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Without trying to sound too cynical, I find myself doing a lot of head shaking lately at some of the confusing selections of our State Of Origin team.
Being a selector for my club and rep sides in the past, I should not be critical of selectors. I appreciate what a difficult job it can be at times trying to be fair and giving every player of every club an equal and unbiased chance.
From my own experience I found it a lot easier to make and justify a selection if you were compatible and very friendly with your co-selectors. Maybe there were times when certain players may have missed out when no one was batting for them and friendship was a deciding factor for a particular selection.
My main concern is I don’t think it’s a healthy environment when you have three ex-players from the same club picking a State Of Origin team. Darren Lockyer, Gene Miles and Kevin Walters all played together for the Broncos for many years.
I don’t mean for this to be a Bronco-bashing exercise, I would have the same opinion if it involved any other club.
I feel it would be a much fairer environment if you had a mixed selection panel.
Maybe then we might not have to go through the arguments that arise from controversial selections, for instance Billy Slater being left out of the the first Origin and Daly Cherry-Evans from this one.
I agree we probably will never pick the same side we all agree with, but surely this is not the perfect scenario for an unbiased selection panel.
I agree all the selectors have the best interest of Queensland at heart but sometimes when you have been closely involved with certain players in coaching or shaping their careers at club level it could give them an unfair advantage.
To select to select a team you should believe what you see, and if a player is consistently playing at a high level then this should be the deciding factor when choosing which player should play where, rather than picking an out-of-form player and hoping they will start performing on game day.
I feel this is a recipe for disaster.
I agree with most of the three wise men selections,but with a couple of them I feel they should take off their old club glasses and look at the big picture.
I hope we are all singing from the same page Wednesday night – go Queensland.
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