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NSW's biggest errors of Game 1

27th May, 2015
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Robbie Farah (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
Roar Guru
27th May, 2015
26
1196 Reads

Game 1 of State of Origin was a grinding affair with the closest of margins determining the result. But rather than the Maroons pushing to extremes to secure a victory, it was more a case of NSW ineptitude handing the game to Queensland.

Obviously none of the players tried to make these mistakes but they did.

Here are the NSW’s biggest errors throughout the game.

Daniel Tupou’s knock on early first half
From a regulation winger’s hit-up early in the match, Daniel Tupou inexplicably dropped the ball, despite the absence of any semblance of a big shot. This put NSW under pressure for the best part of the next 15 minutes, due to the poor field position and the subsequent mountain of defensive work.

Dominating field position paved the way for Queensland’s first try, via Cooper Cronk.

While the Blues recovered to lead by halftime, the energy that was drained during this period cannot be understated – especially given Queensland’s dominance of the ruck in the second 40.

Josh Morris going to ground too early in pursuit of a try/ Hodkinson’s missed conversion
Even though it was a fantastic try, showing great creativity and awareness from Josh Dugan and Brett Morris respectively, Morris’ decision to go to ground and plant the ball down for a try immediately after breaking the last-ditch tackle was a cardinal sin.

There was no one within 20 metres of Morris at the time he scored, and he would have known this having raced from 40 metres back to secure the ball. Sure he did fantastically well to get the ball down, but he could have run the ball underneath the posts had he shown more awareness and patience.

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Ultimately it left Hodkinson with a difficult (yet kickable) conversion attempt. You may argue that this gives evidence for the need of a clutch kicker, such as Pat Richards, but remember the goal Hodkinson kicked to seal the series victory in Game 2, 2014.

This was a kick the Blues 7 probably should have made, but he was not helped by Morris’ early dive.

Trent Hodkinson’s failure to find touch from a penalty
This is the biggest sin in rugby league. School boys wouldn’t make this error.

After a mountain of defensive work, the Blues received a penalty after Morris was taken out mid-air disposing a cross-field bomb. While our screens were replaying the incident 20 times over, Hodkinson almost completely missed the ball when attempting to kick for touch and instead found Darius Boyd’s midsection.

This destroyed any potential for a dominance reversal (considering Queensland control for 35 of the 40 second-half minutes) and was the single biggest error of the entire match.

We can also link this to the complete destruction of Hodkinson’s confidence during the match, because from this point he was unsighted.

Pearce taking control of the kicking in the second half/ the disappearance of Hokdinson
First and foremost let me acknowledge that Pearce had probably his best 40 minutes of Origin football in the first half. It was as if he was instructed to play expansive, running football that relied on playing what was in front of him. This included, fortunately, an almost complete lack of him kicking the football in the first half.

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Now anyone who watches a great deal of rugby league (closely) will know three things: Firstly, Pearce is a mediocre kicker at NRL level. Secondly, Pearce is a dreadful kicker at representative level. Thirdly, Hodkinson is a better kicker at both levels.

Now whether this was at the insistence of Pearce, or Hodkinson lost complete confidence and decided to offload the duties – given he supplied less then half of the kicks in the second half when compared to the first half – isn’t clear. But Pearce’s kicking was utterly dreadful, finding Slater and Co.’s chest 99 per cent of the time, thus giving Queensland on average a first play the ball somewhere within the 20 to 30m line every set.

Compare that to Queensland. Their kicking, in particular that of Cronk, consistently had the Blues pinned down inside their own 10. And in the first half, with a large amount of kicking from Hodkinson, NSW began their defence in a similar position.

For almost the entirety of the second half, Queensland’s sets began too far upfield for NSW to effectively defend, thus allowing Queensland to get their forwards involved early, which subsequently led to dominance of the ruck and excellent field position.

This week I wrote about Wests Tigers’ woes and their insistence on 50-metre-plus bombs, which are completely ineffective. Pearce consistently kicking too long meant that there was zero defensive pressure.

Kicking long is not a bad thing provided you find the ground, but when every kick is a midfield bomb it is a serious issue as Jason Taylor is finding out. Is this a Laurie Daly tactic? I don’t know, but it surely wasn’t there in the first half.

I am far from a Pearce advocate, but I am not going to solely heap the blame on his shoulders. Hodkinson is of equal blame in this instance – as halfback he should have taken control of the game. Whether that was a direct result of his failure to find the line, Pearce forcing the issue, or Daley’s instruction is up for debate. But the point remains.

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Robbie Farah’s poor pass from dummy half finding Dugan instead of Hokdinson
Of equal error measure to Hodkinson failing to find touch was Robbie Farah failing to find the Trent Hodkinson in field-goal range with the game on the line.

Hodkinson was set 33 metres out, right in front of the sticks; two metres to his right and a metre or two in front was Josh Dugan, acting as cover.

It is truly a shame because both Farah and in particular Dugan played excellent matches, but the ball had to at all measures go to the ‘Iceman’ Trent Hodkinson.

How a seasoned dummy half failed to find Hodkinson’s hands is beyond me, but ultimately it cost the Blues a legitimate chance at squaring the match with approximately two minutes to play.

Dugan, to his credit, nearly pulled off a miraculous escape, but this mix-up was crucial in deciding the Blues’ fortunes.

Laurie Daley needs a serious re-think for Game 2
While Dugan played a fantastic game at fullback, the added spark of Matt Moylan now needs to come under serious consideration. So too does the strong, straight running and sheer enthusiasm and creativity of Blake Austin in the halves, or even Josh Reynolds, who performed terrifically last round.

The Hokdinson and Pearce experiment failed. Not by a great margin, but by a margin nonetheless, and that is why I am happy the decision on the Game 2 squad won’t be heaped upon myself.

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