It'd be a disaster to pick Reynolds over Sutton

There was a great article on The Roar yesterday about the myth of the ‘Origin player’ and once again, we the fans are going to suffer the ignominy of selectors picking a player based on intangibles, reputations and other factors that really shouldn’t matter.

But we don’t have to. And that’s why the Blues have to pick John Sutton over Josh Reynolds.

Now, picking Kurt Gidley in the first place was disastrous. Every fan knew this – a fine clubman for Newcastle, but certainly not a player deserving of the 24 combined Australian and Sky Blue jerseys in his wardrobe.

A more stupefying selection you won’t find.

But enough on him, let’s talk about the replacement. Never ones to do anything the smart way, the NSW Camp came out and named both Josh Reynolds and John Sutton to join the squad this week.

Apparently, captain interchange was so vital to the team that we need two people to replace him.

This has annoyed people for a lot of reasons.

It annoyed Souths fans, who yesterday were celebrating their first NSW representative since Craig Wing in 2009, and the first player to make his NSW debut while playing for Souths since the 20th century.

But instead, they can half-heartedly cheer and wait nervously for a week and see if their big five-eighth gets the nod.

It’s also ridiculous because we constantly hear coach Daley and others stress the importance of getting into camp early and making sure the team chemistry has as much time to gel as it needs.

Well if this is the case, then surely you’d think something has substantial as actually naming a finalised team would be fundamental to the process!

So we can (hopefully) all agree that picking Gidley in the first place was foolish and naming two people to replace him even more so.

Can NSW complete the hat trick of foolishness by blowing the selection, and choosing Reynolds over Sutton?

Well, they probably will.

The advantage to Josh Reynolds being in the side is apparently that he can play hooker.

That is literally the only thing anyone has pointed out to me in the last 24 hours that I can see as an actual benefit to him playing over Sutton. Unfortunately for people in the Reynolds camp, who cares?

Robbie Farah is an 80 minute player.

Greg Bird CAN play hooker in a pinch. Hell, even Paul Gallen played a game of hooker in 2005!

But it doesn’t really matter – there’s no logical reason for taking off any one of your spine, which is why I find the concept of a ‘utility player’ so stupid in the first place.

Queensland had Cooper Cronk sit on the bench for two years, but there was logic behind it. He was the natural successor to Darren Lockyer in the halves, and he given limited minutes to prepare for his eventual leadership role in 2012 and beyond.

As we all know, it was his drop goal under immense pressure last year that eventually won the series.

It made no sense for a 30-year-old Kurt Gidley to be sitting on the bench for that reason.

Although it would be a bit less baffling in Reynolds’ case, I can’t imagine that even if Maloney were to go down, he’d be picked at five-eighth ahead of Todd Carney.

John Sutton has in the past been a lazy player.

I’ve watched basically every game he’s played since he debuted out in the centres in 2004. But when I talk to people, even now, it seems like they’ve not watched Sutton play since 2008-10 when he was ill-disciplined, relatively uninterested and part of teams that didn’t really win all that much.

But Michael Maguire is a disciplinarian. Do you really think a man who puts so much emphasis on the work ethic of his players would make a ‘lazy’ five-eighth the captain? I certainly don’t.

And the extra responsibility shows, because in the last two years apart from a couple of Englishman he plays alongside, his Queensland fullback and perhaps Aku Uate, there’s not a more devastating ball runner close to the try line.

But people ask “If Daley wanted John Sutton, why didn’t he pick him originally?”.

A fair question, but we have to remember that without Maloney, the goal-kicking would be left to Blake Ferguson, whose recent efforts make Shaun Timmins look like Hazem El Masri.

The big wrap on Reynolds is all about his effort, passion and tenacity – again, these intangibles that NSW selectors seem to love.

And this isn’t a knock on Reynolds.

In the pre-season I had him in the halves alongside his namesake Adam for game one…but he has not been the same player in 2013 as he was in the Bulldogs’ storied run to the minor premiership and grand final.

Sutton on the other hand has never played better than in the first 11 rounds of this season – and while a lot of people attribute the success of his running game this year to his forward pack and Greg Inglis, he deserves a chance to prove himself.

And using NSW selectors’ logic, Sutton has 10cm and 12kg on his Bulldogs counterpart.

And if that’s a good enough reason to pick Blake Ferguson over Nathan Merritt (who is ‘too small’ despite being the same size as Matty Sing, who played 24 Origins and 15 Tests) then it’s a good enough reason here.

New South Wales needs all the strike weapons they can get – and John Sutton is a bigger strike weapon than just about anyone in the NRL this season.

@TheMattBungard