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Queensland is so good they don’t need Billy Slater. Queensland is so good Greg Inglis can do his knee and they still don’t need Billy Slater.
Queensland is so good Johnathan Thurston is in grave doubt and they don’t have to pick Daly Cherry-Evans. Or Ben Hunt. Or Corey Norman. Or even start Michael Morgan, the running gun from FNQ.
Queensland is so good they’re $1.72 favourites (sounds like overs to me, Bubba) to win the greatest, most competitive two-team, three-match bash-fest in world sport.
That the first and third fixtures are at Suncorp Stadium undoubtedly helps cause celebre la Canetoad (as they’re calling it). The best purpose-built rectangular ground in the land fairly throbs on Origin night.
Suncorp might be nothing like the old Lang Park aesthetically. But fill it with Queenslanders lubricated via quick-service eight-prong fast-beer dispensing machines, and you’ve got a ‘deadset cauldron’, as Ray Warren’s larynx would enthuse.
Suncorp is a ripper. And on Origin night the ghosts of Lang Park get jiggy.
(AAP Image/Dan Peled)
I was up there last year, game two, and pre-match Billy Moore was screaming out ‘Queenslander!’ to all four parts of the ground. And everyone – and it was everyone bar the blue-headed wig-wearers in a corner stall – bought in and roared back.
Queenslander!
No-one thought it was dumb. No-one thought I’m not doing that, how stupid.
They all bought into it and roared back to Billy – Queenslander!
You bloody bet we are.
Fact: it means more to be a Queenslander to Queenslanders than it does for anyone else in any other state.
The Sandgropers of Western Australia do have a singular ‘us’ sort of thing going on. Tassie types have what could be described as a ‘chip on the shoulder’ as befits the small baby state.
(Thought it’s really very cool, Tassie, great wine and oysters, and you should visit Hobart’s pubs they’re little rippers.)
But at least these people have an excuse. One’s small and derided and cold like Ireland. The other’s further away than New Zealand.
But Queenslanders? They’re Queenslanders because God said it should be so. Why – don’t they live in paradise?
From the banks of the Tweed up through the Goldie and Sunny Coast, to the Big Pineapple and Big Gumboot, inland to one-pub fly-speck towns like Ilfracombe (home of Matt Scott, The Thing), to Mt Isa and Winton and the aptly-named village-town of Townsville, all these people, they’re all Queenslanders.
And they love it. They all buy in. And this time of the year they bay for blue blood. And most often they gargle with it.
Because Queensland is really, really good.
(AAP Image/Dan Peled)
Good? You could make a good case that Queensland has the best rugby league team there’s ever been.
But! Are they so good they don’t have to pick Billy Slater? And Daly Cherry-Evans? And even the Australia wing man Val Holmes? Does it smack of the barest whiff of arrogance?
Mayhap it does. But what of it? A state that’s won ten of the last 11 series can walk the walk, and do whatever it likes.
Anyway it’s not arrogance – Kevin Walters cried telling us how hard it was to leave out the Goat. Poor Kevvie – what a conundrum.
Anyway, Thurston could well play yet. The man’s tougher than a pit-bull’s dick. Yes, they’ve picked Anthony Milford in the starting team and put No.6 on his back in the team sheet.
But as the very same Billy Moore said on ABC Grandstand, did Queensland pick Milford because Brisbane Broncos coach Wayne Bennett had threatened not to release the star five-eighth were he picked as 18th man and backup for Thurston?
We may never know.
But it would appear to make a good lick of sense.
Because Walters will give his champion until game day. Why not? The combination Thurston has with Cronk, Cameron Smith and Darius Boyd – the second-greatest ‘spine’ in Origin history (the greatest would feature Slater) – doesn’t need to practice ‘combinations’. They’re already a lock on a safe. They know each others moves like the Jackson Five.
And they’re all so blinking bloody good.
Still, it’s something of a brave call by Walters to leave out Slater. The man’s form since returning from injury this year has been outstanding. Everyone knows what he can do. He’s one of the greats, if not The Goat.
And thus Walters has picked Boyd at fullback, the long-striding Broncos flying horse Corey Oates on one wing, and the hot-stepping pin-bot Dane Gagai on the other wing.
Hard to argue. A crack triumvirate.
But still … Jeez, Billy Slater. I mean … The Goat. Better than Changa. Better than Gary Jack. That’s a fair footy player.
Anyway, it’s done and if the Blues make any sort of hay throwing bombs and big bodies at the Maroons wing men – and somehow win a live rubber at Suncorp Stadium – K.Walters will have some explaining to do.
(AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
Queenslanders pick and stick, and stick together. Except when they lose when they stick pins in the coach.
Up front? Some super beef-cake. I’ve liked Dylan Napa since I saw him hurl his great thundering giant baby-bones at Wigan in the 2014 World Club Challenge. It was like, Jesus – who’s this maniac? He’s a ripper! Look at him hurting those Poms! He’s beautiful!
The other prop’s Nate Myles whose head is so hard you could break coconuts off it. Josh Papalii’s a wrecking ball, Matt Gillett’s like a taller Trevor Gillmeister, and lock Josh McGuire could play prop like Paul Gallen did, a chunky man who doesn’t appear to tire.
Sam Thaiday, Aidan Guerra and Jacob Lillyman round out a bench equal parts hard charges, brutal “D” and frothy brotherly love.
Queensland’s so good.
And they’ll win this State of Origin series 3-0.