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PRICHARD: Blues don't look half a chance in Origin

The Blues and Maroons: Australia's biggest sporting rivalry. (Source: AAP)
Expert
10th May, 2015
107
3124 Reads

Does it really matter who NSW picks as the halves combination for State of Origin? Will it make any difference to the series result?

It is fascinating to think that one year on from the Blues ending an eight-year Origin series drought against Queensland, with the same halves combination in each of the three games, we’re still agonising over who to pick to wear the number six and seven jumpers. One week out the team being named for Origin I.

There is good reason, of course. None of the contenders for either five-eighth or halfback has screamed “you’ve got to pick me” with his form.

The incumbents – Josh Reynolds and Trent Hodkinson – have each had their problems this season. With Reynolds, it’s a discipline thing, as usual. Hodkinson has never been the most dynamic player, but he seems even less dynamic than usual.

Then you’ve got James Maloney and Mitchell Pearce, the Sydney Roosters pair who were the NSW halves combination in 2013.

There is no doubting Maloney’s ability in attack, but he has been called out for his defence. Pearce looks good when the Roosters are functioning properly as a whole and their forwards are dominating, but he can be ineffective at other times.

Pearce is not a Johnathan Thurston or an Andrew Johns, a halfback who can still dominate a game if his forwards are only level-pegging with the opposition pack at best, or even losing the contest up front.

True, not many halves in the history of the game have been in the same class as a Thurston or a Johns – hell, it may only be those two.

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But the problem for NSW is that Thurston is still playing – for Queensland – and Johns is long retired.

I interviewed Blues coach Laurie Daley last Friday and asked him about the halves situation.
He said: “I’m not going to make a decision until I have to. I know in my head who I want and I just want to see how it all pans out from here. I want to see how they’re travelling.

“Anything can happen between now and then, so I just want to make sure that they’re the right picks.”

You would rather he was confidently talking up the fantastic form of a few specific contenders, but he was hardly in a position to.

The subsequent return to form by the Roosters, who flogged Wests Tigers on Friday night, may have boosted the chances of Maloney and Pearce, but playing against the Maroons obviously presents a vastly different challenge.

NSW proved last year you can win an Origin series without even one great player in your halves pairing, but they did it by the skin of their teeth in the first two games and the most recent Origin memory is of Queensland running away in the closing stages of Game 3 to win 32-8.

The biggest fact, which can’t be ignored, is that the player most responsible for the Blues winning that series is no longer available.

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Jarryd Hayne was incredible in game one, using his tremendous upper-body strength to score a try he shouldn’t have been able to score and assisting in the only other try for NSW in its 12-8 win.

Plus, his goal-line defence was magnificent.

He backed that up with another great game in the 6-4 win to the Blues in Game 2.

The presence of a genuine superstar in Hayne as a game-breaking player effectively took the pressure off both Hodkinson and Reynolds. They were able to just try to play a normal game and not over-play their hand.

The only big play by either Reynolds or Hodkinson in the entire series was the admittedly very important one by Hodkinson in Game 2, when he decided to run rather than pass and beat a tired defender to score the match-winning try late in the game.

But the overwhelming reason the Blues are the defending Origin champions is Hayne.

NSW will put a good fullback in his place, but whether it’s Josh Dugan, Brett Stewart, Matt Moylan or James Tedesco, he won’t have that extra greatness that Hayne had in the Origin arena.
And the Blues are really going to miss that, having only narrowly won the series with Hayne last year.

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Halfback Adam Reynolds is poised to make a comeback from injury for South Sydney against St George Illawarra on Monday night, but he appears a long-shot at best to make the NSW team – for game one, at least.

Presuming Daley doesn’t go left-field with his selections in the end, the halves will either be the Canterbury pair or the Roosters pair – or a mix-and-match of the two.

Daley prefers a club halves combination if possible, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Whichever combination he goes for, it is unlikely to inspire confidence among Blues supporters and it certainly won’t strike fear into Queensland hearts.

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