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Exactly how Laurie Daley rates as a coach won’t be clear even if NSW clinches the State of Origin series by winning Game 2.
Victory could make him the most popular coach in Blues history.
Not because it would end a previously unheard of eight-year drought at the hands of Queensland, but because of Daley’s attitude towards the whole thing.
It would be tempting for some coaches in Daley’s position, whether subtly or obviously, to turn the spotlight on themselves. But Daley isn’t even remotely acting like that ahead of Origin 2 at ANZ Stadium on Wednesday.
Nor will he if NSW win to make it two-nil in the best-of-three event. It’s simply not his nature.
For him, it is all about what he can do for his team and the state. That is what he says, and as someone who has known him since he broke into the Canberra side as a teenager in the late 1980s, I can guarantee it to be true.
Daley is among the most humble people you could meet in professional sport. He did it all as a player, but success didn’t change him as a person.
When he took on the NSW job last year, he only had a few years as Country Origin and Indigenous All Stars coach behind him. He had never coached a club side, which is the reason it is hard to properly assess him as a coach, so it was a massive leap for him to enter the Origin arena – particularly at a time when the Blues were bleeding from seven straight series defeats.
They were screaming out for someone to help them take that extra step and Daley almost did, the Blues losing the deciding Game 3 by two points.
Where was the advance on the previous year, when NSW lost the decider by one point under Ricky Stuart’s coaching? It’s a fair question. The answer is there was no advance, in terms of the actual result, but that has to be balanced against the fact it was Daley’s first year.
The fact the Blues didn’t go backwards was a plus for him, and now he has the benefit of a series – and Game 1 this season – behind him.
Make no mistake, Daley is a vastly different coach to the one who went into last year’s series. His experience as an Origin player was going to be of some help to him, but it couldn’t totally prepare him for the role he had assumed. He was going to have to learn on the job.
It is clear from watching him in interviews, and the decisions he has made, that he learnt an enormous amount from last year’s series. Talking to him face-to-face only confirms that.
‘Culture’ is an easy word to throw around in sport, but Daley proved he meant what he said about the NSW team culture being critically important when he went without Mitchell Pearce for Origin 1 after the halfback slipped up off the field.
Daley was criticised by some for pairing Josh Reynolds and Trent Hodkinson in the halves for Origin 1, but it was the right decision. They did their jobs.
He has also been criticised for picking fullback Josh Dugan out of position in the centres for Origin 2, but I like the courage he has shown to make a decision like that. I would have been happy with any two out of Dugan, Will Hopoate and Josh Mansour for the right-side centre-wing combination, and Daley went for Dugan and Hopoate.
The important thing is that the coach has flexibility at his disposal, with fullback Jarryd Hayne also comfortable at centre or wing, Dugan obviously comfortable at fullback, and Hopoate at centre.
Daley is a much more self-assured coach than he was a year ago. He is backing himself with Dugan at centre and that is what you want to see most from a coach – confidence.
If the Blues win the series, Daley’s players are going to love him for it, because they will know better than anyone how badly he wanted them to win – for them. The rest of us should applaud him for that.
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