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There’s no surer sign of a looming State of Origin series than the Sydney media busily thrusting and parrying across the virtual selection table.
It’s as if the New South Wales Blues are the only representative team in world sport to be selected via the footballing equivalent of a Nielsen poll.
Boom rookies and wily veterans in rare purple patches are put forward, profiled in the metro dailies and their online mirrors, debated on panel shows, dismissed by social media keyboard warriors, then promptly forgotten as attention turns to the next future saviour of Blues Origin pride following the weekend’s fixtures.
Strangely, the focus often falls on contenders in the wing positions, like the performances of Nos. 2 and 5 have been the difference between New South Wales and Queensland since before Blues fans could gloat about a series victory on Twitter.
Last year it was the luckless Nathan Merritt who was talked into the Blues Origin 2 squad by a bunch of breathless scribes, who congratulated everyone involved for finally seeing some sense before howling him straight back out of the 17.
Merritt’s heinous crime? Following his coach’s ineffectual defensive strategy to the letter.
This year’s song sheet is remarkably similar, though with different singers and some new folk heroes.
Pat Richards is the latest No. 5 to find favour with Fairfax experts, who no doubt anticipate his spiralling kick-offs will be getting a regular work-out. The next big thing a fortnight ago was Titans winger-cum-fullback David Mead, who for most of his career has toiled in relative anonymity near Robina Town Centre, give or take his 2011 addition to the NRL highlights reel and eight Tests of proud service to Papua New Guinea.
Given the press corps is fast running out of fall-guy flankers to build up and tear back down, it’s somewhat surprising that incumbent halfback Mitchell Pearce had to go and get himself arrested before his place in the side was seriously questioned.
With Greg Bird and Andrew Fifita now unavailable due to suspension and injury respectively, expect a host of journeymen and bolters to be tried in the court of public opinion between now and the team’s naming next Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Mal Meninga is doing whatever it is that Mal Meninga does in the 10 months of the year he’s not hanging out beside the Queensland training paddock at Clive Palmer’s Coolum resort – presumably weeping with despair while watching what remains of his once-mighty Canberra Raiders plod about the paddock.
The Maroons selection panel, comprising actual rugby league players who do their deliberating in private, are no doubt out on XXXX Island, feet up, catching the last rays of autumn before winter plunges Queensland into several weeks of temperatures below 25 degrees.
It wouldn’t be all beach cricket and earnest discussion of manscaping techniques as the waves gently lap the shore, though. There are some serious questions to mull over, such as which of the best two fullbacks in the game to hand the No. 1 jersey, whether to sub Daly Cherry-Evans on as a second halfback or second lock, did Matt Ballin bait Cameron Smith into using his head for MMA training in a bid to secure a second Origin jersey, and just who is Anthony Milford eligible to play for anyway?
Fortunately for the Queensland selectors, the Sydney press have a few ideas of their own about who should be running onto Lang Park on behalf of all cane toads come May 28. No less than ‘league’s most feared critic’ himself put his thinking cap on after Round 1 of the NRL, and kindly pencilled a name in next to the revered maroon No. 5 jersey.
Phil Rothfield’s hot tip? Lachlan Maranta, the fringe Broncos winger who since Justin Hodges’ return has for the most part been refining his raw talent in the Queensland Cup, which is precisely where he belongs at this stage of his career.
With that sort of football brain setting the Blues’ selection agenda, it’s a wonder #nineinarow isn’t trending globally already.
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