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This State of Origin series is already fascinating and we’re still a week out from the first game being played.
Look at the rest of the Queensland team and you’ll get a better idea of the mentality behind the decision to leave Billy Slater out and keep Darius Boyd at fullback.
The Maroons made a conscious decision to stick solid to the team that won last year’s series – even when it meant going without champion Slater when he was available for the first time since 2015.
They obviously believed Boyd, as not only the incumbent Queensland fullback but also the Australian number one, deserved the respect of being named in his preferred position and not shunted to the wing.
But it clearly wasn’t just about Boyd. Had he been named on the wing it would have meant Corey Oates missing out after playing all three games and impressing in his debut series last year.
The Maroons weren’t prepared to let that domino effect happen and Oates stayed – even ahead of current Australian winger and Queensland-eligible Valentine Holmes.
Prop Nate Myles, not playing well and turning 32 on June 24, survives. Sam Thaiday, another year older (turns 32 on June 12), still there. Old favourite bench player Jacob Lillyman, 33, back again.
The only player from last year’s Queensland team who was available for Game 1 this year and missed out was second-rower Gavin Cooper.
The Maroons must have thought that with some great players already gone from last year’s side – Greg Inglis and Matt Scott through injury (and Johnathan Thurston in big doubt), plus Corey Parker retired – it wasn’t the right time to go making even more changes.
Yes, even at the expense of Slater, whose inclusion would have had that double effect of Oates missing out, as well as Boyd being moved wide.
It might seem insane from the outside to leave Slater out, but there is a strange beauty about the decision that could galvanise the team once they get into their preparation and the naming of the side becomes a distant memory.
(AAP Image/Dan Peled)
Queensland seem to be able to keep getting another year out of their older players – and not just the three forwards I mentioned earlier.
Five-eighth Thurston, if he manages to beat the odds and play after being named as 18th man, is 34. Halfback Cooper Cronk is 33. Hooker and captain Cameron Smith turns 34 on June 18.
No-one can say they can’t pull it off again, despite their advancing years, but former great NSW and Australian forward Brad Clyde told how the Blues should think going into this game when he was interviewed on-stage at the NSW Hall of Fame dinner on Monday.
Clyde said that when he was playing for NSW in the early 1990s, Queensland were in a similar position to what they are now, with a lot of players who had dominated several series prior to that getting old.
(AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)
The NSW players, Clyde said, decided they were going to start retiring them – and that is what happened in a number of cases.
The Blues won four out of five series from 1990 to ’94, the only interruption coming in 1991, when the Maroons made a supreme effort to farewell the great Wally Lewis the right way by winning the closest series on record.
Clyde, a fierce competitor in his day, didn’t tell that story with any hint of smugness. He recalled it matter-of-factly, like it was simply an opportunity NSW recognised they had, and took.
And which they should aim to take all over again.
Is the current NSW team good enough to start retiring a few Queensland veterans? It’s going to make for compulsive viewing to find out.
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