2013 State of Origin

It's not that having several mobile forwards on the bench is bad idea in itself. It's the things that follow. This idea that you can ask Myles to play huge minutes up front and ask Thaiday to move up there after starting in the second row, is misguided. We should have at least one more prop. When the bench was utilised in the second half, we actually outplayed NSW in the middle. It's the 15 minutes before half time where this system falls down.

On the positive, I think this system has much better chance of working in Brisbane, where the rucks are always quicker than in Sydney. If Scott, Myles and Parker hold their own in the first 25, it does set us up nicely to run NSW ragged. It's in this period though where we could lose the game; that's certainly what happened in Game I.

 

Or we could do the logical thing, that we've been doing for the last seven years and just get him some early ball in a man-on-man situation ala the 61st minute of Game I. This stuff about finding new ways to inject Inglis is a waste of time and actually harmful IMO. Either pick him at fullback and be done with it, or use him as we always have at centre. One or the other.

 

No Hannant is a fucking joke.

 

I think he will. Meninga said McQueen was picked to start over Papalii because the former is a left sider and the latter is a righty. And I believe him.

 

The funny thing is that the Queensland team is still really formidable.