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James Maloney is a marked man

Roar Rookie
1st June, 2016
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The Sharks and Raiders line up for Round 2. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch)
Roar Rookie
1st June, 2016
9

As the New South Wales Blues squad was read out last week, one selection stood out among the Maroon-blooded supercoaches I converse with. James Maloney.

While some might debate the choice of Robbie Farah over Michael Ennis, the omission of Beau Scott, or the left-field promotion of Dylan Walker, it was the selection of Maloney that we all agreed was most heavily bound to the fates.

ORIGIN GAME 1 LIVE SCORES

The Maloney decision could prove to be the defining moment of Origin this year, with potentially dire consequences for the Blues in Game 1 setting the course for the rest of the series.

With ball in hand Queensland will relentlessly pursue Maloney, and will seek to gain the territorial ascendancy via his channel. If they win Game 1 on the back of this 2013 strategy, Laurie Daley could be forced to try yet another halves combination in Game 2 at Lang Park.

Barring key Maroon injuries or an underdog victory for the ages, the Blues will head back to Sydney for Game 3, daunted by the possibility of a 3-0 Queensland whitewash.

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As good as the form has been for Maloney at club level there is no hiding his defensive frailties on the Origin arena. Out of any player on the field, Maloney has the highest amount of missed tackles in 2016 (missed tackles per minutes played ratio).

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Not only that, he’s polling worse than 2015. He had missed 57 tackles in 2013 before Origin, a total of 103 tackles in 2014 (third behind Chris Sandow and Luke Brooks), 109 in 2015 (worst in comp) and has missed 48 tackles so far in 2016 to be sitting second.

If he isn’t already having recurring nightmares about a rampaging Sam Thaiday, there’s a good chance he will be when the whistle blows. And when Slammin’ Sam takes a rest, expect Josh Papalii to maintain the Maloney rage.

Unless Daley has figured out a way to hide his five-eighth in the defensive line, this one selection may well signal the death knell for his NSW coaching tenure, more so because it will be viewed as an obvious error in hindsight, given the stand-out lessons of 2013.

Coach Daley will be guilty of having a short memory, and making the same mistake twice.

For the record, an Adam Reynolds-Josh Reynolds halves pairing would have provided the right balance behind the Blues’ behemoth pack, and denied Queensland an opportunity to exploit a substantial defensive weakness.

If Maloney gets steamrolled again tonight, expect that to be the end of his Origin career. If he gets man of the match, expect this armchair prognosticator to be eating his maroon hat.

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