A measured, dispassionate review of the NSW team

Origin is a time when mild-mannered rugby league fans turn into parochial, wild-eyed fiends, but I make it a point of pride to maintain a balanced, impartial outlook on things.

As a journalist – and as a man – I judge people on their merits, in a manner that is always fair and reasonable.

In this spirit, the gentle prose below is my review of the team NSW have selected for Game 1 of this year’s State of Origin series.

More Origin
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» No excuse for NSW come Game 1

Matt Moylan: a talented player whose best football reminds me of a young Darren Lockyer on an off day.

Josh Mansour: looks like he’d be able to bench press heaps, but is lucky that Semi Radradra is Australian but not a New South Welshman, otherwise he’d be watching the game from his state-of-the-art basement home gymnasium in Penrith.

Michael Jennings: I’d love to bag him by saying his defence is rubbish, he can be a bit lazy, he’s done nothing for Parramatta and very little for NSW, but I do worry a bit that one day he might play well and prove me wrong. So I won’t say it.

Josh Dugan: a bit of recent elbow trouble has seen Dugan drinking his pink Vodka Cruisers from one of those hats you put the bottles in, with the straws running down into his mouth. He’d be a good centre if he wasn’t defensively inept and always out of position, so NSW has mostly just picked him because there’s no one better to keep Blake Ferguson calm and composed.

Blake Ferguson: Yieeew! Fergo! Schoeys on the roof boi!

James Maloney: the best five-eighth NSW has, which means he’s about the tenth best five-eighth in the NRL. Maloney is a likeable larrikin who seems to handle disappointment well, which is lucky.

Adam Reynolds: this is the first time in ten years that NSW has picked the right halves combination. Sadly for them, it’s still unlikely they’ll be good enough, because Maloney’s pretty average when all is said and done, while Reynolds has a great kicking game but defends with all the confidence and poise of an old wino trying to steal the Mona Lisa to pay off an out-of-hand bar tab.

Aaron Woods: he’s a decent prop, but he looks like a Hell’s Angels caricature. And there was that one game when he only ran for 20 metres or something, which is rubbish.

Robbie Farah: isn’t it funny how NSW never picked this guy ahead of Michael Ennis when he was actually not too bad – six years ago – but insist on picking him now, even though Ennis is in career-best form. What is even funnier is that Nathan Peats is better than both of them, and also doesn’t have the impressive history of big-game failure.

Paul Gallen (c): a great leader and proven winner. Haha…

Boyd Cordner: you know when critics of modern rugby league talk about how modern players are soulless and robotic? Exhibit A

Josh Jackson: Exhibit B

Greg Bird: a glass act. Wait. Sorry. A class act. Class act.

Tyson Frizell: like how the T-800 was a more advanced killer cyborg than the previous version because it had bad breath and real skin, Tyson Frizell is a bit less obviously a robot than Exhibits A and B. He has a side step and, from what I gather, once used his own footballing instincts to run a line that hadn’t been pre-programmed at training.

David Klemmer: a respectful young man, from all accounts.

James Tamou: the invisible man. People who like to say things like ‘Queensland pick guys from outside of Queensland’ don’t even know he exists. Must be tough.

Dylan Walker: was in the form of his life two years ago, when NSW overlooked him. A notable failure in any position other than centre, NSW has picked him as their bench utility.

Development player (not playing) Bryce Cartwright: easily NSW’s most dangerous attacking weapon.