a bad word to say about him.

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