The NRL will consider changing the voting mechanism that saw Billy Slater emerge as the shock recipient of the Wally Lewis medal for the best player across the State of Origin series.
But who polled what will remain a secret, with chief executive Todd Greenberg saying it wouldn’t be “fair” on judges Mal Meninga, Darren Lockyer and Laurie Daley to reveal their votes.
Slater became the first player to claim the medal from the losing side of an Origin series when he was awarded the honour after Queensland’s game-three win on Wednesday.
Slater was out injured in the opener but was arguably the Maroons’ best upon his return in game two and again in the final match.
Meninga, Lockyer and Daley voted on a 4-3-2-1 basis for their best players in each game but it seems the even spread of contributors in the NSW team counted against the series winners.
Even Greenberg admitted he was “surprised” that Slater emerged triumphant.
“The way it’s described to me is there was a stand-out performer in one side, being Queensland, which is Billy Slater who collected a number of votes,” Greenberg told reporters on Thursday in Brisbane.
“And in NSW votes were spread among multiple players who performed well across the series.”
Asked if the outcome highlighted shortcomings in the system, Greenberg said: “Potentially, yes. Which is why if we have to review it, we’ll have a look at it.
“If there’s a better system we can look at, we’re always open to it. We review everything at the end of an Origin series, so I’m sure that will be part of it.
“But what you can’t question is the integrity of the three people making the decision, and you can’t question the capacity they have to judge that themselves as three people who played the game at the highest level.”
However, Greenberg said the NRL would not disclose their votes.
“I don’t think it’s fair on them to go back and ask them to disclose who they voted for or how they voted,” he said.
“I don’t think that happens in any medium that I’ve seen. We don’t do it for the Dally Ms, we don’t do it for other awards, why would we do it for this?”
Told that full voting details were released by the AFL on grand final day when the Norm Smith medal is awarded, Greenberg said: “That’s their sport; our sport, we don’t do that, we haven’t done it previously and we don’t intend to do it today.”
NSW coach Brad Fittler suggested Slater may have received the medal in recognition of his achievements in an Origin career dating back 15 years.
“I can live with him taking away a medal but it was more than for this series,” Fittler said.
Asked who he thought deserved it, Fittler said: “Tom Trbojevic was pretty outstanding I thought across the three games. He was my pick.”
Graham
Guest
Or having the majority of refs and selectors from South of the border
DP Schaefer
Guest
Matt, Probably because after many years on the losing side I don't think NSW people can swallow winning the series and not getting the MOS award as well, hence the reaction.
DP Schaefer
Guest
Still needs to be picked by people, which will throw up another name you don't agree with and you'll want the system changed again? I can't find a person who agrees with every man of series award over the years
Greg
Guest
Not really. This was the first time ever that a player from the losing series has got the award. If that's not strange enough, the player who won it only played in two of the games. To top it off said player happens to be a legend of the game playing his final series.
Matt H
Roar Guru
Given I can't remember there ever being a significant controversy over the award before, can we just write this one off to an anomaly and let it go?
Duncan Smith
Roar Guru
Correct.
Duncan Smith
Roar Guru
Typical NRL - reactive not proactive, but doesn't address real problems of the game.
SteveSyd
Guest
Very simple fix. The medal can only go to the best player from the series winning team and has to play all 3 games.
Cugel
Roar Rookie
As those who lived through it will remember, the original Wally Lewis got MoMs left, right and centre just for showing up, so this outcome is entirely fitting.
Big daddy
Guest
Remember Daley and meninga are old Canberra mates.Why are the NRL considering changing this when Greenberg said he defended their decision and isn't this match ran under auspices of ARL which was replaced by NRL. I am so confused. I would imagine Daley and lockyer were split and mal made deciding vote. Who knows and who cares.
Paul C
Guest
The Wally Lewis Medal originally was an in house medal for Qld players before it was hijacked by the ARL. Take it back to the in house Qld award if the whining Mexicans don't like it. I am sure they can't stand the name Wally Lewis anyway.
Nico
Guest
My thoughts exactly, current rules don't suit NSW so suddenly they have to be changed
Emcie
Roar Guru
Every system is going to have flaws and those flaws will always be used as a reason to change things by people who prefer a different system. The refs were previously used to pick a MOM equivilent but that got scrapped because because it seemed that they were bias against players that weren't nice to them, Wally Lewis medal used to be decided by a panel but people suggest that they were "out of touch" or that bias flavoured the selection if they disagreed with the choice so they went with an anonymous voting system to combat that and now the arguement is that the system doesn't work because a player didn't play every game. People are a lot more concerned with why their pick wasn't selected then the reasoning behind the actual selection, no system will fix that
Emcie
Roar Guru
The only problem is that the more people you add the more the system favours average scores over standout performances, Which seems to be how Slater got the thing in the first place
The Barry
Roar Guru
Yeah...pretty simple. Maybe add a few more judges and have say five or six from each state. The more judges the fewer anomalous results likely. It’s not like adding up 12 lots of 1-4 is difficult...?
The Barry
Roar Guru
Slater wasn’t the series’ best. Maybe the system is flawed, maybe it’s just an anomaly. A review is warranted. It’s challenging to come up with a working system when everyone is so significantly aligned to one state or the other. The refs are the only nominally neutral party so maybe they are the answer. I’m just not sure I can get behind a medal determined by Sutton, Klein et al.
Paul
Roar Guru
As another article has suggested, why not get rid of this award all together and leave it as a topic for a night at the pub? It makes no difference to the series outcome and the players from both know who was the best in the series - if they care. If you're going to have the award, do the same as the AFL and get the refs to decide. They're the blokes who should really know the impact of players during games
Max Danger
Guest
apparently he won easily according to Lockyer. a close win would have been due to a faulty system. the fact that he won by a mile is due to bias by Mal and Darren
Brian George
Guest
Smells like "golden point for Origin" time all over again...
DP Schaefer
Guest
Another knee jerk reaction to social/tv media?