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Des Hasler is right about one thing. It really is amateur hour when a club finds out on the morning of a match that one of its key players is required for representative duty and has to be withdrawn.
Regardless of whether the timing is simply unavoidable, the NRL is supposed to be a professional business and all the Josh Morris situation proves is that the scheduling of representative matches is ridiculous.
It’s not as if proof was needed, but it never hurts to expose flaws in a system. You never know, one day it might lead to someone getting it right.
Playing State of Origin matches midweek, at the expense of some clubs who still have to play on the weekend before the Origin game and are missing star players while other clubs sit that round out with the bye, is grossly unfair.
It is unfair on the clubs who have to do without players, unfair on the fans who follow their clubs whose chances of winning are compromised and unfair on the players who have to back up two, three or four days after Origin to play for their clubs.
It is unfair on the competition in general, which inevitably loses appeal during the Origin period.
We all knew this already, of course, but when a situation like the one involving Morris develops it is an embarrassment for the game because its shortcomings are highlighted.
It’s a problem that should have been fixed years ago.
After his team had lost 32-20 to Canberra on Sunday, Canterbury coach Hasler was justifiably angry about the situation in which centre Morris had to be pulled out of his team on the morning of the game because Josh Dugan turned out to be unfit to play for NSW after all.
Dugan had entered Blues camp last Monday with an elbow injury and Morris had been included in an extended, 19-man squad as cover for him. Morris left the camp midweek to rejoin the Bulldogs because Dugan looked like being fit to play.
But then Dugan aggravated the injury at training on Saturday and pulled out of the Blues team on Sunday morning.
Hasler had to have a rookie player, Reimis Smith, who had played a full game of NSW Cup on Saturday, rushed to Canberra by car in the few hours left before kick-off.
The whole thing reeked of unprofessionalism and it was all because the people running the game are still trying to fit Origin in between one round in which some teams are missing star players and the next round in which star players either have to back up quickly or are forced out by injury.
Asked at the post-match media conference if he had a better alternative, Hasler provided the obvious answer: “Probably can’t run two competitions at once – stand-alone weekend.”
That way, the NSW and Queensland teams could be named on the Sunday night, with no Monday night NRL game, and prepare for the Origin game on the Saturday or Sunday. Any late withdrawals and a fresh player could be drafted in without his club side being affected.
But it is done now and Morris will became a key figure for the Blues on Wednesday night because there will be confidence in the camp that he will be able to do a good job defensively on Greg Inglis. Morris has handled that challenged well in the past.
Even Inglis is only one player, though, in a Maroons side that has many star players who are better versed in Origin football than the vast majority of NSW players.
Halfback Cooper Cronk’s injury is a concern, but if he were unable to play Queensland are much better equipped to handle him being out than they have been in the past. Michael Morgan can slip in alongside his North Queensland, teammate, Johnathan Thurston, in the halves.
Queensland to win a tight one.
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