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Daley's dilemma surrounding Fulton and Gallen

Roar Guru
19th November, 2015
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Laurie Daley, don't go thinking too hard. Just use Matt's list and the Origin win will be yours. (Source: Wikipedia Commons)
Roar Guru
19th November, 2015
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Laurie Daley has three matches to prepare for each year. So when does he start preparing? He’s already well into that.

Daley is the coach NSW have decided to trust, but with one series win from three, the pressure is on.

He will not want to join Craig Bellamy as a NSW coach with three Origin series losses. The difference is Bellamy has a NRL premiership under his belt, plus a couple more victory laps later taken away from hm.

Daley needs to decide whether two central figures have run their race or whether he will persist with him.

Bob Fulton is one of them.

For a selector to have won one of his last 10 series and still hold their spot is a sign of where ‘Bozo’ stands in the game. Statistically, he is clearly passed his use-by date, but nobody would dare tell him this, because he is Bob Fulton.

The other is Paul Gallen. England in the 1990s had some very good cricketers, including Mike Atherton, Nassar Hussein and Alec Stewart. But when they came up against Australia, these guys would just get beaten up time time and time again. Despite a host of excellent cricketers available, England’s success against Australia only occurred when they picked fresh players, who weren’t beaten before they took the field.

This brings us to Gallen. He has tried his heart out, both by playing football and – as Nate Myles will tell you – without playing football. But copping so many beatings from a great team may have taken its toll on Gallen, the same way it did with Atherton, Hussein and Stewart.

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Daley has already been planning. He thinks about these things every day, despite being a coach who only needs to perform on three days next year.

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